And things got better

Today is the official "Oh my G-d I can't believe it's the last day to get ready for classes" day. It started with the one hour car pool run, shall be interrupted by a mid-day department meeting, and by a mid-afternoon intake meeting at The Learning Center where hopefully Frankie will be safe and learn much.

So there is not much time for blog writing or reading.

But I thought I would give you a quick summary of the events of last night.

Frankie, with lots of bravado, tried to convince Brian of the romance of living homeless --primary advantages seem to be not having to go to school and getting to eat whatever you want (i.e. whatever you find). This was followed by a dramatic telling of being taken away by the police from a yelling and screaming father, an exaggerated (as though the previous was not already exaggerated) account of his angry and violent response to being kidnapped by the government, an extremely exaggerated account of life in the treatment center (okay, not extremely, but I know they don't put bad kids in shackles and make them spend the days in quarries).

In short, Frankie was having fun telling Brian the adventure story of his life. I came in the middle of all this and pointed out to Frankie that he was frightening Brian. Frankie then ran to find all of his certificates for good behavior and other evidence of his reformed nature.

Brian's first thought was that we didn't tell him because it was all too horrible. We finally convinced him that we did not tell him because we were stupid, it wasn't as bad as Frankie was making it sound, and because we really and truly believed that Frankie was not a threat to his safety.

If Frankie were not so good at dramatic story telling -- voices, sound effects, vivid descriptions -- it would not have been so tough.

In the end though Brian seemed reassured and forgave us for our omission. Hubby pointed out the difficulty between protecting one kid's privacy and responding to another kid's right to know. Hubby also wanted to tell him that most of the kids we had had for respite had violent behaviors in their pasts, but I wasn't so sure that would make Brian feel more forgiving of us.

Anyway, all seems once again settled.

And if you are considering doing care and all ready have kids at home -- be forewarned.

All kids enjoy impressing and scaring other kids; and some kids have really excellent material to work with.