David's Story Part 6: The last pre-placement visit

7/14

Friday evening went fine with David. He did not say much, but everyone at PFLAG was warm and friendly to him. It is seductive, having so many people turn on the love.

Sunday he called at 6:40 am (ugg) to say that he could not make it to church after all. He was calling from a different number so I suspect that he spent the night with the friend whose birthday was being celebrated on Saturday. It was frustrating, but I got over it.

In answer to your question, David really likes Carl. Why wouldn't he? Carl is a foster care alum, gay, and cute. Carl as a potential older brother type is also pretty attractive. David and Brian did not interact much, probably because David was so much more interested in hanging around Carl.

7/17/03

So David and Brian have been getting along fine. When Brian asked David to play Uno he agreed, with a sort of adult indulgence. David is also fantastic at dealing with the more annoying aspects of Brian. Brian has been doing the little brother thing: annoying people for the joy of it. But when he wiggles his hands next to David making faces and funny noises, or “flies” a toy right up to David stomach and makes exploding noises David just glances at him like he is an alien and then goes back to whatever he was doing before.

I asked each of the boys how they felt about David moving in and got the same reaction from each, “Yeah, that’s fine.” David is a nice kid who does not inspire much passion, and that is probably a good thing, from my perspective. The only reason that he is difficult to place is that he is gay. Otherwise he is a pretty laid back kid who likes to hang with his friends. Of course he can be quite stubborn and I am certain that I will end up writing you more than one email when I am trying to deal with that. This past weekend he tells me that he had permission to go to his friend Michael’s. “Dora” (his current foster mom) was “supposed to” pick him up Sunday morning so that we could pick him up at her house for church. She did not though and then the stale mate began. “Dora” insisted that he find a ride home with one of his friends. He insisted that that was not possible as the last time one of them did the other boys at the house threw rocks at the car. So he was there until Monday evening when “Dora” finally called the police and reported him as a runaway. The police asked Michael’s mother to drive him home and she did immediately. I imagine she would have earlier if David asked. I suspect that there was a power struggle more than anything else. David had just decided that it was “Dora’s” job to get him and was not going to ask the people who would be willing to drive him.

David also thinks that it was absurd that she reported him as a runaway since she knew where he was and could have picked him up at any time. On the other hand, the legal definition of a runaway is just any minor who won’t come home. The law does not protect children who refuse to come home but keep their parents informed about where they are. It is an unusual form of runaway, but it is one of them.

Anyway, the social worker is checking into “Dora’s" version of the story. It may be that she gave him permission to go on the understanding that he would find his own way back. I suspect that things were going on in the house (she works full time and keeps 6 foster kids at a time) and could not leave. Asking David to find a ride home is not all that unreasonable and once the power struggle started… In any case, this appears to be David’s worst side…dig in and get stubborn. I can cope.

We told David that we would be happy to have him move in and he indicated that he would like to move in as soon as we get back from Maine. He will have to talk to Ruby about it, but I suspect he will be moving in the first week in August.

We leave for Maine on Tuesday. We are all very excited about it. We are going earlier this year so that we will have enough time when we come back to finish getting ready for school. I am going to take the current quilt-in-progress and do nothing but work on it and read Harry Potter to the kids.

I want to go now.

7/20/03

David is about to go Dora's and we are off to Maine very soon. The visit has gone really well, although he has been puppy-dogging me constantly, which gets on my nerves. I know that this will wear off over time, and it will be better when school starts. Perhaps he will even get a job when he gets back, which will be better still. Still, it is overwhelming. We went shopping yesterday to get Andrew and Brian new shirts. I felt like David and Brian were in a quiet competition to be closest to me. Hubby and Andrew seemed to want to figure out what David and Brian were so interested in. I felt like a mother duck. Every time I started walking they would string out behind me and when I stopped they would swarm me.

I find it odd as I read these. Was I really as emotionally cautious as I sound? Or was I trying to demonstrate to Mary that I was being smart and careful? I know she kept asking me if I was certain I wanted to take another kid after everything we had been through with Ann. What did Andrew think? How did he get alone with Brian? Was I sure?

David's Story Part 1: The Beginning
David's Story Part 7: Decisions and Details