Other People's Kids

Problem Looms

Since "Jill" left, it's AMAZING (!) how life has settled down. That girl is probably going to end up a politician, because while she was "in office", it was very hard to pin the general unrest and evil feeling in the house on her specifically. Yet, it's pretty much all gone at the same time as her. I'm sure that's just a coincidence, right?

When I say "evil feeling", I'm not just blowing smoke, and I'm not the only one who felt it. When we brought the girls to a regular dinner meeting with other foster parents in the area (aptly termed "share and support" meetings), the host foster mom commented on it. Something about the girls having a "bad vibe". Well, with "Jill" gone, "Celeste" suddenly seems like a much more normal--if troubled--kid. And she has problems that we can DEFINITELY help with, if we're given the time.

And there's the source of our current conundrum. When "Celeste" came here, it was with the idea that we were simply a transition place for her until she could move in with her bio dad. Apparently either nobody consulted "Celeste" on this, or else they didn't believe what she had to say. Because when we asked her about her feelings on the matter, she said she wouldn't live with her dad. She would either run away or commit suicide first. Too bad the kid has such a hard time expressing how she feels, eh?

Sooooooo...the real problem. There's the looming matter of school. She doesn't want to live with her dad, but she DOES want to go to the school in that town, about 20 miles away or something. She has friends there. Well, The Wife won't be driving her to school, especially when if she goes to school here, she could get picked up at the end of our driveway. And it's hard enough some days to get her up at noon. I shiver to think what she'd be like if you tried to wake her up in time to drive her to a bus pickup 10 miles away in time for the bus to get her to school.

There seems to be no plan B for this girl right now. Since we're now okay with her after the removal of the root problem that we had such a hard time dealing with, we're prepared to keep her here indefinitely. But today, her social worker is going to tell her that she'll have to go to school here if she's not living with her dad.

I don't know if I can be blamed for this one as well, but we'll find out. It's okay, I can take it. Plus, I think she's starting to be a little less mad at me about "Jill" leaving. She even joked with me a little the last couple of days. This could be fun after the initial badness.

posted by Dan @ 7:35 AM