Touch a Truck / Big Court Date / A's Birthday Party at Nanny's House / Texas State Fair Day / X's Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch / Do-Nuts with Dad / A's School Fall Party / Tapestry Foster Care & Adoption Clinic / Fall Festival at A's School / Mediation!
Saturday, October 1st - October starts the month off right with "Touch a Truck." This is a chance for kids to go to one place and interact with all sorts of vehicles. X and A got to sit in two different fire trucks, a police car, a sports car, antique cars, tractors (which, of course, they have "driven" at Papa and Grandma's farm before) and much more. X even got to work a garbage truck (including pulling all the levers to crush the trash). While we are not pushing him to the area of waste management (we will let him decide what he wants to be later in life), we actually have two very close friends who do very well for themselves as part of management at the trash and recycle company, "Waste Management." Of course, we would be perfectly happy with either of them as paleontologists or brain surgeons or university professors or political activists or anything else respectable and legal (no mobsters or gang members, please).
Monday, October 3rd - We go into court hoping that the birth parents may sign over rights to X and A. Instead, we again, get thrown a legal curve ball that NO ONE saw coming - not the lawyers, the birth parents, CPS, the Attorney General or the judge. While I can't discuss the details here, some scribbled note in the margin of one page results in a rescheduled pretrial date of November 15th plus mediation for the termination of parents rights set for October 31st. Everyone went home unsatisfied and a bit frustrated. However, as we left, we reminded ourselves - at least we still have X and A.
Court is always a nerve-wrecking date with sleepless nights preceding it. We lost our other two foster children on days like this. While they went on to loving, safe homes, the days were very emotional for us.
Realistically, there are no signs that we will lose the children at this point (although anything can happen). CPS is exceptionally confident that their decision to place the children with us permanently is the correct decision and is prepared for a court case if needed. The birth mother (with the strong support of the kids maternal grandmother) has repeatedly agreed to termination of the mother's rights and, in fact, told us after court that she was prepared to do it that very day. This act was put off until mediation at the end of the month. The mother, grandmother, all our therapists and doctors and CPS agree that, after 15 months, it is time to give closure to this chapter in X and A's life and move toward a more permanent place. We can tell that X knows something is about to happen. He is asking lots of questions and is sometimes regressing to a place of insecurity. By his actions and words, he tells us he is afraid he is going to get uprooted and have to leave us. While we reassure him regularly, we need to get to a place of "Forever Family" and we can't do that right now. We all march forward a little longer while waiting for some results to come back and the next chance for all parties to discuss the matter again.
Saturday, October 8th - While Sunday the 9th is A's actual birthdate, we celebrate at Nanny's with a party and all the hoopla that goes with it on Saturday. Our best friends, Jennifer and James, come up to Nacogdoches with their children Owen and Warren to celebrate with us as well as Grandma and Papa and very close family friend "Auntie Norma" (who is always there for us and the kids). A got lots of neat gifts and everyone had fun playing with the cool new presents including an awesome throwback-style metal firetruck that Nanny bought and Papa and Jack cheerfully put together for two hours in Nanny's guest house. This thing will be around for decades. It is very solid and made exclusively with metal and chrome (plus hard rubber wheels and real wooden ladders). Of course there were lots of DUPLOS blocks and books (that will get years of mileage out of) and a cool transformer rescue robot that Owen and Warren gave A.
In A's typical fashion, he chose the absolute hardest piece of cake (in the middle) to have as his first piece of birthday cake and Jennifer performed minor surgery to extract it without cutting any of the rest of the cake. Way to go "J.J.!"
Nanny had great decorations and we got to stay for a few days with her. A great weekend overall.
Monday, October 10th - Texas State Fair Day. In the Dallas area, the Texas State Fair is so big (like "Big Tex" himself) that the schools give a full day off to go to it. All school-ages kids and teachers get one free ticket to the fair - so Jack and X were covered already. We got Melinda and A a ticket and headed down to this all-day event.
We did MUCH better this year and got a close, easily accessible and safe parking space. We also packed 9 liters of water (yes, you read that right) in our Radio Flyer wagon and Jack's backpack, plus plenty of food and snacks (which are all allowed in the fair). Of course, we had to eat SOME fair food or it just would not be a fair. We just didn't want to come back with tummy aches.
We saw the African Acrobats, Frisbee Catching Dogs, Pig Races, Doberman Dog Show and went on a long (but fun and engaging) livestock tour.We also did the food pavilion, saw lots of arts and crafts and, of course, did their favorite thing, the livestock petting zoo where the kids get to feed all sorts of hooved and feathered animals.We didn't make it to the big light show at the end of the evening. The kids were starting to get a bit tired and both fell asleep before we even left the parking lot!
Melinda and I remarked that the day really could not have gone much better. We even had perfect weather all day.
Tuesday, October 18th - X goes on another field trip. We know Fall is around the corner when he goes to the Owen's Family Pumpkin Patch (yes, like Owens Country Sausage - same people). Melinda chaperoned and Anthony was in-tow. They came home with three pumpkins and lots of smiles all around!
Wednesday, October 19th - X has been looking forward to this day since a year ago when he and Jack did "Dunking and Do-Nuts with Dad." It is a chance for some nice bonding. X and Jack were the first two at the school and ready to have lots of fun on the basketball court. Unfortunately, after we ate our one do-nut and had juice, we discovered that this school does not do the "dunking" part - meaning the do-nuts and a book fair were all that they had. A bit disappointed, X and Jack headed back home about 7:20, but then Jack got to take him back to school a little before 8:00. Next year, the X and Jack team will be a little less eager and arrive a bit later. Still a source of great pride and bonding as X got to show off part of his school to Jack.
Saturday, October 29th - While X and A had fun all day in classes, Melinda and I got to attend an all-day Tapestry Foster Care & Adoption Clinic. There were panels of families that have adopted with advice of what to do and not do. There were stories about foster kids and how they coped growing up. There was a great lunchtime presentation about the best foster and adoption books (primarily for kids). We ended up with "Rosie's Family, An Adoption Story," " A Mother for Choco" and a book just for us. Since we have been reading them each night, we have gotten a lot of great comments from X and even some from A. They read about a family of dogs where one dog (Rosie) is adopted and then X says, "Hey, he is like me. You and Mommy are like the Mommy and Daddy dogs." We think he understands a lot more than we even realize. A is still a bit oblivious, but can also tell something is happening.
Sunday, October 30th - A's School "Fall" Party was fun. There were bounce houses, lots of activities for the kids to win treats (candy) and it even had a bumpy hay ride that took us around the acre or so of land adjacent to the church. Both boys were their costumes. X was "Don Pteranodon" and A was "Buddy T-Rex" from the PBS show "Dinosaur Train". We love this show! Not only does it focus on dinosaurs and trains (favorites in our home) it also features Buddy, a Tyrannosaurus Rex and his adoptive Pteranodon family. The boys talk about how you can all be different yet still be part of the same family.
Monday, October 31st - A School Fall Party. A had two different Fall Parties because he has two different teachers. He had his Friday party on the 28th. He brought "ghost" cookies (Nutterbutter brand cookies dipped in white chocolate with mini dark chocolate drops for eyes) and apple slices as his "special" snack. They made ghost bookmarks and they read some Fall books. On Monday he wore his costume to the party. Melinda serves as the room mom and brought foam pumpkin frames for the kids to make as their craft activity. They read pumpkin stories on the story rug and ate a special snack. All the kids looked adorable in their Halloween finest!
Mediation was scheduled for the 31st. On Friday the 28th Melinda received a call from our CPS caseworker. The caseworker started the conversation with "I have some bad news". Melinda froze - her mind immediately began packing clothes and toys. The caseworker then explained that due to a scheduling conflict mediation was postponed to November 2nd. Melinda quickly regained composure and indicated that she would move around appointments for the boys and secure sitters so we could attend.
A busy month comes to fun (and sometimes scary) end!
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