Between Christmas and the New Year

We went to Illinois and saw Don’s family.

It is cold in Illinois!

We spent a couple of nights at his mom's house then we went to his sister's.

Everytime I see Don and his Dad together I laugh. They look so much alike. His sister Darci's experimental cancer meds quit working so she is deciding what her next step in treatment is. There are a couple of different clinical trial out there. Because they live in such a rural area the logistics of getting treament add to an already complicated situation.

We went to the Chicago museum of science and industry. That had this awesome ginger bread White House.

And a Chicago sky scape.

And big tractors and trains and planes....

Sean's favorite thing was the newly hatched chickens. He could have watched for hours.

While we were gone Stephanie delivered Penelope Jean. Penny spent two nights in the NICU with respiratory problems. Alika and I went to see her in the hospital on the 1st.

She was discharged a couple of hours later and came over for her first family party. 

Sean, Lisa-Jean, Penny, Nate

Nate really likes Penny's eyes. He likes them soooo much he wants to poke them out so he can keep them for his very own. Ah, the affection of a 20-month-old for a new sibling.

On the 2nd Penny got admitted to PCMC for respiratory problems. Hopefully she will be back home soon! She just can't seem to remember to breath.

I took Sean home to see his “other” family yesterday. His mom called several times saying she wanted to see him. She had a dream that Sean didn’t know who she was. She’s feeling pretty good about life because her alcoholic, abusive husband got out of jail on Christmas Eve and he’s going to get a job, quit drinking, quit beating her and turn his life around. They dropped the DV in front of a child charges. This leaves me to wonder, if domestic violence in front of a child is not acknowledged by the court system or DCFS does the child still suffer trauma? Kind of like if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it does it still make a sound? Of course it does. They plead the two aggravated assault felonies down to class A misdemeanors and told him if he does it one more time they are going to be really, really mad! Back to my point. I told Jenny I would drop Sean off at 10. I started calling her at 9:30. It took a couple of calls to wake her up. When I got there we had to wake her up again. She was actually happy to see Sean. His dad was sleeping on the couch. I set Sean on the couch and his dad said “hi” and pulled the blanket over his head. He didn’t even look at him. I wanted to scream…. “You don’t deserve these children!” I left Sean in a dirty house full of cigarette smoke. It was almost an identical situation to when I dropped him off last year on January 2. Fortunately, I didn’t get a 10 pm call last night that dad was drunk and had fallen through a window. Don is picking Sean up at noon. I am grateful that we have legal custody but don’t like that they can have him for overnights. I have to worry that his dad’s going to get drunk and beating someone up…. It’s craziness.