Dec 23 Almost Christmas

It's almost Christmas, and I love Christmas! I know what you're going to say, everyone loves Christmas. And with the exception of a brother-in-law, and an uncle you may be right, but this year especially I need Christmas. I need to be surrounded with friends and family, I need the traditions and special time. No matter who you are with, or what you are doing the rest of life is put in a box and we are close, happy, grateful and blissfully turn a blind eye to the ugliness in ourselves and others. I am looking forward to the drive away from our house that I don't feel safe in anymore. Looking forward to pulling into the property my parents live on, with the BIG gate. I'm looking forward to not listening for the bump in the night. To no cell service! The list goes on and on. But that being said let me tell you about our day.
I got everyone up and dressed, brought breakfast bars with uys in the car and headed to visit. As we pulled into the back parking lot my phone rings, it's the GAL (guardian ad lidum), she says, "Just wanted to be sure we were still on for this weekend with the Christmas visit." :-} This its me wracking my brain...Christmas, Christmas, what is she talking about??? So I say, "R what are you talking about?" "Ohhhhhhh, don't tell me this is the first you are hearing about this." Let me cut to the chase here and tell you that they had been discussing this with the grandma and parents for a month, the grandma told them that she had talked to me about it and we were fine with it. The plan was that they would come for the children at 8am, and return them christmas night at 9pm. I made it clear that no-one had talked to me about it, that we were leaving town in the morning and that making plans with the grandma for our Christmas was a terrible idea! As you can imagine this sets off a whirlwind of calls. Our social worker was out of town so her supervisor came out to let me know in no un certain terms, we signed up for foster parenting and that effectively they can tell us when and where to celebrate. My response? "Come and get the kids then." I was a little upset. Fourteen calls and 6 hours later they decide that since the grandmother wasn't honest about the making of plans and no-one had bothered to make sure we were on board that we could still have our Christmas as planed and that they would break the news to the bio family. After we got home our home supervisor came over with some gifts for the kids. When I went to the door to let her in I saw a Sheriff's car driving by... Did I mention I'm on high alert around here? Anyway, our HS and I are friends so we were chatting about her sisters wedding and our trip when I see the sheriff making another pass in front if the house. I poke my head out and wave to him, that's how we are out here in the sticks. ;-) He turns into the dive way and I call for our HS. He's friendly but uncomfortable. He apologizes and says, "I know this is going to sound strange, and I hate to do this while you have company... But, I just received a call from an elderly woman. She says that two weeks ago she witnessed a blonde woman smothering a child outside of walmart and she gave me your license plate number. I asked her why she waited two weeks to call, but she was strange, maybe alzheimers or dementia." Our HS and I look at other and I explain the situation to him. He was so nice and assured me that he felt the children were in no danger etc. When I came back into the house our HS was shaken up. She said, "I've helped other families through this process, I've taken reports about the police being involved, but I've never actually been there for something like this. I think I'll just wait here with you until David gets home."
We are going home to my parents, our HS told us not to tell her where we were going so it didn't go down on any reports, so for the next 3 days we are going to enjoy our anonymity.
Merry Christmas!