...she isn't dead.
First things first. My health. Friday morning I woke up with a bit of congestion in my chest and sinuses, but very little. The dizziness was pretty much gone and I was able to stay awake for more than an hour at a time. This is big progress, people! My appointment with my family doctor is scheduled for Tuesday. Hopefully at that appointment we should get a better idea of the nature of the "abnormality" on my x-ray. Since I'm feeling so much better, I'm not so worried, but it will be nice to know what we're dealing with.
For some reason the house wasn't able to keep itself clean while I was flat on my back for 2 weeks, so that was my main focus for yesterday (to at least start on it while listening to that nagging voice in my head telling me not to overdo it and end up back in bed.) The room closest to my bedroom is the livingroom. So that's where I started. I picked up lots of clutter, then rearranged some bookshelves, hopeful to claim some new space for homeschool supplies (a neverending battle in this little house.) I appropriated a shelf for books of Brian's that he's purchased but never finished reading, and another for the books I want to read or re-read in 2010. I don't know if I ever mentioned we still have Tyler and Hailey's baby books. They were given to us by their aunt when they joined our family, and when they left, I couldn't bring myself to send them along. Not until I knew things were stable and permanent. I contacted the aunt that gave them to us, and she and her husband asked us to keep them for the children, and they would direct them to us to get them when they were old enough. Happy to keep them safe (they'd been rescued by another uncle from an apartment during one of many evictions while the children were with their birthparents), and even more happy for the children to have a reason to contact us again someday, we agreed. Since September they've been in the main bookcase in our livingroom. The children have been gone for 6 months, and I've had every intention of moving them up to the cupboard where we keep Sam and Hallie's adoption records (more long-term storage), but just had never gotten to it. But yesterday, I finally moved them.
Also among the books I moved were the soccer books we bought for Tyler, and for Brian to help Tyler hone his skills at his favorite sport. Hallie decided she wanted to read them, so we kept them in the school bookcase.
I swept up and vacuumed at least 3 puppies worth of dog hair. I dusted furniture that was long overdue (remember... 1 week of vacation followed by 2 weeks of sick... that's 3 weeks of thick dust!) I fielded a call from the kids' counselor to determine whether we wanted to continue seeing her or suspend their files. (We'd started seeing her when Tyler and Hailey were here, dealing with the transition for all of the kids and some aggression issues Hallie was having with her newly arrived sister.) Since we have no other kids in our home right now and things are stable, we decided to suspend the files, knowing we can reopen them if we need to after we add another child to our home.
I straightened a pile of cards on my desk and made a mental note to get a few photos printed to send to Tyler and Hailey (starting when they left at the end of September, I sent them a card a week to let them know we were thinking of them and praying for them, and let them know what was happening around here. We haven't heard a single word from them, despite the aunt's assurances that she wanted us to remain a part of the children's lives. After the first of the year, I reduced the output to about twice a month. I told them we were planning a trip to Disneyland and wanted to send a few photos from the trip when we got back, since I forgot to bring their address along to send postcards from California.)
I washed, dried and folded several loads of laundry. I set aside Tyler's cub scout uniform, needing to put it in a box in the upper cupboard to save for our next little scout. I thought about taking a nap. Then the phone rang again. The lady on the phone identified herself as from "Children's Administration", and was calling to know if we would be willing to be a placement resource for Tyler and Hailey.
"WHAT???"
I literally had trouble forming sounds into words for a couple of seconds, then formed the sentence "What's going on?" Long story short, the placement with their aunt and uncle isn't working out and they need a permanent home for Tyler and Hailey. The social worker and supervisor we worked with before are no longer with the department, but the new supervisor (the one calling me) said she knew she needed to contact us first after reading their file and seeing how much we did even before the children came to live with us. If we say no, they'll start looking for another adoptive home, but they wanted to contact us first.
There are some new behaviors that have cropped up since they left here (Tyler in particular was right on the edge after all he'd been through, about ready to give up trusting adults... after all, we'd promised him he'd be here forever (our honest intention), then the state moved him. And that was just the last in a long line of what felt to him like broken promises, even though it was out of our control.)
There's a meeting Wednesday about their case, and the kids' therapists will be there, so I'm anxious to hear what they have to say about their emotional and mental states. Of course we want our kids back (they've always been ours), but we do have to take into consideration whether they are still a good fit for our family. Although we have no reason to believe there are anger or aggression issues that have cropped up since we had them, we need to know that for sure.
The other piece of the puzzle we need in place before moving forward... is to know that Tyler and Hailey WANT to be part of our family. Because if they don't, there's just no way this is going to work. (I liken it to trying to adopt a 12 year old that doesn't want to be adopted... there will be no peace.) We think their time here was good, but there were sibling squabbles (that can be exaggerated in the mind of a child), and I'd be willing to bet we're more strict and have higher expectations than probably any of the othr homes they've lived in. Can a 6 and 8 year old look at that rationally and know what's best for them? Maybe not. But the fact remains, if they have it in their heads that they don't want to be here, they'll be able to make it miserable for everyone. And that's not in anyone's best interests!
But barring any of those kinds of complications, we could have our children back home inside of a month. And that's a phone call we honestly didn't think was coming.
I'd also really like to get my hands on those case files the department wouldn't let us read a year ago at this time. If all goes as planned, the children will be legally free in less than 3 weeks. At that time I don't see any reason to restrict access to the files. At that time also, no more relatives can pop up from out of the blue - they'll be given no preference. So that much we know for sure - we aren't bringing the children home until they are legally free. We're not playing that game again.
I hope to know more after Wednesday's meeting. Prayers appreciated, of course, for wide open or tightly closed doors. God's timing and plans never cease to amaze (and sometimes confuse) me... but He led us here, and we're trusting Him.
Oh, and one more note... until we know for sure what's happening, Sam and Hallie don't know anything about yesterday's phone call. So please be cautious when speaking with us in person about this situation, especially if our children are present. Thank you!
