A Three Ring Circus

Catching my breath...(pant, pant, pant...)

When last I wrote, we were a very peaceful house of three. Ed was at his mother's bedside in Florida, and the kids and I were accomplishing good stuff in school.

Then the nice lady at Social Services called late Wednesday and asked if we could take a couple kids. I explained about Ed being out of town and said that, given that one of the children was older than Katie (and we had planned not to take any older than Katie), I thought not. But I would check with Ed. So I called Ed.

Ed's mother seemed (seems) to be making a surprise recovery, and Ed was tired and in pain and fed up with family craziness. I knew he was eager to come back, but I was still a little surprised when he quickly answered my question with, "Yes! We can take the children, and I will come home tomorrow." (He really wasn't abandoning his mother. Her health is very up and down, but mostly seems on an upward trend, though she may not make it closer to home than a rehab center. And there is a lot of family craziness.)

So I called the social worker back and told her "yes," and Travis and Katie started celebrating. And shoveling the toys and clothes out of Travis's old bedroom.

Ed got home around 10:30 yesterday morning (which I think means he had to get up at 3:00), and we were so happy to have him back. Then another social worker (each child that gets taken into custody seems to instantly aquire a large crew) showed up with our two new children in the late afternoon. They are very nice children, a four year old girl and a seven year old boy. They came with less "stuff" than my kids would bring over to a friend's house for a playdate -- the clothes on their backs and a plastic bag with crayons & coloring books and underwear. The social worker told us what she knew about them, which was hardly anything, made sure they were settled in (she seems like a nice girl), and was off.

Katie is in hog heaven with her new little girl. She dresses her and plays dolls and horses with her and reads Bob books to her. It is going to be a challenge to get her to do any school work. It took us a few minutes to figure out what the little boy liked, but then Travis handed him his Nintendo DS with a Star Wars Lego Guys (something like that) game in it and all was well. They have now bonded over Star Wars.

We had a hard time getting the little girl (I guess I will have to make up names for them) to sleep last night, but they were Both up before dawn cracked this morning. Actually, it's cloudy and I don't know when dawn was, but they had eaten breakfast before 7:00. So I don't care What it takes -- they are going to bed Early tonight. Or I won't survive this new adventure of ours.