Other People's Kids

The Dead of Winter

Here in Minnesota, it's been colder than tomorrow night would be if I hadn't already arranged for a little surprise for The Wife. A man who has a woman and doesn't do it right on Valentine's day is a man who will know what real cold is. Fortunately, I'm covered on that front.

Tonight I think it was supposed to get down around 14 below here...it's been much the same most nights for awhile. Global warming may be a real thing, and it may even be influenced by human activity, but I'm not really worried about it just yet.

On the fostering front, we seem to have slowly devolved into a weekend-babysitter service. We have three kids one or two weekends per month each. Now, I know that we should expect to be inconvenienced sometimes and not always have all long-term placements...but would it be too much to ask for a single long-term placement that they don't rip away from us just when we're starting to get dug into the kid's real issues?

Seriously. We've been at this for well over a year. We've spent a total of about a month at capacity. We had "Josie" for about 6 months, and NOBODY else for longer than a couple of months. Some for as little as a few days. It's great to meet lots of great kids and stuff, but I'd rather meet only a few and really get to know them. Who knows, if we were given an actual chance we might even be able to help them!

We do have a placement coming up (or so I'm told...based on prior experience I'll believe it when she walks in the door). All I know at this point is that she's a 16-year-old girl and she's from a nearby town. Not a lot to go on.

And that's it. Nothing on the horizon. Our home, with room for 4 troubled kids who need help, stands completely idle. I'm beginning to think that all the cries you hear about how they're so desperate for foster homes are complete and utter bullsh*t.

On the brighter side, I now have my long-anticipated monsterdog. We picked him up from a rescue ranch near Bemidji, MN weekend before last. He's a severely underweight Saint Bernard whose name at the ranch was Homer, and who has been rechristened Chewbacca (Chewie for short). He's a real lover, and that's a good thing because the changes in his diet have precipitated some rather nasty gastrointestinal incidents.

These incidents first caused us to actually buy a full-strength carpet cleaner, and then give it up for a lost cause and start pondering whether we should just move the hardwood floor for the dining room and living room rapidly to the top of our home-improvement to-do list. Yikes. I've never seen stains like that before.

That aside, he has MOSTLY been able to hold it until he gets outside, he greets me with monsterhugs when I get home from work just like Beau used to, and his stomach is just now beginning to allow him to eat like the horse that he should be. He's was only about 110 pounds this weekend...the shelter that had him said their vet put his target weight at 200. Our vet says more like 160-170. Whatever the case, we have our target, we have the food, and we have the time. He'll be all fixed up in no time.

It's pretty sad when your top priority is fostering, but your greatest pleasures and frustrations are coming from your dog. Something's wrong with that picture, wouldn't you say?

posted by Dan @ 6:21 PM