And then things got worse

We searched for new summer camp programs for Jacob on Friday, and we thought we found one.

The YMCA has a good program in which they think he'd do well. Then it turned out our agency had never paid a past-due balance to the YMCA last year, and since our agency pays for summer camp, they wouldn't accept payment until the other bill was also paid.

Our agency didn't confess this to us til today - the day before the next field trip.

Now, we can pay the YMCA ourselves and our agency will reimburse us, so that could work well. But because we didn't find this out til now, we needed special approval from the YMCA to pay for a partial week and get him in at once. The YMCA agreed to call at 1:30 p.m. to set that up...and never called. We called twice; no answer.

At the same time, Jacob was at his old summer camp...where he apparently went out of control when "traveling athletes" came to visit. Running around, refusing to even sit down, and being rude and generally awful.

The camp called and told us to take him home NOW. For good. Forever.

Now our childcare problem is even bigger.

So our agency called another foster family to see if they could take him for the day tomorrow. They could! Hurray!

But, the agency said, they can't pay the family since it's not a full day. So we'd have to pay them directly.

Alrighty. We get $17 a day for Jacob. We offered the entire amount to the other family.

Their response: that's not even 70 cents an hour! (It's actually $2.83 an hour for the six hours we need, but who's counting?)

They want "the going daycare rate," whatever that is.

Meanwhile, Jacob continued to act out at home, and told us he was doing it on purpose because now he wants to go to the YMCA camp. Uh huh. Buddy, I know you're actually embarrassed and upset about the expulsion, but this attitude is really not going to work for you. Especially since we don't have any options for this week -- no respite and no summer camp.




So Jacob is going to spend tomorrow and Friday in his room, while we take turns going to work.

With all this, DSS and our agency and their bio mom still feel that there's no urgent need for counseling or the medication adjustment ordered by his doctor, which they told us not to follow because bio mom objected to it.

They said they see no reason why he can't wait three months til another doctor (Jacob's fifth doctor) considers his case.

No urgency. The child is screaming for help -- in his own way. And no one is listening.