Monday, January 24, 2011

What a Sunday

My plan was to have a quite Sunday at home. Ashley had spent the night at a friends and was going to be spending the day there.
Christopher and I went out to breakfast together, to a little local place called Dairyland. We were the youngest people in the place by about 30 years, but the service was fast and our 70 year old waitress called us "kids". The food was okay, it won't make our short list of good breakfast places, but I'm glad we tried it.
One of our guineas pigs, Callie, had gotten sick on Saturday. I spent a couple of hours holding her and force feeding her water and a mixture of crushed pellet food and water. She is still lethargic and I'm not sure she will pull through. Small animals don't have long life spans to begin with and once they get sick, there is seldom anything that can be done for them. I am very allergic to guinea pigs, so even though I had her wrapped in a towel, I had hives and itchy eyes and throat and a runny nose.

I picked Ashley up from her friends house around 5:30, after the playoff game (Go Packers!) and took her to her cleaning job. We got home, had dinner, Ashley scrubbed out the piggy cage to get rid of any lingering germs and we were settled in for the night. Or so we thought. One of my former Girl Scouts called around 9:00pm. Her mom was busted with drugs (again) and they needed a place to stay. There is no way I am letting a drug addict into my home, but there is also no way I am going to let a 14 year old girl stress about where she is going to sleep. So C came over and spent the night. Her mom found a friend to stay with and C will be going to stay there tonight and for as long as she can.

I asked all the responsible questions and told C that she needed a long term plan, not just an emergency plan. She is terrified of social services because her younger brother was already taken from the home and adopted out. She loves her mom and wants to stay with her. When the mom isn't high, she functions and does an okay job. C gets good grades and is involved in sports and other school activities. She always has clean clothes and is clean herself. I don't know that I need to involve the authorities at this point. The kid only needed a place to stay for one night and her mom is planning on picking her up from school today and getting their things and moving them into her friend's house.

C knows that our home is always open to her when she needs a place to stay. Ashley has had friends in the past who needed places to stay, eat, shower or hang out and our door has always been open. We don't have much room, but there is always enough room for a friend in need.
My husband was already up in bed when I had the talk with C about her long term plan. When I went up to bed he said that he was too tired to hear all the details, his only question was if we would be "adopting" C long term. There was no judgment or negativity in his question, he just wanted to know if she's be here for a long time. I love that man. I also love that our daughter knows that her home is safe and always open for friends. 

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