Today, Jacob got sent home from camp because he went through a camp counselor's bag on the bus, found her wallet, hid all the cards under his seat, and hid the wallet in his backpack. It was only found when his counselor searched his bag, though he did then confess.
At first it looked like he was going to be expelled again (and really, who could blame them?) but the camp director relented. She seemed pleased that I came to fetch him right away and treated him firmly -- not angrily, but not with warmth. She could clearly see he would be disciplined, I think. So she said she thought he would be able to learn his lesson this weekend and try camp again on Monday.
However, I had a 30-minute drive to get him in which I didn't know if there was any chance of a reprieve. So I called our foster agency. Our homefinder didn't answer (and never calls us back anyway, though I left a message). Our family specialist is out with a broken toe. Her voicemail said to contact her supervisor. But that person's voicemail said she is out today, and gave me the number for HER supervisor. That person didn't answer her phone, but her voicemail gave me a main office number to call.
It took 10 minutes to get through all that, while driving, but eventually I spoke to a real person, who transferred me to the supervisor's supervisor. Except, of course, she dropped the call by accident. So I called back, and finally got to talk to her.
I explained that I had a crisis and briefly described the problem. Then I said, as clearly as possible, "What I need right now is to find a child care facility that will take a 5-year-old who hits, steals and runs away. It needs to be very structured and have no field trips, because that's when he really falls apart. And I need to get some possibilities lined up today, so that I can call them and try to get him into one starting Monday, because we both work."
Every other time there's been a crisis, I've asked for help in handling Jacob -- I've asked for counseling, advice, doctor referrals, etc. This time, knowing that he will be moving on (and knowing there's no way they will offer me help for him), I was just focused on the practical: we need a way to keep our jobs.
And, to my surprise, the agency was very responsive. They got right on it, coming up with possibilities and actually calling the places for us.
Then the camp director relented, so all is well. For now, at least.
Shockingly, Jacob's bio mom was also supportive of us -- I called her to talk to Jacob when he kept insisting he'd done nothing worth sending him home from camp. "It's not fair," he kept saying, arguing that it wasn't THAT bad because he gave the wallet back. When someone else searched his bag.
So she gave him a good talking to -- and, amusingly, said basically the same things I did. She told me that she would back me up on whatever punishment we came up with, and that if he threw a fit or otherwise misbehaved about it, to call her back and she would back us to the hilt. She has never before said or done anything like that. I was pleasantly surprised.
She was also completely in agreement with me on our planned punishment: he has to spend the rest of the day in his room (five hours, which you have to admit is a LONG time) because my wife is busy working downstairs and I'm at the office. And then, after dinner, while his sister and I go to the big outdoor presentation at the park of "The Lego Movie," he'll have to go to bed. In the past she's seemed unhappy if he gets any sort of punishment at all, including a 5-minute time-out. I'm not sure what's caused this about-face, but it's great. Maybe it's because she's happy to get rid of us? Though she might not know yet....
Because also today, DSS apparently told our agency that looking for a new family without telling the bio mom first is "sneaky." We didn't tell them to do it that way, but DSS is punishing us for it anyway. (Given that we've been told not to speak to the bio mom outside of kids' calls, how exactly were we supposed to tell her?) So DSS told our agency not to allow any respite until -- well, until further notice, I guess.
We have plane tickets for our annual vacation in two weeks. There is no way we are skipping that trip. They have known about it literally since the day we took in the kids, six months ago.
I guess the problem is that the respite family is the family that would take them. Ah, cannibals. You might have to work with them, but you can't trust them to have your back.
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