Insanity Abounds...An Update

Some of you may be wondering, "Robin, where in the HELL have you been?!"




Well, the short answer is, Going INSANE. A week ago yesterday, I had four foster children dropped on me. The oldest two are the 11yo Demon Spawn and his 8yo Young Apprentice I've told you about before. The youngest are their younger brothers, ages 11 months and just turned 2. Yes, you read that right -- an infant, a toddler still in diapers, a compulsive liar, and a special needs child with Asperger Syndrome and Oppositional Defiant Disorder.



Hence, the going insane part.



This was not an altogether unexpected development -- Mr Robin and I have known for years that we'd wind up with custody of our foster daughter's eldest two children sooner or later. What we didn't know was that she'd pop out three more in the span of 2 years. (Yes, she had another a couple of days before the kids were removed from her home. He went to a different foster family.) When foster daughter dropped the bomb on us last Thursday and asked us to take all 5 kids, we told her we'd take the oldest two but the babies would have to go to another home. As it turned out, the hospital wouldn't release the newborn. But since it was Easter weekend and the toddlers would have to go to the crisis nursery until a home could be found for them, we agreed to take them temporarily.



It's been a rough transition, going from 3 angelic children to 7 mostly not angelic children. There were the requisite physicals that come with children going into foster care -- well-child checks, dental checkups, and eye exams. I'm still not done with all of that. One child has 4 cavities, 2 of which need crowns. One needs braces and a growth removed from his back. The youngest two had no immunizations, so I had to get those started. Some days I felt like I met myself coming and going. My whole life was: up at 6:20, get everyone out the door (the eldest foster child goes to a special needs school 30 miles away) and then mind two toddlers all day by myself until I had to pack them up and go pick up all the kids. And the babies wouldn't sleep for anyone but Mr Robin (who spends more time at foster daughter's home) so I'd have to wait until he came in for lunch to get them down for a nap. And usually they were tired and crabby LONG before he got home so I got to listen to an hour or two of screaming. And in between all that, I was doing dishes and running the washer and dryer almost non-stop. My poor eczema/psoriasis-ridden hands are totally trashed from all the diaper-changing and subsequent hand-washing. Oh, and foster daughter and her BF (the father of the youngest two kids) have been over almost every evening for visits with the kids, which only added to the tension.



Of course all this happened right at planting time -- it couldn't happen in the middle of winter when Mr Robin did nothing but stare at his computer all day.



Needless to say, I've been a woman on the edge. I had to cancel my trip to Chicago for the RT convention *sob* and I haven't had a free minute to write, much less check email or promo or anything else to do with my profession. What makes it really frustrating is that I was SO CLOSE to finishing AmO -- the night before the bomb dropped, I'd pulled an all-nighter and I'd intended to keep working on it all day until it was done. I was still hard at it, dressed in my clothes from the day before, when the phone rang. God, if only I'd ignored it!Instead, I wound up getting all those kids that evening. Yeah, it wasn't pretty. I was a mess for days afterward.



But yesterday, we got confirmation that the kids will all have to be placed long-term, at least six months. DHS still hasn't found a family that will take both toddlers, but the family who took the newborn agreed to take the youngest toddler, so we packed him up and sent him over there yesterday afternoon. It was SO HARD! He's truly adorable, and as much as I didn't want to, I love him to pieces. I cried myself sick when they took him. (It should go without saying that I've been doing a lot of crying over the last eight days.) But Mr Robin and I are just too old and tired to handle so many small children, and we both have too much to do and I have too many other kids to take care of.



So last night we got the 2yo to bed at 10 p.m. and afterward, we lay in our bed talking. The evening had been so different from the previous seven! Mr Robin said it was like being on I-80, where you have to go 75-80 or get run over, and then suddenly getting off onto the 2-lane highway, where the speed limit is only 60. Suddenly we had time to breathe. And think. And read the paper. (And have sex, whee!) I never imagined I'd see the day when I'd be RELIEVED to have just the Demon Spawn, his Young Apprentice, and ME! (aka the toddler) in my care. Suddenly six kids seems totally manageable, and a single 2yo during the day is a breeze. We're looking for daycare for ME! since DHS will pay for it (hell, I'd be looking even if DHS didn't pay for it), but he needs to be caught up on his immunizations first.



This morning, I got up and made breakfast. Made coffee, even. It's amazing how much of my life I took for granted before. Just having time to make coffee and eat breakfast myself was a luxury. And here I am on my computer for the first time, going through piles of email and trying to catch up while the 2yo naps on the couch.



I've gotten several emails in the last few days asking when AmO would be out. The short answer is, I'm not sure but it will be as soon as possible. Now that I have time, I'm going to get in there and get it done, hopefully this week if all remains as calm as it is now. And if I can't get a publisher to rush it out this summer, I'll just publish it myself. It's really nice having that option available, you know?



So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. If you're waiting on an email from me, please be patient while I get caught up.



Thank you, my dear friends and fans, for sticking with me.



Robin



ETA: Even as I post this, ME! is having the biggest temper tantrum I've ever seen in the middle of the floor because Mr Robin won't get up and get him his blankie, which is only 2 feet away on the couch. We're both finally rested enough to laugh about it.