Leave of Absence

[DUEL Jaleeisa]

Whew, my life has certainly gotten complicated in the last month! First we moved my Mother in law, who has COPD / CHF and recently had surgery for colon cancer up from Texas, along with my sister in law and nephew. With no car at the moment, my husband and I have to provide transportation to work for my nephew and to doctors for my Mother and sister in law.

THEN, my brother and sister in law were in a custody battle with her mother for her two girls from previous relationships. Well, the whole thing turned into one hell of a mess with both sides bickering and fighting and playing CPS tag. For those who don't know, that's each side constantly calling DHS on the other side. How ignorant can you get, right?

Long story short, the judge removed not only my two step nieces from their other grandmother, but my 5 month old niece from my brother and sister in law.

My parents and husband and I went together to get a kinship placement. So, that means I'm a new Mommy yet again. In addition to my own six kids, I now also have a 5 yr old, a 3 yr old and a 5 month old.

So, between getting my husband's family settled and established here and now raising eight kids (my oldest son moved into his first apartment!) and working full time as well as my own health and other problems along with the various visitations and councelling for the older two nieces, my life has spun out of control. I will be taking a LOA for a couple months to get things back under control and everyone settled and to be able to survive the holidays.

I hope and plan to be back sometime in January, if all goes according to plan. I'll still be around, but Topaz will be covering my shift in the meantime. And heartfelt thanks to her for taking that on and being so understanding of all the chaos in my life right now.

[Dracos]

I'm pretty sure everyone else will echo my thoughts on this one:

Take all the time you need! See you when things are settled.

[Wulfson]

No offense, but you do seem to be a magnet for these types of things.

[Jaleeisa]

Thanks, Dracos. I very much appreciate the support!

Wulfie, no offence taken. Yep, it does seem I'm some kind of magnet for these kinds of things. I'm thinking that you also remember way back when, when I was raising my other two neices in between times when my sister wanted to play at being Mommy.

My question these days is "Where the hell's the Calgon when you need it?!"