Well, it has happened.

We’ve got Rick. (Links to past posts about Rick are below)

He’s doing pretty good. About every hour he says he misses his Mom, and fusses and cries, but well, I’d expect that. Rick is five, and has been in foster care before with us. We thought he'd be adoptable. Everyone said so, except the judge. He went home three years ago, but has been back with us again and again during tough times.

It must be scarey for him. We went to K’s music class this morning and he announced to everyone that he is staying with us because his mom is in jail. Strange looks from the moms, all around. Not everyone understands foster and foster-adopt.

That’s ok. They only need to know that Rick is staying with us, no details.

K loves it though. She’s got a built in friend. Even though Rick is a boy and K is a girl, and there are two and one half years between them, they have a captive audience in each other.

They like to play and run and scream and generally make a lot of noise. In fact we’ve gone from a quiet home to a noisy boisterous home with this one small addition of a five year old boy. It’s kinda fun actually.

He won’t eat though. His diet consists of Happy Meals, soda and candy. I think frozen pizza might also be on his list. We don’t have any of those items in my cupboard, so his stomach isn’t a happy one right now. He keeps complaining that he is hungry. He had ½ a yogurt this morning but complained about the fruit in it.

Lest you think I’m starving this poor child, we do have rice, stir fry noodles, beef and broccoli left over from a Chinese meal, then there is soup, spaghetti, or even peanut butter and endless amount of fruit. He is choosing to go hungry. Oh well, it won’t last long. The rice will probably look pretty good by tonight.

Last night he cried and cried for mommy at bedtime. All I could do was hold him in one arm and K in the other and let him cry. K kept asking, What’s wrong, what’s wrong with Ricky?.

He misses his mommy honey; He misses his mommy.

At five, he understands jail, but I wish he didn’t have to.

He’s just trying to be resilient.

I guess that’s a good thing.

Tomorrow I’ll write about what’s in the news and other goings on. Stay tuned!

Some of the past posts. These updates are going on and on:

(part 1, part II, part III, part IV, Part V, Part VI

Part VII

And finally part VIII