annieology

Little Miss Sunshine gets to stay home with me on Friday.

One problem.

It’s Thursday and she has no concept of time.

Even AFTER I picked her up from camp she was asking if TODAY was her special day.

No, that’s tomorrow.

Today?  This day?

No, tomorrow.

Today is not tomorrow?

That is correct.

Commence the wailing and gnashing and the what not.

In a futile attempt to stop the wailing and the gnashing I had a surprise.

Wanna go see Mama?  At Chuck E. Cheese?

Which we did.  And her sisters, and Mama’s mama.  Who’d I’d seen before, but had never been formally introduced.  Let’s say, for the sake of anonymity, that Princess’s given name is Princess Mustard Foster.   We have submitted the name change to be Princess Pickle Awesome.  Turns out g’ma is named Mustard.  How did I go 5.5 years without this information seeping into my brain?  It’s not her given name, I know that to be the case, but I did not know that she went by Mustard.

In addition to learning that today is not tomorrow, I learned some other very important lessons tonight at the Cheese’s.

1. Stay away from Meth.  Far.  Far.  Away.
2. I have sexy feet.

Seriously, while using the facilities someone in the next stall commented on my sexy feet.  OK creepy and all, turns out it was one of the sister’s.

OK then, I’m just gonna go back out there and feel even more awkward, if that’s alright with you.

So, how did we end up at le Cheese with Mama?  Today at lunch, in a very noisy place, I started getting many phone calls.  All from Mama.  First, I don’t answer the phone when I’m with people, and second, the place was very loud.  I ignored it, and again, and again, and again.  Finally, what?  She was halfway through the three hour drive to see us (go to the beach) and wanted to stop by and see the kids.  That’s all well and fine, but set it up before you drive 90 minutes.  I told her the kids were at camp and had a field trip today, they’d not be available til 6ish.  OK fine, and we decided on Chuck E. Cheese, but she probly wouldn’t be done with the beach until dark.  Sigh.

I spent the next several hours contemplating the importance of a decent bedtime and seeing Mama.  Luckily, she decided that 6ish would be fine.

Now, when the babies were babies, we did not have visits.  As she was hiding the fact that she was already pregnant again from CPS.  So, until the twins were 10 months old, we had one visit where I “told on her” and CPS said she wasn’t pregnant, that some people just stay poochy after twins and I told them to have her pee on a stick  and I found out that would “violate her rights” and that’s the last we saw of her until we got the phone call that she had had a baby.

To say we had gotten off on the wrong foot, would be fair.  Me telling on her, because CPS was too dumb to figure out that pooches aren’t firm and move of their own accord.  Anyway, we had a visit at 10 months then not again til the twin were 13 months.  It happened to be Felpsy’s 2nd bday and I had gone to lunch with another foster parent when she got a call to “return to the office immediately”.  And I didn’t.  I went anyway and was stopped at the door.  I could see through the window that all “my” kids had been stripped naked and people were taking pictures.   OH HELL NO.

And the person stopping me was a CPS worker who very reluctantly had placed other kids in our home and did not like me.

Seems while we were gone, Mama was trying to get the oldest to say, on video (which is verboten to have video cameras brought in) that he had seen me hit the babies.  1 year old twins and a just this day 2 year old.  Well, after 45 minutes of watching it play out and Mama throwing a fit, they called in an investigator to take pictures of all the “bruises” – at which point I was thanking Lord baby Jesus above that I had made the pediatrician CHART every single Mongolian mark on the babies (which he thought was stupid).  And that all involved had fax machines.  I mean come on.  Mongolian marks are not bruises, and this part of the country should know what a freakin Mongolian mark looks like.

Mama and I did not get along well after that.  For years and years and years.

I have tried to not hold it against her.  I mean, what would I say or do to the woman who had MY kids?  But tonight, every shared whisper spiked the old paranoia meter, just a bit.  I’m happy.  I want them to have happy moments and shared secrets and what not, but still havin your babies stripped naked and photographed lingers for quite awhile.

Things seemed to go well tonight, but me and my sexy feet still took the long way home.

We had a visitor this morning.  Our agency sent out a foster home specialist.  Who’s Miley’s bff?  I don’t know, we’ll call her Skipper, isn’t that Barbie’s bff? That’s who they sent.

Where do you keep your knives?

Out of reach.

I’m sorry, they need to be in a drawer.

That seems right.

“Where do you keep your fire extinguisher?”

We keep it where the FIRE DEPARTMENT told us.

“No, you can’t keep it there.”

Well, that’s where the FIRE DEPARTMENT wants us to keep the FIRE EXTINGUISHER.

Does the health department know you keep it there?

I cannot testify as to what knowledge the health department has.  But, they do, and I don’t think they care.  They care about HEALTH because they are the HEALTH department.  They leave FIRE department business to the FIRE department.

Then Skipper asks us if “there is a better place to put it”.

You seriously aren’t treating me like I’m a three year old?  Are you?  Skipper?  Seriously, you want me to think about my decision and brain storm a more acceptable way of doing things?

I put the FIRE things where the FIRE people tell me, if you’d like I can call the FIRE man over and you two can arm wrestle for control.  Otherwise.  Throw a Frisbee.

Where do you keep your meds?

In a locked cabinet, in a locked closet, in a locked room.

But your keys are hanging right there.

Yes, but I can barely reach them, there are 400 keys, and my kids are not only FIVE, but they do not have the manual dexterity, nor the attention span to unlock three doors to get the Nyquil that has a child cap on it anyway.  Plus, against minimum standards, we have told them ‘NO’  and so they don’t even bother.

But I will put the damn keys in my pocket if it makes you feel better.

“Hey Skipper?  I know you are dealing with important matters such as the temperature of my freezer, but you might be interested that my husband has been trying to get one of the orphans some face time with an entymologist, because he’s such a bug freak.”

No, not really.  We don’t care that you are cultivating their interests and disciplining them so that they have self control, we just want to make sure that your butter is all the way wrapped up.

Do you have a fire escape plan posted?

We did, but we made a copy for adoption and then I don’t know what happened to it.

Well, you need to have a fire escape plan posted.

Yes, because my five year olds will stop and consult it in case of fire.  We have taught them that in case of a fire, don’t first go outside through, preferably a door, but a window if necessary.  The first thing you must do, is consult the fire escape plan that is five feet off the ground in the hall, then go out the nearest exit and proceed to where the plan tells you.

I’m going to leave it at that, because I no longer have cigarette delivery to my house.  But if you are considering foster care…..don’t do it unless God himself is making you.

We had a dental check up this morning for one of the orphans.  It’s been such a crazy day, I cannot even remember which one.  Because of the orphan status, Medicaid pays for the appointment.  You might they, oh cool…not so much.

Because Medicaid clients have a high rate of no shows they want us to be early.  Fine.  I can be early.  I don’t have a problem with that.  What I do have a problem with is that even though I am early I have to wait for over an hour to be seen.  Sure, I can pick my doctor.  If my doctor of choice takes Medicaid.  My doctor of choice does not.  Because Medicaid clients have a habit of not showing up, I assume it’s because it doesn’t affect them if they don’t.  No one charges the “no show” fee that they are supposed to, I am assuming because they tried, many times and FAILED.

So, I do not get to choose my doctor.  I get to choose my doctor from the few who take Medicaid.  There are a handful.  Do you know how hard it is to get a freakin’ appointment with one of a handful of dentists when they only set aside a small fraction of their time for Medicaid patients, because in all likelihood, the patient isn’t going to show?  Hard.

We originally had our dental exams scheduled for February.  We had the plague.  6/7 of our family was wishing for death.  I had to cancel our dental exams, (I did so, days in advance) that were already a month late because I didn’t want someone aspirating on their vomit, just to get their teeth cleaned.  Their “next available” was May.

So, to sum up thus far.  I can’t pick my doctor, and I can’t get an appointment.

While I was at the dentist’s office, the dentist’s office called me to remind me that another orphan had an appointment tomorrow, and that I needed to call back before noon to confirm that I was indeed going to make the appointment or they would bump me.  I do not answer my cell phone in waiting rooms.

You’re welcome.

After listening to the voicemail I went to the front desk to confirm that I would be there tomorrow for my kids appointment.

“Usually, people just call.”

Yeah, but I’m still here waiting for my last appointment.

Six months ago.  THAT’S HOW FAR BEHIND YOU ARE.

Luckily I have Jesus.  I asked him what he’d do.  He thought it would be better to play Mahjong on the iPhone than to break a commandment.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m grateful for any and all help we get.  But I would’ve paid $200 to get out of there in 20 minutes.  The actual amount of time I was seen.

That delay threw off the rest of my day, I had to push back a doctor appointment for another orphan half an hour.  The little Princess didn’t get to practice her God forsaken “graduation” from Mother’s Day Out.  And I didn’t make it home in time to put away all the syringes before my monthly visitor came.

Guess I should ’splain that.

Princess has a heart condition.  When she goes to the dentist she needs to take massive amounts of antibiotic.  I had three of the kid liquid medicine dispenser syringes lined up for her this morning, she took them, we ran off to do our day.  I did not come back until after school, where I was greeted in my driveway by a CPS worker coming to visit the orphans.  Right there on the table, three syringes and a bottle of medicine not being guarded by a ninja.  The bottle was empty, and I hope they are over harshing on us for things that the rest of the world does.

Like not rinse out medicine dispensers and leaving empty bottles of meds on the table because I had to hurry out the door because I was going to be late for being early.