Family update

My son had a visit with his birth Dad, who is my Cousin's Wife's Brother - got that :o) It went really well and I'm glad we did it. I think it's important for kids that knew their birth parents' self esteem to know that they weren't just tossed out with the trash. No matter how many times you tell them that their birth parents really did love them they won't believe it and think they hated them. Now he can see him for a few hours, every Summer, and be reminded that his Dad does love him. I didn't allow his birth Mom to come because she's got major issues that he doesn't need to deal with and she's also very mentally ill and I don't know what she'll say or do. We had it on Sunday at my Cousin's house so that the rest of us could visit while he spent time with his Dad. My cousin also has 4 kids that are 4-10 and my kids are 2-6 so they have a blast together. The Gramma also came because my Cousin's Wife and my Son's Dad don't get along so well so it made it easier to have their Mom there. We also were able to find out what's going on with my Boys' Mother. She's really gotten herself into some big trouble. She found an old box of checks that were hers and his Dad's and went shopping to the tune of $20,000! She also signed his Dad's name on some of them so she'll get forgery charges too. I'm sure she'll be going to prison and we'll be getting my boys' 1 year old brother before too long. My younger son and the 1 year old share the same Dad and he has tons of kids all over the place. It's so sad that people do things like this to their kids. But I guess if everyone were good parents then we wouldn't have our boys, or be getting this new one, or our other new daughter that we are awaiting. It WOULD be nice if the court systems would be more proactive to do what they can to minimize the effects on the kids though. My boys were taken away from their parents,(for the second time for "W"), in 3/06 and their rights weren't terminated until 7/07. During this time the parents got to come for visits every weekend and bring lots of candy, gum, snacks, stinky, smokey clothes, and dollar store toys to buy their love. Plus their Mom constantly told "W" that they were going to be coming home really soon. Then the stupid Judge let them take them home for a Christmas visit and the baby got hurt (there were 3 different stories), they didn't feed him, and they gave them a bunch of presents but didn't allow them to bring any of them home with them - how mean is that! They couldn't be bothered to even care for them when they had them but now they're the best ever because they give him gum at the ripe old age of 3! Our adoption then took until 4/08 to finalize.
My Son's birth Dad asked me if we were interested in the baby because he wants him to be with us and with his brothers. I asked him to do what he can to speed up the process so we can get him out of there before she hurts him. Apparently she used a lot of the money on drugs for herself and her friends and she's skinny and completely strung out. The baby lives with her Mother but she's just as bad. Poor baby :o( Hopefully he won't be too screwed up before we get him - besides the drug and alcohol exposure that she gives them during pregnancy!
We just got MRI's done on the boys and it shows no brain damage. They still have FASD but it doesn't show any damage that they can see. There can be bad connections and communication in the brain though that doesn't show up. We'll see.....