Lay off and Buzz & Simba meet Gus

I had this whole blog post written out and then my computer flipped out on me. Grrr…

Rosie’s boss propositioned her today about him laying her off half-time. She would claim unemployment for the lost hours. She will still work for him 40 hours but would be “Volunteering” hours over 20 a week. He then we find a way to cover the 40% she would loose by going through unemployment. His words were by leaving cash “Lying on the floor.”

There are several things I have wrong with the whole situation but the biggest factor to me is that she would be using up her unemployment. What is he actual does eventually have to lay her off, she would have used some/all/most of her unemployment time. I told Rosie we would have to talk about it later.

She doesn’t seem to get the underling consequences of this at all. Shortly after our conversation, she emailed me a bunch of pictures of houses for sale. I emailed back that if this lay off goes through we won’t be able to buy a house. She couldn’t understand why and I told her I would explain that later too.

It gets frustrating that I am the only one who runs the household and understands are cashflow. I am torn between if Rosie either doesn’t have the capacity or is just to plain lazy to try to figure it out and help. It is really hard to have no one to share the load with.

Buzz, Simba, and family came over for dinner. Jasper and the puppies were SOOO happy to see them. The evening went very well! Simba and Buzz said they missed us and asked when they can stay the night again. Buzz even told Gus that we were the best foster parents ever.

Gus wasn’t sure how to interact with the boys at first and kept asking to use the electronics. He really opened up when the boys found the Halloween costumes and we got a funny fashion show.


We are a pretty loud family and when you have 4 adults, 4 boys, 2 dogs, and 1 cat the noise level can get overwhelming for the uninitiated. Gus seemed to get pretty manic when things were at there peak. I wanted to see how bad he got so I didn’t intervene much. Compared to Buzz he didn’t get that bad and was able to easily calm himself when the boys left and it was time for bed.

I did find that when he wanted something he would grab it. He is polite enough to say, “May I have this please?” while he was taking it away which I thought was funny. He literally grabbed the keyboard away from Buzz while he was in the middle of playing, Mary had a Little Lamb.

Gus does seem to grasp that he will be with us for a while and he seems for the most part to enjoy our company so I am calling things a success so far.

Meet Gus

He came! His social worker told me he would be there by 5pm and by 6:00pm I was having serious doubts that they would show up. At 6:30pm I got a knock at the door. I will officially name him Gus (what Disney movie is that from?). It has hidden meaning which relates to his real name which I like.

Gus LOVES to talk. He will chatter chatter chatter in your ear just about anything. When you ask him to do something simple he will find about 100 things to distract in-route to him following your request. He is very smart and you can have adult conversations with him. He has no filter and will say whatever he is doing and whatever is on his mind.

Gus: I am going to use the restroom.
Gus: Wow I like that picture
Gus: Is the guest room?
Gus: I better turn the bathroom light on?
Gus: Is there where we put our toothbrush?
Gus: Do you have a guest toothbrush?
Gus: Do I have to brush my teeth here?
Gus: Is this the kids bathroom?
Gus: I better shut the door.

Rosie unfortunately was not in a very good mood this morning and called me on my way to work telling me she was going to strangle him cause he wouldn’t shut up. I know she wouldn’t actual strangle him and was mostly just pissed because daycare was not set up as promised and she had to drive out of her way to drop him off at my sisters. I knew within 5 minutes of him getting to our house that Rosie may have difficulties with his personality.

When Gus’s social worker dropped him off he brought a packet from Gus’s previous foster parents. They listed a few things to be aware of when it came to behavioral issues. Apparently they had issues with Gus throwing things at dogs, hitting smaller children, food issues and lying. His lying was mostly surrounding being told on. Someone would come up and say Gus did something wrong and Gus would say it wasn’t true and that the person who told didn’t like him and was making up lies. They didn’t comment about his incessant chattering so I am hoping that is just his nerves.

I also find that if I give him choices he will pick something that isn’t even one that I had listed. We have assigned seats at the dinner table so I let Gus choose one of the 3 empty chairs as his place. I pointed at the three chairs available and his first two chairs he chose were the two I was not pointing at as they were Rosie’s and mine. His third choice would have probably been Jasper’s had Jasper not been sitting in it. I then asked if he would like milk or water to drink and he chose Juice. When I told him we didn’t have juice he asked what flavor juice we have. I will have to learn and adapt how I talk and respond to him to make things go more smoothly but I have a feeling it will be very difficult for Rosie. She doesn’t adapt very well.

Susan is awesome!

I love Susan, Buzz and Simba’s social work. She is just plain awesome. I just got off the phone with her and she totally made me feel better about the whole thing. Susan said that unfortunately, this is normal occurrence in the system and that the investigators are normal headed about how to deal with this. How the conversation translated to my manic mind is that they will not be rushing to take Jasper away, the police will not come and tackle Buzz and take him to Juvenile Detention, and safety plans have been altered to make sure this does not happen again.

BIG SIGN OF RELIEF…I believe 100% that Buzz inappropriately touched Jasper but I also believe 100% that it was not done sexually or abusively. Buzz has little regard of boundaries and has recently become area of his ‘Body’ and is curious about others bodies as well.

Susan also talked to Vicki and Buzz Sr. and they are aware of the situation. They took the news well and are now going to take EXTRA care not to leave Buzz alone with the baby.

Susan explained that we will be contacted by an investigator and they will talk to me, Jasper and Buzz. She feels that the close will be closed with ‘curiosity’ being the finding. *she used a better word than curiosity but I can’t remember right now*

I think Jasper is okay too, I don’t think it will have any lasting effect on him and actually gave me an opportunity to explain to him that NOBODY touches his private areas and that if they do he is to scream BLOODY MURDER!

The only thing I am concerned about is that I have not heard a word from Jasper’s social worker. I think I will give her a call on my break to see what she has to say.

New

Over the past 24 hours, thoughts have been going through my head of what could have happened. I am wondering how this is going to effect Jasper in the future. I have been watching him closely, and besides the moment in the kitchen when he told me, he has been nothing but happy. He is smiling, laughing, cuddling, playing, singing, etc.

Now to throw a wrench in the whole thing we just started getting placement calls and have accepted a new placement. Taking my own advice, I am not anticipating that the placement is official until he steps through my door but we may have a 7 year old little boy with us this evening.

***UPDATE*** I just got a call from his social worker and got a name. I like his name, and it even rhymes with Jasper’s real name. I will have to think of a Disney theme name for him but want to meet him first. We have another male social worker too, but probably like all the other cases it will be short lived. His SW said he would drop him off at 5pm.

Now for the none fun part

I decided to post the fun pictures before I get into the bad stuff. I am so sick with worry and anxiety that I don't know what to do with myself. Half of me wants to throw up dinner and hide under the covers until this blows over.

On Sunday I was sitting with Jasper while he ate his lunch. He stopped eating and said that his 'Peepee hurt." He had been grabbing it through out the day but didn't think about until then. I asked him if it hurt to pee and he said no. I then asked if anyone had touched him down there and he said yes. I asked who touched him and he said "His brothers" I asked him which one and he said "the red one." Since Buzz had red hair I asked him if he meant Buzz and he said yes. He was very calm and serious when he said this. He wasn't grinning or laughing like he does when he is fibbing.

I do not think that Jasper's recent 'peepee' discomfort had anything to do with Buzz simply because it was not physically possible. In the previous 5 days he had only seen Buzz when they were tricker treating and they were supervised 100% of the time. That being said I do take what Jasper said seriously. I do think that it is possible that Buzz could have touched him when they were with us.

I had always had the feeling in the back of my mind that Buzz was not safe to be left alone with the other kids. A few times I had walked into rooms and though I saw nothing I had a feeling that something good was not going on and quickly seperated them all. Towards the end, when were having reunification meetings I made it VERY clear that Buzz was not to be left alone with other children and that he had to be in line of sight of an adult.

In our home their very few opportunites when they boys were together unsupervised but their were times when this was not the case. I never told Rosie my concerns so if I was not home I do not think she was as hypervigiliant as I was. And their were times when I would think I was over reacting and maybe not watch as carefully as I should.

All in all, the opportunity was there and I fear for the worst.I called Buzz's social worker and told her what happened. She said she would call in the report for me and told me not to talk to Jasper about it anymore. We both concluded it wasn't best to tell Vicki and Buzz sr. right away because we thought they would probably end up questioning him about it. I then called and left a message on Jasper's social workers voicemail so she wasn't blind sided by the report in the morning.

I know this was the right thing to do but it feels crappy. I have a million things going through my head. What if it isn't true, what if it IS true, what will happen to Buzz, what will happen to our relationship with Vicki & Buzz, how will this effect Jasper, How could i let this happen, am I making to big a deal out of this, will this effect our adopting Jasper, will we not be able to get any other placements, will they remove jasper, will they think we are the bad guys, will social workers loose trust in me....it goes on and on.

i really need your comments right now! Any words of advice or maybe stories of how this all goes. Anything to help my mind calm itself.

Our Halloween Part deux

Rosie decked out the house this year for the spooky holiday.



Jasper won this cake at his daycare cakewalk. He was so proud of himself

OUR HALLOWEEN

STARRING

ROSIE


JASPER & BABY BELLA

BUZZ


SIMBA


LIL' SIS