Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the poop of my foster son...

I don't even know where to begin.  What. A. Week.  I mean, seriously...it's like each day got progressively worse until BLAMMO---it's wackadoo Friday where anything can happen...and anything DID happen!  Let's just start at the beginning....
Monday was a pretty normal day.  Big went to school and Little had an open house for Head Start which begins in THREE days...woot woot!  He's beyond excited and he will show anyone available his shiny new backpack.
Tuesday I had a training conference for foster care all stinkin day.  Thankfully, my dad came up and watch Little and Princess so that I could go.  I was really nervous about going because I was afraid I'd run into the foster parents who took care of Princess while we were transitioning a kid back to his birth mom and didn't have room for her at our home.  I don't think I shared this story with all of you, but these people are not fans of us...mostly me.  They really wanted to adopt her, and had gotten some bad information on the boys that led them to believe that she couldn't live with them anymore, and so when it came time to start transitioning her into our home, they were less than thrilled.  It got kind of ugly, with a lot of really horrible things being said about me and the boys, but thankfully I work for an agency that knows me and sticks up for me!  There's just a lot of hurt feelings there still, so I was really worried.  And wouldn't you just stinkin know it, but I was scrambling to find a seat in my first class and was just sliding into a chair as the instructor started talking, and wound up sitting right smack next to them.  Awkward!!!  It was a pretty tense couple of hours, but I was nice and tried chatting with them.  And there was a bonus about two minutes into the class when a friendly face popped out from the other side of the foster mom...at least I got to know that someone in the room liked me!  The foster dad wound up being in the rest of my classes that day.  Needless to say, we didn't sit by each other after that.  Later, I got to take my dad up to the agency with me while I dropped off Big to see his dad and my dad got to meet Big's dad.  It was a little weird, but nice that my dad got to get a taste of what life is like for me. 
Wednesday I got a call from the agency about half an hour before Big's visit saying that his mom was in the office and that I had to bring Big around the back when I dropped him off.  Because of an order from the judge from a few months ago, they're not allowed to have any contact right now.  I was thankful for the call, becasue a couple of weeks ago I wound up running into her in the parking lot and having a lovely chat with her while Big stayed in the car, but it was sad at the same time because I have to keep my kid away from his mom in order to protect him.  It's abnormal, for sure.  And no matter how I try to explain it, it's always going to come out in a way that hurts him and makes him sad.
Thursday was hard.  Big had the most physically aggressive outburst I've ever seen from him and he took it out on me, but mostly on Little.  It was awful, and scary, and wild...and somehow my keys wound up under the passenger seat and it took me forever to find them!  After he'd calmed down a bit and snoozed in the car (We were out in Grand Ledge when all this happened.  If you saw me in the parking lot of Meijer, I hope you weren't too embarrassed to admit you knew me.), he told me that he was upset because he hasn't seen his mom in so long and he misses her.  Ugh.  How do I always forget that they are in the middle of breaking a bond that God created?  How do I always look past the fact that, at least for the older two, they have got to be so confused by what is going on right now?  The poor kid was just sobbing, too.  So, we got home and after dinner they drew some pictures for their mom and that seemed to help them.  Big was up half the night though with a stomach ache from all the crying.  He's only six and he's seen more and dealt with more than I have in all my twenty-eight years of life.  There's something not right about that.
Well, let's move it to today.  Friday.  Mystery meat Friday.  I think I've mentioned to you before that Little has a knack for pooping his pants and hiding it in interesting places?  Have I also mentioned to you that there is a hole in the wall of their room from them slamming the door open so much and that I even patched it once but they've popped the patch through the wall so I've vowed not to fix it again until the destruction phase is over?  Well, put two and two together, and figure out where Little told Chad he hid the poop today.  Yup, that's right, in the wall.  I called our caseworker.  I was like, "Look...he's coming to stay with you for a few days, okay?"  Seriously, IN THE WALL?!  So, after my mom and my sister convinced me that I couldn't leave the poop there (I wasn't really going to...I just was hoping that maybe I was overreacting just this once.), we arranged with Chad's brother to patch the hole up on Monday for us and then Chad proceeded to cut into the wall and make the once small hole, huge.  I was fixing dinner when I heard him yell for Little and so I assumed that he'd located the scud and was calling the kid in for removal.  But, no.  Instead, I heard Chad asking where the poop really was.  That's right, there was no poop in the wall.  There were a million little toys, and the Vick's vapor rub that we've been looking for, but no poop.  Little smiled and climbed under his bed and pulled out a wadded up pair of poop filled underwear.  I picked him up and sat him on his dresser for a bit while I vacuumed the drywall dust from the carpet.  It helped.
Tomorrow we pick up the pack and play from Chad's mom's house for Little to sleep in for a few nights (her idea, and a good one!).  Chad's brother is still coming over Monday to fix the unnecessary hole in the wall.  I wonder what the rest of the weekend will bring...but for now, ice cream :)