My Wild Ride (Part One)

The past couple of weeks have been one major roller coaster ride in Foster/Adopt Land!  I received a phone call telling me to go to the hospital to pick up Itty Bitty (Little Miss' baby sister) because she was finally being released.  In that same phone call, they told me that there was a hearing the following Monday and that the girls would most likely be released into their father's care. 

Itty Bitty was a cute little thing...  That is to say, she was a cute little thing in the 2 hours total that she slept during the time that she was with me.  I knew I was in trouble when the first thing the nurses in the hospital where she had been staying for the past 5 weeks said to me was, "We're so sorry!"  "What does that mean?" I asked.  "Well," the replied, "She's kind of been our little mascot for the past five weeks, so she's kind of been held 24/7.  But we've been working on self-soothing today!"  ... TODAY!?!?!  Great.

Little Miss was at daycare, so I decided to bring Itty Bitty over to my sister's house so she and the twins could meet her.  My nephew could take her or leave her.  He was more interested in his Wii game.  Although he did sing her a lovely lullaby rendition of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" in an attempt to keep her from crying.  My niece was all about holding her and being right beside her.  I call her our Little Mama because she's extremely nurturing and a great little 5-year-old babysitter.  :-)  She didn't leave Bitty's side for 30 minutes.  Bitty started crying again, so we did a diaper change.  ...And then she spit up...  All over the floor next to my niece...  That did it.  She was done.  As I packed up our things and put Itty Bitty in her carseat and she started squalling because she was no longer being held, my niece opened the front door for us and exclaimed...  "And she's OUTTA HERE!!!"  (She's in for a rude awakening in a few months when her new twin brother and sister make their grand appearance and she can't send them packing after 30 minutes.  :-)

I headed over to Little Miss' daycare where it quickly became apparent that I hadn't really thought through the logistical aspects of transporting a 5-week-old and a 12-month-old at the same time.  I loaded Itty Bitty and her carrier into the single stroller (because I wasn't about to buy a double stroller until I knew whether or not the girls were staying) and thought that I'd just carry Little Miss back out to the car.  Fortunately, the kind ladies at the daycare recognized that I had no clue how hard that was going to be and took care of loading Itty Bitty for me while I took care of Little Miss.

After the first 30 minutes with both girls, I knew I was in over my head.  Bitty was screaming because I couldn't hold her while I was getting Little Miss her dinner.  Little Miss was crying because there was this screaming thing stealing her Mimi's attention.  After her dinner, she had ravioli in her hair, desperately needed a bath, and was sobbing and clinging to my leg as I tried to comfort her and feed Bitty her bottle.  By the time Little Miss should have been in bed, we were nowhere near it.  I did what any self-respecting woman would do in that situation.

...I called my Mommy...