In Which There Was A Team Meeting.

In which people made me feel like all the curse words.

A normal team meeting I would say, of course, missing some of the key players. Me, caseworker, caseworkers supervisor, and GAL were all in attendance. Mom is still completely missing. No one can get a hold of her or find her. After about 20 minutes of the same old conversation, which was really more like 20 minutes of everyone watching him play and saying about every 10 seconds just how cute he is, I brought up that Mike and I do not plan to adopt.

The GAL ripped into me. And into the caseworker.

"Why don't you want to adopt him?"
"Why in the world did we place him in a home that isn't legal-risk?"

And on and on.

I don't feel like I need to give my personal reasons as to why I don't want to adopt him. So I simply said, "Because we don't want to". And I never said that I wasn't open to it in the beginning! But things change, circumstances change, and if it's not right, it's not happening. I'm not gonna force something that isn't there.

So to sum it up, Luther needs to be moved "as soon as possible" because we don't want him "bonding to a family that doesn't want him". Sure. Great. I agree on all fronts. So move him. But next time you should try actually being nice. Foster care is hard. Being a foster parent is hard. And then being attacked because it's not everything that you dreamed it was going to be just plain sucks.

So right now the caseworker is taking a look at all family members. Which by the way, when a family member says "we just can't right now but we really, really wish we could", we don't believe you. Because if you wanted to, you would. Luckily for this little guy, I know that even if no one in his family decides to take him, there will be a couple ready and waiting to scoop him up. This child is the kind that foster parents dream of. He's under 2, has no siblings, no disabilities, and no behaviors.

Yeah I know, I'm still trying to figure out what is wrong with me, but in the mean time, we prepare to send this little guy on his way.