A Month in the Life

I promised that I would finish the story of the girls, so I'm going to do my best in the time I have left. There's really not much more to tell about Chloe and Taylor before they left the house, so I'll do this in photographs.















After the girls returned home, we continued to see them on Sundays. As a condition of keeping the girls, the mother had to keep her job. Thus, when she worked on Sundays, we were asked to watch them. It was, of course, tough to turn them over initially; however, it was even harder to watch them for a few hours, and then return them. This only continued for a few weeks. As the system is pretty lax, when the mother lost her job, she kept the kids.

I didn't see them again until July, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Since my mother is a nurse, family services asked her to take care of a high-maintenance child (all children are high-maintenance, but she more so than others) with juvenile diabetes. Natalie came home one evening and immediately took to my mother. There was a little tension at first (developing a routine), but she immediately began referring to her as "mommy." I didn't have much time to spend with her, because I was in the middle of final exams and papers in my final semester of graduate school.

In July, I was invited to the party of a little girl in the church who had become fast friends with Taylor. And my baby came! I was pretty sure she would come (hence my appearance at the party of a 7 year old girl), but I was surprised at how much she'd grown. I have no idea what her mother was feeding her, but it all got converted into baby fat.





I didn't see them for 5 months, but I was busy enough with Natalie to keep my mind off of them. Over this time period, I went to NABQT/NAYC, started a full-time job and "entered the ministry"--whatever that means. So I was busy, but I still missed my baby. In the meantime, Natalie became a real part of the family, not only calling my mother "mommy" but referring to me as "daddy" when I'm not around. Unfortunately, because of her situation, I'm going to refrain from posting any photos of her. While I'm not technically covered by the court order, I prefer to err on the side of her safety. Needless to say, Natalie is just as cute as the other two. She has a sob story, but again, I prefer not to tell it for her safety. (I've also left out many details of Taylor's story--for a six year old, she's had a pretty amazing life--no wonder she's out of control.)

But my baby returned on the 7th of December. Her mother had begun working again, and needed someone to watch her girls on the weekend. Who could she depend on? Us, of course. That was the weekend of the church Christmas Banquet, so I brought her along as my date.



The mother, like the state, quickly discovered that if she could get in once, she had us hooked. We ended up watching the girls for 8 consecutive weekends. As you can see from the fact that I hadn't shaved for the banquet, I was exhausted. Natalie and Taylor bicker like little girls, and Chloe started walking at 11 months, so she's into everything. While I will certainly be prepared for an infant wandering around the house and getting into everything when I have kids of my own, I was not ready for this, so even now, the only time I take my eyes off her during the whole weekend is when she's asleep in her crib. Like I said: exhausting.





Now what?
The state is working to terminate Natalie's parent's rights to her. The question that I have to contend with is: what do I do now? My mother is totally incapable of taking care of her on her own, and I'm not going to be living with her forever. The question I'm facing is: should I adopt her? I really don't know what to do, because if I do adopt her, I'll be saddled with all the responsibility of having a four year old. Paying for special care for her while I work, getting her medication, taking her to the doctor, going to little girls' birthday parties, trying to raise her right. But if I don't adopt her, who knows what kind of home she'll end up in. I'm really struggling with what I should do, but I feel a certain peace in knowing that God will work it out. He's brought the other two back into my life, so I have to trust him with everything.