Ann Story Part 39: The Daily Struggle Continues

3/19/03 (Tuesday)
to my friend

Things with Andrew and Ann are getting worse...or maybe they are just coming out in the open, which gives them an opportunity to work on it.

In any case Ruby is aiming for having an alternate placement ready for Ann after the school year ends. I have got Andrew committed to coping, with my help, for that long. Today there is a meeting at the agency to talk about Ann's placement and whatever the fallout will be over the fight between B & Ann last Monday. Ruby will call me around lunch time.

I don't know what this means for the future for us and fostering. Or I guess I do. We will ultimately do this again, but we will be more careful. “Hubby” pointed out last night that if we had just believed what had been reported in the file, we would have made different decisions. There was nothing that we learned about her that was not already documented. In fact, her behavior with us was much better than it was at home. Given what she did there, nothing she did here should have surprised us.

I think it is important (for Ann's sake) to remember that Brian does not have any problems with her at all. Her bursts of temper, sighing, groaning and rolling of eyes just roll off his back. I don't think that Ann's behavior is significantly outside the curve for nearly-13-year-old girls. But Ann and Andrew are both pubescent. The fight they had last night (with me and Roland trying to help them work it out) was interesting. It was all extreme: He ALWAYS, She NEVER...

I asked Andrew how he felt about foster care and doing it again. He and Roland are saying the same thing: if there is an older teenage gay kid who is nice to other kids then we should do it. The whole family has a lot of sympathy with the plight of gay youth in our red state. Basically they want another Carl.

But no rushing...we need to take a break.

I wish that we were not doing this to Ann. I don't want her to have to switch families again. But I keep hoping that the next family will be the right one. Roland and I would have been the right one, if we did not have other kids.
When I go away next week she will be going to respite in a town 70 miles away...and the location of the Air Force Base. Next week may be a very interesting time to be in a military town.

Later that day I wroter her again:

I just got an email from Ruby. She told me that at the meeting they decided that visitation with Mandy and Tom should be limited, but not yet. That is good from my perspective. I did not want to deal with the mood that that would put Ann in.
But things are complicated and messy. Ruby is again wanting not to tell me too much. My read of her silences though is that it is serious.

I still expect to travel next week, war and all. It is an issue for me though. If domestic terrorism becomes a real threat (real to me or my kids) I may stay home. It is a mom thing. It really is not that I would be afraid that I would be a victim of terrorism; it is that if things are happening that are seriously frightening my children then I will need to be where they are.

Part 40