We've entered the night terrors portion of our program.

Three of the last five nights, Huck has screamed in his sleep for up to two hours. It usually happens around 4 AM, one of the times he usually comes to check on us (Since there were times he was left alone for long stretches of time, or he woke up and no one was home, Huck does bedchecks on me and The Hub two or three times a night - sometimes goes back to his own bed, sometimes crawls in with us, sometimes lays on the floor on Hub's side of the bed). We've got calls in to the ped, to our SW, my mom and friend have been phoned. We think they're night terrors, but we aren't really sure, of course, cause the symptoms are uncontrolled screaming and sobbing, not being comforted, repetitive hand flapping, scratching of the face, and eyes rolling back in his head.

He's soooo Linda Blair. Sometimes, I expect projectile vomit and festering wounds.

So, yes, we add Linda Blair to his list of bad-mood impressions. We also have the "I'm going to cut you!" Foxy Brown, the phone-throwing Russel Crowe/Naomi Campbell schtick, and enough daredevil-mixed-with-disregard-for-his-own-safety for him to fill in for any of the Jackass boys.

As far as triggers go, they could be anything. School, Hub being out of town overnight, there's not enough of a pattern yet, I don't think. We'll figure it out, or they will pass, and in the meantime I've purchased earplugs for myself, as these three nights have shown me that NOTHING I do will quell them. With the earplugs, at least I'll be able to lay next to him and rub his back without the accompanying migraine.

I did want to tell y'all that we do have Huckle in play therapy, but it has been halted for a week or so due to a snafu in the paperwork extravaganza that comes with each treatment change. Right now, Huck is considered a None/None/None/None (if you know what that means), which is how all kids come into the system, so we've got some hoops to jump, gotta spend some time sitting up and begging, to get more than the basic services. Compared to what I've read from people in other states, we've actually got a (seemingly) easier job of gaining access to services, but it will take a little more time. One of the big problems we're having is that we took him to the therapist that his SW told us he'd been seeing for about a year. Well, he'd been there once for fifteen minutes - this therapist worked with his mom while she was trying to get him back, and once he was reunited, she brought him in once to introduce him, and then the therapist never saw either of them again. So, scratch that preexisting relationship. It took her ten minutes to even remember Huck when we tried to book the appointment as existing clients.

(Small disclaimer: For the most part, we are laid back regarding our expectations from CPS. We know that phone calls take a long time to be returned, we know people can't always be on time to appointments, we didn't even mind too much that we didn't know Huck's new (since December) caseworker's name until two weeks ago, despite thirteen messages left to the department over three months. When social workers visit, I cook food and pack bag lunches for them to stick in the office fridge in case they need em. Don't get me wrong, if there's an emergency, I'll expect attention Right Then, but usually, we're good enough as is. With all that said...)

I am so pissed at Huck's former caseworker. Remember that phone call the night before Huck moved in with us? The one where we got a long list of questions answered? Either she was looking at the wrong casefile or she lied. Now, as much as some of the things suck, they wouldn't have been dealbreakers, and if she'd told us, we would have been able to take care of things from the beginning, instead of muddling our way through and then having a lightbulb go off over our heads nearly four months in. I know I'm not sharing specifics, sorry, and the specifics aren't really that important. I'm mad mostly because we had a long list of questions, we wanted as much information about him as we could get, we made decisions based on her answers, and we may as well have been asking a Magic 8 Ball. Y'all already know that she told us he wasn't born with drugs in his system, that at first we thought he'd been out of his mother's custody for a year, when in fact it had been a week -- those aren't even the things I'm talking about now, just examples of things that changed on us after a week of visitation way back when.

Overall, Huck is truly freaking fantastic, when he's not hitting me or telling me I'm not the mommy he wants, or when he's hiding macaroni and cheese under his bed (have I even touched on the food issues ever? I can't recall. Suffice it to say, there was not a steady supply. Enough meth to leave out all over the house, though.). In a half hour of puzzle-play, he learned to recognize numbers 0-9. We're working on vowel sounds. He insists on calling a trapezoid a square just because I corrected him once, but whatever.

And sweet, he just fell asleep sitting up in his folding chair.

This parenting thing is pretty cool when it doesn't totally suck.

We've been busy the last month.

Between The Hub leaving for his second week long business trip and all the sturm und drang that went with it, my sister's wedding the next week, in-home visits on 5 consecutive days from people involved in Huckle's case, Hubs beginning the transition from work-at-work to work-at-home, pneumonia for me... well, we were basically screwed.

Now, I adore Huckle. He isn't going anywhere.

But in the last few weeks, I've just about had enough.

A bad day around here is when I can't take a step toward him without him screaming, when the only time he looks at me is when he's hungry, when I kiss him goodnight and he punches me in the mouth, when he sings, "I hate Mommy, I hate Mommy," over and over, when he puts pillows over my face while I sleep at night, when he tells me that Daddy loves him, not Mommy, and there's more, I'm just done listing things now.

On good days, he accepts a majority of hugs or kisses, we have nice chats about types of birds and trains and trucks, we play playdoh and put stickers on papers, we work on flashcards, we dance to James Brown (oh, can this kid dance! He tore up the stage at my sister's wedding), we take the dogs for walks and he rides his trike, and he snuggles with me under a quilt while we watch Wonder Pets together.

Now, I know that three months isn't long in a Grand Scheme sort of way, and yes, I know it isn't really me he's mad at, and yes, I know things will improve. I get it.

No amount of understanding makes it any easier to take, though. After one of the bad days, when I'm crying myself to sleep, the whole concept of transference can get fucked.

It isn't Huck's fault. It isn't my fault. All at once, no one is responsible for what has happened to him, and everyone is. How far back in his family would we have to go to find proper parenting models, or good decision making when it comes to partners, sobriety, or financial security? How long ago should the state have decided that Huck's mom wouldn't be coming back whole anytime soon? Or should she have been given another chance? Is it good that he bonded so closely with his first foster family, only to be reunited with his mother, then removed again, bounced between 4 homes in two weeks, with us as number four? What if his social worker hadn't avoided certain questions we had and omitted information -- would we have been able to take some sorts of action when we first brought him home, or would we have passed on the chance to parent him?

Even though things are bad sometimes, I cannot stress enough that he is So Much Better than he was when we first met him. Not just physically, not just developmentally, but even emotionally. Yes, he's acting out a lot more, and yes, it is very hard to deal with, but for now I will take that over the shell shocked, pale, listless little boy who called every color green.

We are making it. We're rough around the edges, quite haggard, in fact, and there's so much more pinging around my brain that I don't even know how to get out succinctly, but I suppose this will have to do.

We're here, we're fine, sorry for the unannounced disappearance.

I'll be back shortly.

Just too much IRL discussion and analysis and worry over Huck and related matters to feel like rehashing it here.

We three are all home, all together again for the fourth day in a row thanks to the freezingest, frostiest days of the season. Our region shuts down when sleet or snow roll into town, and as we speak there's a thick layer of ice covering everything. The forecast is even worse for tomorrow, and all I can say is yay for me hauling my cookies to two different Wa1marts last night in search of the World of Warcraft expansion pack that was released at midnight, or else we all might go cabin-fevery, but with it we are happy to snuggle under blankies and simmer soup and chat on ventrilo with our pals and let Huckle watch the same three episodes of Wonderpets and Dora whenever he asks.

Things are much better with The Hub back home for a bit. He'll be leaving again soon, and I'm sure by 4 days in I'll be a mess again, but I think that is okay. I'm adjusting, Huckle's adjusting, we're all just trying to figure out what happens next... But I'll tell you what, Huck's smarter, funnier, cuter, and more adorable after I take a long nap or spend a good chunk of the day being un-Mommy.

I can't be sure, but I think Huckle must've read a book on torture techniques used in prison camps or some such. Bless his heart, he's hitting each. and. every. nerve.

I'm reminding myself that this is all because he feels as though he's been abandoned again, that there's no way for him to be sure that Daddy will, in fact, return. He's freaked, his anxiety level is at about 572% of normal (and normally, he's so hypervigilant and wound up that he's vibrating -- ever given a ferret a triple espresso? Neither have I, but that's how I imagine it). As craptastic as I feel, he's got it a lot worse.

I have no clue how I'll get through the next two weeks with only a brief Daddy respite. My mom and sister are in the home stretch of 300-guest-wedding prep, my dad has a new client and can't be left alone with him anyhow (arm stuff, thanks attic ladder!), and all I want right now is to not hear my name repeated thirty times a minute, to not be woken up once an hour each night, to not be touched constantly, anda anda anda.

I do my best. I don't yell (except when something scary happens, like he takes off running with a fork in his mouth), I'm praising whenever possible, but there are only so many times in a day I can go from playdoh to puzzle to book to castle to horsey to bacon to waffles to pancakes to Dora to donthitthedoggy and back to playdoh, ad infinitum. I tried the park, but it was a failure. I wasn't able to get Daddy on the phone at all today -- oh how I paid for that. Huck was up from 2 AM to 8 AM, so I kept him home from preschool with the hope that he'd finally sleep, but not so much.

Above everything else, it is just so mentally draining to parent a child that both rejects you and clings to you. I know why he does it, I've seen improvements, we were moving forward, and we'll continue to move forward again, I don't blame him at all, but it is exhausting.

We've passed the 30 day period where an appeal to TPR could have been made. Woot.

I'd successfully avoided the greasy, toned, stuffed creature that is the male stripper for nearly 28 years. "You're going to The Slimy Sausage? *cough cough* I think I'm coming down with something," has served me well. My own bachelorette party may have included these beasts, but it was cancelled because I had pneumonia the week before my wedding and checked out of the hospital and went straight to the airport, then back into the hospital in Vegas to have a bunch of stitches put in my shoulder because of a Chicken Little carryon bag, and between all the IVs and antibiotics and oxygen tanks, well, greasy herpetic men bending me over a chair and "air thrusting" not so much on the menu. Anyhow, off track here, but I'm maid (matron sounds like I own thirty-seven cats, and yes, there is something wrong with that) of honor for my sister's wedding next month and even though I should have been the one planning the bachelorette party, some of her friends who didn't bring home a three year old 7 weeks ago handled it, and yes, there was a greasy stuffed stripper.

Just. Ick.

Aside from that blechyness, just sewing/order filling/crocheting /childrearing/ dogwrangling /chauffeuring. The Hub is gone, I'm all alone, today was the first full day by myself, and you know, Huck is the most adorable, charming child between 8 am and 1 pm. By 3 I'm checking for horns, and at 7 I gave myself a time out. Naptime not always an option, as he goes back to school tomorrow, and naptime pushes bedtime back to 10 pm. I had his kiester in bed and asleep after only 10 verses of "Goodnight Huckle" at 8:10, and by 9 the kitchen was cleanish, breakfast and bag lunch made, three loads of laundry in the works, and I still can't believe he ate six waffles for dinner.

Very. Sleepy.

And since when does the introduction, "This is my sister, she's a mommy!" translate to, " This is my sister! She'd just love to go back to your hotel room for random sex with you, stranger! And her tits are real!" I was far too felt up at the nightclub. Too old for sports agents at coaching conventions. And far too old for the Army boys with prosthetic limbs staying in the hotel room next door who decide to knock on our door pantsless and... at attention.

And people wonder why I like to stay home. When you've been a freak magnet for 20-odd years, you learn.

I came across this link at Blogging Baby last night. Does anyone else find this exercise in creative writing to be, well, demeaning and upsetting, especially when it is published on a legal site? Kind of like a Coldplay song (by that I mean something devoid of any real emotion or experience, kind of like someone woke up one day and said, "I wonder what it would be like to be sad. Maybe I'll write a song about what it might be like to be sad.")? Anyhow, the guy at BB considered this to be "really strong stuff," only further cementing my idea that he's a tool.

Just another morning around here.

I've been told I'm a monster, I've been sung "You Are My Sunshine," I've been kicked in the head (again! you'd think I'd learn not to crouch down) and I also deflected a tongue kiss in there somewhere -- or just a poorly aimed lick. (and omg yuck, I caught Huckle letting the dog lick his tongue. almost threw up.)

So far, not too bad. A little too much puppy smushing, but I'm keeping Huck in his penguin pajamas, so at least he looks cute while he's cracking skulls. The cable guy is 3 hours late, and I just don't think The Hub thought ahead when he rented Jackass 2 last night and nothing else. My boy needs his Wonderpets.

PS: I know I'm behind on invites to Spotted Dog Three, but for whatever reason, blogger won't let me get into it. So, um, till that kink works itself out, we'll just hang over here. I'm not ignoring anyone, just stymied.

The Worry

A few weeks ago, Process wondered about the future adoptive parents of a little girl with a family history of mental illness.

Huckle doesn't have a documented family history of mental illness. But he was born with meth, pot, and alcohol in his system. Every day I worry. I can't even ask myself if we would have said yes to him if we'd known the circumstances of his birth and of the first 18 months of his life before we met him, if it hadn't all been omitted until a week of visitation had been completed and we were sitting at the kitchen table with two social workers filling out placement documents, until after he'd started calling us mommy and daddy. We knew about the danger his family posed, we knew a lot about the situation, but that had been glossed over. Am I upset about that?

The answer is that I don't know, I suppose, but he's here, he's not leaving, and so I worry. I trace the divot above his lip with my finger, try to convince myself that its existance helps to rule out FASD. I ignore the droopy eyelid, Dr. Google doesn't help anyhow. I worry that his impulsiveness, his anger isn't just three-year old behavior, but an early indication of larger problems. Why can't he recognize an A as an A yet? We've been working on it. The only time he wants me is when someone else has me or when he's woken from a nap, any other time he rejects me -- he's bonding, but will he attach? The Time-Ins are