changing the subject

Decided not to become a political blog, despite such astonishment at the narrow-mindedness of many of my fellow citizens. The one thing I am certain of, however, is that I will personally be more politically active in the future. The pendulum is swinging too far to the right, and I'm concerned about the consequences. What has to happen before the more reasonable of the "red" voters (I know you're out there) say, "oops" and decide we'd better put a stop to this madness. I know this last election did it for me.

Back to the title and changing the subject, Halloween was great fun - little K was a very cute CU cheerleader. She did go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, but got tired of it on the second street. This is the first year in a very long time we haven't been overloaded with candy. I'm grateful! I have a couple of really cute pictures, but one of the maddening constraints of foster parenting is that you cannot publish any pictures of the child. All those foster care posters you see? Not foster children. Cute kids on the websites? Maybe adopted former foster children, but definitely not foster kids. When the local newspaper did an article on foster parents, they came over to my house to take pictures of us. Little K had to be facing away from the camera. Bigger K was in the background playing with her. Turned out cute, but she's such a cutie, I'd sure love to be able to share that. When I put albums out on Webshots, I have to protect them and only let people see them by invitation. At her preschool, when they take pictures, they have to be careful to select pictures without her for publication. (They can post the ones with her in the classroom, though)

Other restrictions? We can't use the neighborhood kids as babysitters. To watch a foster child, you must be 18 and fingerprinted or licensed by the county/state for child care. Even Bigger K can't babysit because he's not 18 yet. DDD has been fingerprinted, and is our only respite. But wait - she's at college. oh well. Good thing we don't go out often.

Let's see - we can't travel out of the state without written permission from the court. They don't even want us to go to Tahoe without permission. Truthfully, that has never been a problem - as long as we give them a couple weeks notice, they've never botched our vacation plans yet.

We were hoping for a finalized adoption by the end of the year, but that looks most unlikely now. I think she may easily make it to her third birthday (Feb) as a foster child. While it makes me angry and frustrated sometimes, I know that there is no difference in her life now than there will be once all the paperwork is complete. It's just those little restrictions we live with.