WoW this week turned into a crazy one. To really get it all in the right order and make it make sense I will break it down into how it happened by day. Otherwise it will get all jumbled and make no sense, because that is what my brain feels like right now!
so...Wednesday:
The day started normal, I talked to my cw and let her know there still hadn't been a phone call. She told me that was very strange as the children's cw had seemed very excited about placing the girls in our home. We talked a bit and decided that she would contact the other cw again, but she would let him know that should another call for a placement come in I would take it. Turns out the agency policy is "no holding". I guess too many times in the past a family has agreed to take a placement, then not heard from the placing cw for days but still held the spot passing on other placements, only to learn the child/children had been placed somewhere else. SO, they now advise their families to give take any other placements that come along while they are waiting to hear from a caseworker. I was relieved as this gave me a specific game plan and took a lot of guesswork out of the equation.
Then my day went sideways a bit. My preschooler will be starting kindergarten next year, and her headstart had organized a kindergarten preview for around noon on Wednesday. We all met at the elementary school, had a short tour, and then ended up in the kindergarten classrooms to let the kids explore and meet the teachers. Just as we were readying to leave...the school went on lockdown. Scariest. Thing. Ever. In the end the lockdown was precautionary (police action at a nearby home that could have posed a real threat to the kids if things had gone badly) and no one was in real danger. At the moment though, sitting in that room in the dark huddled on the floor with my two smallest, surrounded by kindergarteners, not knowing what was going on outside or where my two other children were inside the school...I was terrified. Up side? Now I know exactly how our school handles a lockdown from the inside. Afterwards I had to calm down my thirdgrader and then leave her with a trusted teacher for the remainder of her lunch time as she didn't feel safe going outside or being alone. I left the school near tears, but I know my daughter and if I had taken her home sending her to school the next day would have been a terrible drama. I went through the rest of the day with heightened feelings. In the evening I got another call. This was another foster parent looking for respite. With a possible impending placement I gave her a maybe, then called my cw again because we still had gotten no call. She advised me to take the respite placement (one to two childeren for 5 days). She said we could also still take the other placement if their cw ever did call. We felt it was unlikely I would end up with all of the kids at once, but she said it wouldn't be against regulations if we did. So I committed to the respite care.
Then Thursday came...
Our dog had been missing since Monday night and we had started to worry. I called animal control. They had found him, but the news was bad. He had been hit by a car and was dead. We picked our older two girls up from school and told them the news, then took them to lunch. We were all broken hearted. Then, around 2pm we finally got the phone call we had been waiting for. The cw wanted to place the girls in our home, and they would be on the way IN THE MORNING. Agh! We kicked into crazy mode and made plans for a run to walmart to get all the last little things we needed to make the girls comfortable. The day left us in a crazy emotional turmoil.
So that brings us to today. My family is waking up and it is time to get busy getting the house in order and organizing the stuff we bought last night. The girls should be arriving around noon today and I want them to feel welcome and comfortable rather than stepping into chaos. We will see how that goes! hahaha! We won't get the respite kids until Sunday, so we will have a couple days to settle in first. Then Monday I get to start dealing with our local high school and junior high getting everyone into their proper classes. I feel like I am about to go on a roller coaster ride...we are locked in and the carriage is picking up speed, about to go up over the first hill!! Wheeeeeee!! It is going to be crazy!!
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