Presentation Staffing Today

So today was our presentation staffing, which in english means meeting with caseworkers and phone conferences with the CASA workers that have been involved in our children's lives. We were told we would get to talk with the foster parent and counselor, but that did not happen. Again, miscommunication- no big surprise there. At this meeting there was also a lot of signing of paper work, promising that we would take care of our kids. To us this was like...duhhhh?! But I guess we are dealing with CPS and they are very used to seeing victimized children, so my bad...

The meeting started with introductions of everyone involved, and then getting the correct people conferenced in. We were given details on the bio parents. Not such fun stuff, and then on to the kids, the much more fun- although at times heartbreaking stuff. We talked about their lives, school, behavior, placements, foster parent, adjustment issues, etc.

We were told that Jose (Matthew) and Makayla are ready for placement and that after our initial few visits they expect that they will transition fairly easily. Jose would love to play football or some other sport and Makayla loves to be babied. (good thing, since all my kids are mommy's babies!) Alexis is a different story. She is very introverted and shy. (hmmmm, reminds me of......me!) She is extremely scared of whether this is really permanent or just another placement, so she has some pretty high anxieties right now and I don't blame her at all. Because of this she may come a week or two after the little ones but we won't know for sure until we see how our first few visits go. We will just have to see how she reacts to us.

After the meeting, Ronda(the kid's caseworker), was headed straight to the foster parent's house to give them our family book. This is a book that we had made for our kids a while back that is basically a little scrap book with pictures of our family and house so they can see what they are coming home to forever. Hopefully Chad's bald head doesn't scare them off, hee-hee:)

A few hours ago, we got a call from our caseworker that she had heard from Ronda and that she had taken the book to the kids, and Makayla and Jose had been very excited to see the pictures and that she thought they would do fantastic. This is great news. The bad news is that Alexis reacted as we thought, and was not so happy and is still upset that she is being moved. She said she knew that where she was wasn't permanent, but that she is tired of CPS controlling her life. My heart breaks for my child, and to know that I am part of the cause and only want to help make it better. I wish I could hold her right now but I can't. It will take weeks, maybe even months before I can get close enough to her to be able to do that. But we will get there. After a little while she did come out and look at our pictures and did crack a few smiles, so I will take that as a good sign. Maybe by Thursday she will have warmed a tiny little bit to the idea of being smothered by a mom and dad that want to drown her with love and affection. I can think of nothing I want more than to show these kids, all six of my kids how much I love them and how worthy they are of everything this world has to offer.

So tomorrow I am off to go shopping to buy some little trinkets for my new additions. Some token to show them we have been fighting hard for them for so long and have been thinking about them every minute of every day and night for the last several months. And before that, that we have been dreaming about them and this day for the past several years. How do you find a gift like that? I don't have a clue... All I want to do is smoosh my nose into their cheek and smell their necks.

We will meet our kids for the first time on Thursday at 5pm. On Friday we get to introduce all of the kids to each other and bring them to see their home. If this day goes really well, they will get to do a sleepover possibly and it may even turn into a whole weekend thing. If so we think we will get to have them most of the weekend it looks like and bring them to church with us even so they can meet our other family in the neighborhood.

So that is our update. We know everyone has been waiting but along with the meeting I am in the midst of midterms at school so I am just now getting home today.

Thank you all so much for your support and emails and posts today, it means more than you will ever know and brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion and that is not really such an easy thing to do, well okay....not super easy anyway!

What a wonderful, scary ride this is going to be~

Darbi