"When are the girls gonna leave?"

That is what Lil J keeps asking me. "when are the girls gonna leave"

We talk about his mom. We tell him that he lived with his mom when he was a baby. This is usually in response to something that the girls do. He might say something like "remember when I was a baby......"

He knows that he has two moms, he knows that he came to live with us at about 3 years old, he knows that he mom loves him, bla bla bla.

Well, apparently, he thinks that his life is what happens to everyone. That you live with one mom as a baby, and then live with another when you get older. He keeps saying that when the girls get older, they are going to live with their other mom. It totally breaks my heart that he thinks this is the norm.

I have tried to explain to him that the girls are here to stay, and that HE is also here as part of our family. And, that the other mom was not able to take good care of him, which is why he is part of our family now. And, while he does not live with the other mom now, that she loves him very much.

He really doesn't have many memories from before he came to us, or at least he does not talk about anything. He came to us a month after his 3rd birthday, and really how many kids have memories from when they are 2 yrs old?

Ugh, heart crushing.

We are actually VERY concerned about his mother right now. There has been a strange twist in his case.

His mother is currently MISSING. Yup, she is missing. Because one reason or another, the visit schedule had changed back and forth between every week and every other week. On October 27, she had her last visit. At that time, the visits were to be every other week.

Well, since then, she has not contacted our caseworker at all. She is supposed to call 24 hours before a visit to confirm that she will be there. But, not only has she not called to confirm the visits (which were obviously cancelled), but her phone goes right to voicemail, she does not return phone calls, and 2 certified letters were never picked up from the post office.

So, short of driving out to her house, she is officially missing. It has been almost 2 months of no contact. And to be honest, I am concerned for her. Very concerned. Other than when he was first here, and she had no contact with the CW for 3-4 months, she has not just disappeared. Yes, she missed plenty of visits, didn't call to confirm a visit, etc. But, it has never been this long without contact of any kind.

Most of her missed visits were either because of no confirmation, or she would call and give a lame excuse.

My CW has been advised by her supervisor that they need to do an official "search" for her, which means sending more certified letters, more phone calls, checking hospitals, jails, etc.

In our state, one reason for termination of rights is abandonment. Since we are heading towards termination anyway, this will just be another item on the list which shows that termination is the proper and correct thing to do.

But, I was hoping that she would surrender her rights, I was hoping that she would care enough to want contact with him, that I would not have to explain to Lil J one day that I don't know where she is or what happened to her :(

So, it is a huge change in the case, not one that I ever saw coming.