A Long Overdue Update.

It's been over two months since we've updated this blog. I cannot tell you how many times I've sat down and tried to write an update. On one hand, it's hard to get more then a few minutes of quiet before we have to jump up and chase down Little Man from whatever trouble he's getting into. On top of that, it's hard to know what to write lately. We're hesitant to share too much information. Even though we don't use any names or give away any information that could identify the families, we're always hesitant to share even some details for fear that it would be frowned upon by the courts. Without such details, it makes each new entry feels eerily similar to the previous ones.

So here's what we can tell you. Little Man still has weekend visits with his biological father. When they started, we were heartbroken but slowly came to accept the reality of what these visits meant (that is, that unsupervised weekend visits are not too far away from Little Man being placed with his father permanently. Even though we didn't want to face that fact, we forced ourselves to believed that this father would be an okay option. Clearly, we always believed we were the better long term solution. Still, this guy was doing most of what the courts were asking him to and appeared to be forthcoming and honest. About a month into these visits, any goodwill he had built up with us was lost. For a couple weeks, the visits were actually suspended while the father tried to resolve an issue with his utilities. The primary problem was that he tried to hide this issue from the agency and the county, even though it meant putting Little Man in a compromised position. While neither the agency or the county (let alone us) wanted these visits to resume, there was no way to stop them once he got the issue resolved. Needless to say, this was just one of many things that he has been tried to cover up lately, which makes us very suspicious about what is really going on while Little Man is at his house. More importantly, it makes extremely nervous and upset that he still appears to be on track to get our son back. We feel that a scenario like this exposes one of the biggest flaws of the fostering and court systems. Aside from the father's lousy public defender, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks our son should go back to this guy (let alone that these unsupervised visits should continue). However, by the letter of the law, he will probably do just enough to receive his biological son. And that is a horrible thing. No one will want to send our son back to him; rather, they'll have to. We remain ever hopeful that he will screw up enough or continue to neglect some court orders and that it will prove enough for the court to completely remove his rights and start the adoption process. However, we're not too confident that this will happen, despite the protests of us, the county and the agency. This past weekend when the agency transporter came to pick up Little Man, he screamed and cried as he reached for Danielle to take him back. It breaks our hearts that we have to send him. We believe he is starting to figure things out and knows that when they come to take him away it's going to be for a few days.

Pirate continues to progress. His behavior remains somewhat of an issue (although, we remain a bit unsure how much of it is normal 5 year old boy behavior versus how much could be rectified by specific treatments). He is on pace to begin kindergarten in the fall. Given that he never really did preschool, we're a bit anxious as to how he will do. Pirate is great at viewing us as authority figures. He's decent at recognizing the authority of extended family. After that, it falls off pretty quickly. His behavior at Sunday School or daycare seems to range from average to one of the worst kids in class. While he is unbelievably better than when he first came to live with us, Pirate's behavior is a fairly constant source of frustration. Where we saw steady growth in his behavior over the first four months or so, he has essentially plateaued in the last couple months. We have tried nearly every form of discipline imaginable, with seemingly little continued success. It's tough, because when we view it in the broader scope, his current behavior is still great comparatively. He is nearly unrecognizable from the child who came to us six months ago. However, when viewed in a vacuum, the behavior patterns are frustrating, because we feel as if he should be better or still be making upward strides. The overwhelmingly majority of the time, we believe that he just does the wrong thing without thinking. When he finally stops to think, he then realizes that what he is doing is wrong and against the rules. We just don't know how to get him to process those realizations before doing the incorrect action. We have begun to presume that a lot of this may be ADD/ADHD related. Pirate is not a bad child at all. However, in times of high stimulation (like shopping at a mall or during an activity at daycare/Bible class) he just loses it. He acts out in ways we never see in other situations (like standing up in the middle of Bible class and howling. Yeah, we don't get it either). We've been talking with one of his daycare teachers about a specialist that she took her son to years ago. This doctor sounds like the type we want to take Pirate to. We don't want one who is going to throw him on medication for the sake of doing it. However, we're not sure if we'll be able to do this treatment since their mother still retains her medical and educational signing rights. Hopefully, we can work with the county on this, as we truly believe it is in the best interest of Pirate.

Speaking of their mother, she has been hilariously bad lately. Since our last court hearing March, we've been keeping detailed notes about each visits (if she made it or was running lately, anything that happened that should not have taken place, etc.). Since that court date, there have been 36 scheduled visits (not counting the court ordered parenting classes that she has missed at the same rate). She has not attended 17 of them (this could be because of any number of reasons, such as not confirming the visits with at least 24 hours notice, canceling after confirming or just not showing up without warning despite having already confirmed her attendance). It goes without saying that this is completely absurd and very hurtful to the Pirate (as Little Man is too young to understand, obviously). In May alone, she only saw the boys five times out of fifteen opportunities (between the scheduled visits and the parenting classes). Unfortunately, the number of visits can't really be reduced until the next court hearing. Because of some weird glitch, the next court hearing isn't scheduled until August. If it were to follow the three month schedule that these hearings should follow, the next court date should be in the next couple weeks. Why it will be a five month wait instead of the standard three is beyond us. The boys' child advocate attorney is looking to have the hearing moved up sooner so we can try to make some much needed changes to the case (such as reducing the mother's visits). No word yet whether or not this request has been granted. Because of her ongoing abysmal track record, we remain pretty confident that the biological mother will not be getting either of the boys. This, of course, means that Pirate would be adopted by us. Little Man's status remains very much in question, as it remains to be seen whether his biological father will be allowed to scrape by with the absolute bare minimum.

This journey has been quite the roller-coaster ride. There are constant emotional and physical ups and downs, but we love these boys more than we ever thought was possible. We will continually remain their support system and provide stability while showing them all the love we have to offer. We just hope one day soon this will all be over and we can truly make them a part of our family (at which point you will be bombarded with tons of extremely great pictures of these amazing boys.)