Gathering history

What a gift having State Preschool available for Thing 1 was for our sanity. He would go to school from 12:30 to 3:30 each day, get some much needed academic and social teaching, and James would get some much needed respite from having near-constant power struggles and tantrums. One of the things that the preschool insisted on was that he not wear pull-ups to school. When they came to us, that was all he wore, and he would go to the bathroom only if he felt like it or if we made him. He also only pooped at night in the pull-up. That was another source of complete meltdown--if we insisted he poop on the potty, or merely suggested it sometimes, he would freak right the hell out.

We were going through underwear pretty frequently at home, but most days at school he did okay. He had to use his emergency change of clothes now and then. I asked his teacher if he has the same outbursts at school as he did at home. She was surprised--she had never seen him do that. She suggested that he may be able to keep it together in one element of his life so he chose school and then let loose at home.

We were slowly gathering a better picture of their life before us. They were with their former foster parents through the FFA for about 2 weeks. These people, I believe, are a major source of a lot of the bathroom issues. Thing 1 would just freak out about poop--his own, his brother's, any he saw outside. If we were cleaning him up, he would apologize profusely. It got to wear we figured he was made to feel ashamed about it, We would just reassure him that poop is no big deal, we can clean it up, and if it gets on our hands, oh well, we can wash them. Our mantra became everyone poops, even mommy, daddy, and the president of the USA. I was so hurt and angry for him though, that he was made to feel that way.

Before that family, they were with "Aunty" whom we could not figure out if she was biologically related or if that was just a title. They were with her for a fairly long time, maybe 9 months or a year. When she lost custody of them is was traumatic, with the kids being removed abruptly at night with little more than the clothes they were wearing. When their adoption social worker first visited our house, Thing 1 got agitated, then finally walked up to me, got really close to my face and asked "Where are we sleeping tonight?" We found out that when they were removed, she was the one who took them into custody.

We learned that Thing 2's birth father was incarcerated, in some sort of work camp at the moment, and that birth mom had recently married to the father of her infant daughter.

Keep in mind that none of this information came from the FFA. They claimed to know nothing about them. Each bit of information came to us through conversations with their county social workers, Thing 1's counselor, and through piecing together what the Thing 1 would tell us.

One thing that the counselor told us that ran chills down my spine--Thing 1 is a high level placement and if a permanency plan wasn't found for him, his next stop would be a group home and they would be separated.