Other People's Kids

See You In Court...Or Not

I took a half-day off today on the theory that if today happened to be "Josie's" last day with us, I wanted to make sure I spent some of it with her. Her hearing was set for 3:30, so we went for lunch at a wonderful little local Italian restaurant, stopped at Dairy Queen for dessert, and shopped for a swimsuit for her (being very tired and not much of a shopper, I stayed in the car and tried unsuccessfully to nap for a half-hour).

3:00 rolled around and we killed 20 minutes with a little drive around town, and then landed at the gate to the courtroom about 3:20. Chatted with the social workers, attorneys, "Josie's" mom, and one of the probation officers. 3:30. 3:40. 3:50. 4:00. 4:10.

During this time, various groups formed and went into the jury room. Conferences were held. People that weren't in the conferences milled around and chatted. The ONLY ones that were not invited to ANY of these little dances was...you guessed it. The Wife and I. Apparently foster parents are the least important people involved in foster care.

I doubt I'll bother taking off work next time. It threw a crimp in my work day and week, and it was almost utterly useless. It was probably harmful, as it would have been much easier to keep secrets from me if I hadn't bothered to show up. DAMN me for caring.

...and here a cop showed up at the door. A further post on that shortly...

Anyway, a summary of the rest of the day: the hearing that I took off work for was never officially held, "Josie's" mom refused an alcohol/drug evaluation (which bodes well for our having "Josie" around longer than 30 days) "Josie" is now at drivers' ed [shudder], Mitch peed on the floor, and I'm waiting for a callback from Mom regarding the new crisis. She'll know what to do...she always does.

Stay tuned. Another post later tonight for sure. This will probably be one of the very interesting ones...especially figuring out how much I'll be able to post without violating any rules.

posted by Dan @ 5:09 PM