Well, things seem to be on track for Princess and Little Guy's family. Their mom is doing great right now, and at the most recent meeting of all the people involved in the case, everyone agreed that it is time to start moving the kids back home. I know Little Guy has been waiting for this day. I was a little concerned that Princess has expressed only positive feelings about staying here, even as the stay has gone on much longer than she was told at first. But last night when I told her that they will get an overnight visit this weekend, she whispered, "Finally!" So I know they are both on board, as is their mom. :-)
After the meeting (which was last week), I stopped worrying about their next court hearing, which I understood would just rubber-stamp the unanimous recommendation from lawyers, social workers and other providers that Mom get three more months of supervision and then get full custody back at the court hearing after that. Apparently, it was not quite so simple. Our social worker called afterwards to tell us how it went, and she said the judge talked for a while like he was going to terminate Mom's parental rights just because of the time frame. Our county does NOT let cases drag on as long as this one has, which is a good law made for good reasons but probably not the best one to apply in this specific case. In the end, after giving everyone a proper scare, he did agree to another three-month improvement period for Mom, with the caveat that she cannot mess up in any way during that time or she will lose custody of the kids. So we are going to be praying for the next three months that nothing happens! She has had her issues, but she dearly loves her kids and tries hard to do her best for them, and I think they would experience more trauma from losing that relationship than from whatever junk they will be exposed to through that relationship. I have to admit that I have more specific concerns for the kids' future this time than I did last time they went back, because I know what things happened in the interim, and it's likely that some will happen again. But at the same time, I think she will be able to give her kids a better childhood than what she had, and hopefully things will keep improving each generation. She just started parenting really young, with few resources, spotty support and no healthy role models, and of course it's been a learning curve...but she really wants to learn, and that makes a difference!
AND, we are excited that Mom has agreed in principle to let us formally mentor the kids after they go back home! Our agency has a mentoring program in addition to their many other programs, and they are going to let us refer the kids to that program and then sign up to be their mentors ourselves. So unless Mom suddenly changes her mind once she has full custody back, we will get to continues the relationship. I think that will be good for both families.
Meanwhile, we still have the kids for a few weeks. We had initially thought they would go home right after their court hearing, so we're scrambling to get ready for Baby while parenting two extra little ones through the end of the month. This week we put both girls in gymnastics camp and continued Little Guy in daycare, so we have the mornings to work (or blog!) in peace. I'm loving it!! We've noticed, though, that we're going to have to give the girls some time apart soon, as Esther is getting progressively crabbier. She loves Princess dearly, but she still needs her one-on-one Mommy and Daddy time. On the whole, though, we're doing well and feeling blessed. Just not bored! Ha. :-)
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