The Good Witch

Today I met via phone a very important person in M1's case, his guardian ad litem. From here on out I'm going to refer to her as Glenda the Good Witch (Glenda for short) because she's the one who's responsible for helping Munchkin 1 navigate his way through Oz and back to Kansas. Let me just say that my first impression of Glenda is that I LOVE HER! That woman has spunk. She's feisty. She truly seems to care for the kids she's working for and she doesn't appear to be afraid to make waves to get stuff done. We talked for over an hour! The thing that she said that really impressed me is that she keeps a baby picture of M1 on her desk to remind her why she fights so hard for these kids. Just as some background information, M1 was left in an infant car seat pretty much 24/7 for the first several months of his life and therefor has a misshapen head to show for it. When he came into care Glenda fought like heck to get it approved for him to go the the helmet clinic to get a helmet that would help reshape his head. Because of government red tape he was denied again and again for the visit until when they finally approved for him to have an evaluation for one it was too late to reshape the skull. Even though she did all she could she's still angry at the outcome and keeps his picture up to remind her that she has to fight even harder for all of the kids in her care. I like that about her. Thankfully for M1, now that he has some hair his head shape isn't as noticeable as it was in his infant pictures, but you can definitely feel the deformity and if his hair is ever cut too close or he has male pattern baldness as an adult it will be very noticeable.

Today Lion decided to initiate me into the mama of two club by having a raging 1 1/2 hour long meltdown after school. It was my first time having to try to manage her rage, keep M1 safe and his needs met, and try to work Lion's behavior plan and execute the safe holds her psychologist taught us for when she gets aggressive, all at the same time. By the time Scarecrow got home from work I was drenched in sweat and simply exhausted. I also had 2 very cranky children on my hands. Needless to say everyone went to bed early tonight! They definitely needed it!

Something I am already noticing in foster care that is very interesting is the court ordered visits. M1 has supervised visits with both his birthmother and his birthfather separately. Together they are supposed to add up to about 30 hours a week. In my opinion that is A LOT of hours for visits, but I understand that for a kid as young as M1 to keep a bond with a birthparent the visits need to be frequent and long enough to allow for plenty of care to occur. While neither parent wants to lose visitation time, so far over the week M1 has been with us one 6 hour visit has been canceled, another 7 hour visit was cut short by 3 hours, and a 3 hour visit lasted only 1 hour. If it is so important that these visits occur to preserve M1's bond with his parents why aren't they actually happening?!? You have the time, show up and make the most of it I say! Besides being frustrated for M1 and the way the visits disrupt his meal times, naps, etc. It's also frustrating for me because I have to plan my day around his visits, making sure I'm here for him to be picked up and dropped off from them. So, I can't schedule appointments and such too close to a pick up or drop off time. So, I've been scheduling them in the middle of the visit to avoid the issue. However, when the visit all of a sudden gets canceled or cut short and I have to run home to get M1 and my appointment now lands squarely in the middle of his nap or meal time, I just want to scream. I'm sure this will only get worse and we knew before taking placement of M1 that his visits were screwy, but it still irritates me to no end.