Another Social Services Investigation.

Another visit between Mau Mau and birthmother, another investigation of the foster home! Mau Mau showed up with a bruise on her cheek (which she has had for several days), and since we are a foster home, we should expect an unannounced visit from Social Services at any moment. The rule is a good one. We have no idea how Mau got the bruise. There are two likely possibilities. One is that she fell, as she does many times each day, being a toddler who doesn't have a real steady stance many times. The other is that she may have been hit by Linebacker Dude, while he was trying to take something from her, as he does with all of his siblings, especially when we, the parents, are not looking. It happened again just as I was typing this!

This will be the third time in four and one-half years in which we have been investigated. The first time was when we discovered a six-year-old foster child molesting her three-year-old sister and our own son, who was four at the time. We filed a report because we wanted to get the kind of counseing each one needed. The caseworker called us on her cell phone on the way to our house and warned us that if she did not like what she saw, she would "shut us down!" Her findings? "Unfounded!" Meaning that she did not find that we were neglectful. Meanwhile, the little girls never got the counseling they needed. The six-year-old did get "counseling" from a graduate student who had only one goal, it appeared, and that was to get the little girl to like her! How many people do you think she will molest in her lifetime? Oh, I forgot, females don't molest, do they? Only males. Or at least that is what a look at prison statistics would tell you. My personal experience, though, is that female molestation is as common as male molestation, but our society looks at it differently.

The second time we were investigated was recently. I wrote about it in a recent blog post. The toddler was refusing to allow birthmother to change her diapers during supervised visits, so birthmother imagined that Mau surely must be molested in our home, where she readily allows me or Colleen to change her diaper. Foster homes are at the bottom of the system's totem pole, along with the kids who are placed with us. Termination of parental rights is scheduled for September 26, and it could not come a moment too soon, as far as we are concerned. Mau has been with us since the first week of June, 2006. We first got her after her birthmother broke her leg in February, 2006.