Well, things are moving along toward G going home to live with his dad. I'm still somewhat undecided about it. I'm not crazy about G's dad. He has said that he was not the one who hurt G, and I believe him, but that still doesn't make me very confident in his parenting skills. He cares a lot for G and I know he wants to be a part of his life. I wonder sometimes if he knows what it's going to take to be a full time dad. For the last year, we have been taking care of G and his dad has spent a few hours a week with him. There is a big difference between playing with your son for a couple hours at a time and taking care of your son 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
A little more than a month ago, visits with G and his dad went from 6 hours a week to 16, then to 32 (over 4 days). We saw an almost immediate change in G's behavior. He started crying a lot, throwing major tempor tantrums, throwing things, and hitting himself and others. I was pretty concerned about it. His change in behavior was obviously related to his increase in visits, but I couldn't be sure exactly why. Of course my worry was that someone was mistreating G during these visits. But also, it could have just been all the changes in his schedule and his only way to deal with it was to act out. G is now almost 18 months old. He's at an age where he knows quite a bit about what is going on around him, but we still aren't really able to explain all this to him yet.
Luckily, I think all the acting out was mostly G's way of adjusting to all the changes happening around him because he has been acting more like himself the last week or so. Not only more visits, but being in a different household during those visits was hard for him. Any two households are going to be different, but I have a feeling that our household and G's dad's are especially different. Just a few examples---- at his dad's house, everyone smokes, and they seem to smoke a lot. When G first starting being over here, his eyes would be all red and swollen the next day. And twice, I have poured pop out of a sippy cup that was sent back with G, I hate when people put pop in a baby's cup! I don't think anyone took nap time very seriously during the visits. This little guy still needs a couple hour nap every day, the 20 or 30 minutes he was getting on the way back to our house just wasn't cutting it. Being so tired had to be contributing to all the grumpiness.
I have given a lot of reasons why I'm uneasy about G leaving. But a part of me is ok with it too. We have had G with us for a year, which is a long time, but we have known from the start that G was with us as a foster placement. We are very attached to him, and love him so much, but everyday I have told myself that he could be leaving. I think keeping that fact in the back of my mind all the time has helped me accept G leaving our family. Also, I want what is best for him. His dad loves him and wants him. If he will take care of him and keep him safe, that's where he should be. We know that any kids we adopt will want to know about their biological family some day. And, they will want to know why they can't be with their "real" family. When we have that conversation with our son or daughter, I want to be able to say with all honesty that they are in the best place for them, not that they are in our family because I was selfish and didn't want to deal with the pain and stress of them leaving.
So, G is acting better, his dad continues to say he wants to have him more and more until he has him full time, and no big hiccups have happened in the process. There is a family team meeting tomorrow to discuss a regular schedule for overnight visits. So, here goes the next step of this process.