[grannie9]

OMG... I am exhausted and now need a nap and Thorazine. Your life is going to kill me, damn it.

I think my daughter is better off dealing with the old folks. They're not easy, especially when their crooked kids are involved, but the kids, that would be too upsetting for me to handle.. even second hand it does a job on you.

Good luck Libby, I don't know how you do it. I know someone has to, but you must burn out quickly in that kind of job.

[sweetliberty]

It does get stressful. What makes it even sadder is that these 2 older kids know that we can't find anywhere to put them. We shield them as much as we can, but they're not stupid, and I'm sure they interpret it as nobody wants them. In some cases that is the case, but the real problem in placing these kids, apart from the desperate lack of available foster homes, is that both of them have allegedly "touched" one of their sisters, so we have the situation that they cannot be placed in a foster home that has any younger children, including their own younger sisters, and they cannot have unsupervised access to each other. Foster homes meeting those qualifications, particularly in our area, are virtually nonexistent. These are sweet kids whose only crime is being victimized.

On a lighter note, I seem to be getting a reputation at work. One of our investigators, who has gotten to know me pretty well, was in court with us yesterday and standing next to me when this case was heard. The stepfather, who abused these kids, is on disability. The judge asked him what his disability was. He said that he only had half his brain that worked (you just know I had several good lines for that opening). I looked at my co-worker; she looks at me like she knew exactly what I was thinking. She told me after court that she was just silently thinking "please don't say it, not now." ROTFL!