Alrighty Then

My foster care specialist came to see me and Zoe before I brought her to school. She said just go with this visitation schedule with me doing her treatments on the days I'm off and summer will be here soon, so staying up until past 10:00 on softball nights to do treatments won't be as big of a deal. Later in the afternoon, I got a call from the case manager for the first time since this stuff changed and the I believe first contact other than an email asking for Zoe's medication list in nearly a month. One of her first questions was asking if Zoe's mom could come to my house and do her treatments here on the days I'm off. I said I didn't feel comfortable with that and she asked why. I just said I didn't trust her and it just didn't feel like now is the right time to have that kind of open relationship (or something like that). I ended up posting that question on a foster parent fb group I'm in and the majority of people told me they would have said no as well, most giving reasons of their home being a "safe" place for the kids rather than it being a privacy or "selfish" reason. I like that, especially since Zoe doesn't listen to her mom, often to the point of being out of control/throwing tantrums and it would be painful to sit by and observe that behavior in my home (as my role would be observation rather than being the parent). I left a message for my foster care specialist, so hopefully she is comfortable with my decision to say no.

Ivy got home from her school trip around 3:30. She had been gone since leaving from school around 2:30 on Friday. Thursday night, she threw a tantrum while her guardian was here/after he left saying she didn't even want to go anymore (because we were talking to her about the classes she is failing and told her she needs to get help? "most" teenagers would be like "get me the heck out of here/I can't wait to get away from this for a while", right?!) But, her fb posts throughout the weekend were positive and she posted a number of pictures, so it appeared she enjoyed herself.

However, when I asked her about it, she said it was "ok" and proceeded to complain about everything--we did too much walking, we didn't follow the itinerary so we were late to some things, I didn't have time to souvenir shop, we stayed up too late, we had to get up too early, I have to unpack, I have to do laundry, I spilled syrup on my shirt (how did you do that? they had these little syrup things on the table and I didn't eat over the table...), my ears popped in the plane...alrighty then, I'm glad ONE of us had fun this weekend!

After that attempt at a conversation, she put in a load of laundry and then moped on the couch for 20 minutes before making a bagel and moping some more. She was in bed for a nap by 4:30.

Zoe got home from her visit at 7:15. Ivy was still sleeping and I thought she may sleep until morning, so I shushed Zoe and tried to keep her quiet, but Ivy ended up getting up. She muttered one or more things, but mostly pouted about having to put her clothes in the dryer and making her lunch for tomorrow. I asked her if she was going to continue to whine or what? She said no, but then made herself some pizza rolls and kept her distance from both me and Zoe.

She went back to bed at 8:15 and I had to "shush" Zoe (she was up until almost 10...oops). When I told her Ivy was sleeping, she said "Again?!" I know Zoe, I know...it's frustrating.

I guess her sleeping is better than her being awake and whining/pouting/complaining! Gotta love teenagers, but I definitely didn't expect that kind of response. She wore shorts all weekend for goodness sake and came home to freezing cold (she missed the snow flurries, but it was still cold!)

Hopefully her guardian understands the NEED for some therapy and also the need for her to have something to keep her occupied this summer because we will not survive without that!

Until the next time...