9 Weeks and counting

Wednesday morning was the official court date for the girls' bioparents negligence case.  The previous dates had been pre-trials, but I'm not really sure about the difference.  The bios were at court and Squirrel went so that we have the information directly.  The only reasons the bios were there was because the caseworker for the oldest 2 siblings picked them up.  There were a few things that happened in the kids' favor, and then a lot of things that didn't happen.  First is that all visits with the parents are suspended until mom gets a letter from a doctor that she is lice free.  We had to get this for the girls and it is about time that mom is pushed further to do so.  It was asked of her to do this 8 weeks ago.  This will also put us in a better place as once she is lice free we are not risking another infestation 3 times a week and even better is that family visits will then happen in the office, where weather doesn't matter and there are bathrooms!  It is really hard to potty train a child when they have to do family visits at a park with no restrooms.

The girls' brother's caseworker also got the judge to rule that he will receive a psych evaluation.  Unfortunately the young man has threatened his foster dad.  It isn't often that you even have a foster home that can take in 2 teenage siblings and if this evaluation doesn't go well he could end up in a care facility.  He may, however, need the facility.  The parents are also required to have psych evaluations!  Yippee!!!  They are required to also follow any recommendations.  This is big.  It is our belief that most of this family have some mental health concerns and if they are reunited they have to tackle them or these kids will be neglected again.  CPS was finally able to take the kids all into custody because of the oldest sibling's suicide attempt (actually it was the biomom's refusal of allowing evaluation that was the key).  If brother's evaluation comes back with a fetal alcohol diagnosis (which we all believe) it will give us more fodder to get an evaluation for Sissy.  This will also open up treatments as she grows.    

In the end the court will reevaluate in 90 days.  This is just for progress.  Our caseworker (or past caseworker as our agency is reevaluating the cases this week) came to visit us on Friday.  Our monthly visit was overdue.  We were playing outside when she arrived and when we asked if it would be easier if we went indoors she said that it was fine, she only needed to see the girls and have us sign the visit sheet.... Seriously?  I know that this is how it goes, but you didn't need to verbalize that.  You hear about terrible foster homes and if you know what time your caseworker is coming by you can always stage a happy visit outside so they never know conditions inside.  We captured our caseworker longer than she planned and we did get her to document Sissy's burn mark on her arm as well as get her to answer a few questions for us.  We do know that the girls' sister is now in permanent custody of her biodad (the court proceedings made Squirrel unsure).  We also pointedly asked about our timeline.  Since we have a 90 day reevaluation Squirrel asked if we could expect that the girls may go back into their bios' custody at that time (since that is as quickly as sister went into biodad's custody).  Our caseworker said absolutely not, that we could expect this will be 6-9 months at a minimum if ever.  She has little faith that the bios will do anything.  This is sad, but a bit of a relief.  

We are foster parents, it is the ultimate goal to return the family.  Reality is with what these two have been through that I don't want them to return to that.  Every day I hate the bioparents more and more.  As the girls get more and more comfortable and loving I realize more and more how awful the parents are/were.  The foster parents that work extremely closely with the bioparents must either have cases that were true economic hardship or they are complete saints.  It is reaffirming that even our workers are appalled at the bioparents.

In the meanwhile we are now in the limbo between temporary and permanent parents.  With the reality of a minimum of 6 months we continue to get things for them to "grow into" and move away from only doing the immediate.  

One of the more permanent things we did was to buy a two year photo plan at JCPenny and did our first set of family photos.  Time to get these two up on the wall.

We also got a gift of beds from Squirrel's colleague and I spent all day yesterday painting them.  Luckily the girls "helped" us pick out the colors (even though we gave them limited choices).

Giant beds for our tiny girls.