(from first part)...appeared to be very strange.

While they were not your typical foster parents, they did care for the children and treated them pretty well. The foster dad was suddenly diagnosed with cancer, and passed away about three months after they found out he had the disease. This was actually the beginning of my involvement with Brandi, though she had gone with us many times when I picked her brother up for visits.

When the foster father died, she took it really hard, and began acting out because she didn’t know how to handle the intense emotions she felt. She was close to the foster parent, and when he was no longer there, the relationship with the foster mother changed. Although I don’t know for sure, I think it was the foster dad’s idea to take the two children as fosters. The foster mom later said that they didn’t want teenagers, and they didn’t want a teenage girl, since they were in the process of adopting a teenage girl.

Brandi was kicked out of the foster home shortly after the foster parent died, and needed a place to live. We were in the process of getting our foster license, and I convinced my wife that we should take her in. We tried to do a non-relative, non-licensed placement, but in the meantime a licensed foster home had an opening, and Brandi was moved there. We were told that it would take about two weeks for us to be approved to take her into our home. It actually never happened, and we received our foster license about one month or so later. By then, Brandi was settled in to her new home, with many children and several other teenage girls. At that point it was hard to see the benefit of her living with us, though I still had hope.

Prior to her moving out of her first placement, I had spent a lot of time with Brandi. My lack of boundaries with everyone led to me being asked to help the foster mother out with babysitting, transportation of kids to events, and I even picked Madeline up from school once, after she was asked to leave, as the foster mom couldn’t pick her up. And I’d say “sure!”

I worked for an after-school program at that time, so I picked Brandi up from school and took her to work with me. She was very good with the second and third grade kids that I was teaching, and she was a big help in getting things set up for my class. (to be continued...)