My son has been in foster care for five months now. Why? Because of his behavior. What caused this behavior? Well, in a nutshell, he didn’t like our rules. We had, and have, very basic rules: keep your room clean, do your laundry, study and get good grades, help out around the house when needed, and be respectful.

He didn’t like those. He thought we were too controlling.

Of course, there’s more, much of which has been documented here; suffice it to say, DFS doesn’t remove kids because they complain, it’s more to do with how they complain.

At any rate, he’s been gone for a while and, while we’ve had visits, phone conversations, chatting sessions, and so forth, it’s naturally not the same.

Here are a few interesting things I’ve noted along the way:

As you probably know, dentists recommend a checkup every six months; it used to be every twelve months, but I digress…that’s a whole other topic. My son insisted he hadn’t seen a dentist in years and years and (thought that was eventually confirmed to be untrue) DFS considered it a prime directive in his ongoing care.

However, they couldn’t “find” a dentist who accepted Medicaid. Even though we carry dental insurance. On him. Five months after they started griping about this, my son tells me, “Just make me an appointment, Mom, but don’t tell my caseworker.”

So I did. Well, I made the appointment, but I also told the caseworker. I practically dared her to say “no”. She “guessed” that would be okay. Really. What would she tell the judge? “Your Honor, we never took him to the dentist, but his mom made and appointment and I told her no”?

At our last “team” meeting, it was determined that my son’s foster mom and I could make arrangements for visits, since we’d had two unsupervised ones that had gone well. Frankly, I haven’t spoken to the foster mom since that meeting. Everything goes through my son. Weird, huh? At least we don’t have to have them “scheduled in advance, and approved”.

He did finally get registered for college, and he planned his schedule well – just two days on campus. So far, I, Mom, have been picking him up afterwards and taking him to his foster mom’s office. Oh, but he doesn’t have his books yet. He was taken in time to register AND order books, but his caseworker assures me they are being shipped. Sometime. To her. Whatever. Heck of a hard way to start college, especially at 16.

Apparently, too, someone told him to use his foster parents’ address when registering; that puts him out-of-district, where fees are slightly higher, and now he has to mess around with fixing all that.

Last Friday, he rode with me to pick up our younger son and treated him to ice cream. The week before he showed up to have breakfast with his grandmother, and again a couple days later for a barbeque with his sister.

I’m kinda wondering why he’s still in foster care.

P.S. – I’m happy to report that his books have finally arrived, although he doesn’t have them yet. And he took care of the address glitch.

Today, I picked him again and we went grocery shopping, and now he’s off with his dad. Very strange, all around, don’t you think?

Yawn. It’s not so tough getting up at 6:30 a.m., but it is hard to get moving by 8:15. What a bum I turned into over the summer! It’s not that I just sit here, like a slug, drinking coffee while still in my robe; I actually do a little housework, and write, and plan my day. I just don’t look very presentable, one of the perks of working at home.

We so look forward to summer, fun in the sun and all that – and a noticeable lack of running hither and yon. But, truthfully, after a couple months or so, it’s nice to get back into more of a routine. Guess that’s why it’s called summer “vacation”.

I am, however, becoming utterly swamped this week. I had my husband so freaked out, anticipating the coming week, that he called me on his way home from work trying to figure out what was going on that night. He kept asking for hints, but I was being a big, ole meany-head and wouldn’t give him any. He even called our youngest and asked him – who, predictably, informed his dad that he was supposed to take us to McDonald’s that night.

To be honest, we had nothing going on. It was the only night that was free. Seriously, though – am I his mother that I should remind him of everything? If I have to keep track of it all, he ought to be able to remember a couple things, right?

He’s doing better, but he still won’t check the calendar….

So we started off with a bang: school, cross-country practice, confirmation; the oldest started college which, fortunately, is only two days a week – he did a great job with his schedule. This was just the first week or so…now we’re getting into dentist appointments, physicals and, of course, orthodontist visits. Sigh.

At least there aren’t any upcoming court dates.