Tbh it is an awful , stress inducing , anxiety inducing situation I / we are in as we both ( little man and me ) don't know if we are coming or going literally and my fear is my daughter will get her son back but continue to drink but saying that surely the erm sh*t will hit the fan at some point???
She is functioning well at the moment but when she has the morning school routine to do every day , waking at 7am , doing breakfast , making sure he cleans his teeth ( which he reacts to negatively ) , get dressed ( which he reacts to VERY negatively ) and happily out the door each morning without chaos or stress for him ( or shouting her head off at him every morning like she used to do! ) then do all the things involved ie attend school meetings , fill in forms for eg the iep school meetings , write in his school book , send back slips re attending school events , attend the events , dental treatment and checks , doctors if ill , medication 3 times a day if he is ill , coping if SHE falls ill and still doing all that is necessary , washing , cooking , cleaning , making sure he has activities to go to , having social worker visits ( they won't just disappear! lol ) then after school routine , weekends and school holidays doing the 24 hour care , calming him back down to sleep when he wakes in the night ( which can take a while ) so coping on MINIMAL sleep plus doing an ''all round good job'' ie keeping on top of everything which is HARD let alone dealing with his challenging behaviours
He scratched me quite violently this morning , out of the blue , seemingly for no reason but it may be to do with his confusion and feeling a bit worried and insecure about 'where he belongs' bless him xx
To get a care order my GS would have to be at SIGNIFICANT RISK OF HARM in my daughter's care and so she could fall just under the radar of that and fall into the category of 'good enough parenting' which means no abuse or neglect and shouting at him and losing her rag with him every day will not constitute abuse 
( Shouting at an Autistic child will make them WORSE , IT MIGHT SHUT DOWN THE BEHAVIOUR AT THE TIME BUT IT WILL POP UP LATER if unresolved or unexpressed and then what??? The worst thing is he cannot even TELL ME if any abuse or neglect goes on but hopefully the court will take that into account , he is a vulnerable child so would they let him be cared for a vulnerable adult who is good at 'acting' and you can only 'act' for so long before the true colours come out at some point and tbh his challenging behaviours are probably set to get worse with the TEEN years and puberty right round the corner and can she REALLY cope and get him through all that? )
That is my worry , that she will do 'just enough' to get through her assessments , present sober when her visits etc are and she comes across very well when sober but not get help or even actually stop drinking or look at her issues which caused her to start drinking in the first place! x
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Grandparenting
I thought it best to continue on this section as many of you are aware of my situation or should I say ongoing situation! lol
Had an urgent call from the social worker today to say they had a legal planning meeting re my Grandson who has been living with me for 2 years ( me as his kinship foster carer )
They feel it has been dragging as he has been in care a total of 3 years ( it took me a year to fight for him to be placed with me! ) so it is now going to court but for a care order where social services will have parental responsibility
She said she would be recommending he stay with me but that we have to have a family group conference so that 'if my health fails' there is someone else in place to care for him
Logically that makes sense but the worrier in me worries he will be removed and placed elsewhere now
Turns out my daughter is still drinking just not as heavily as before but I had my suspicions even though she always presented sober at contact visits with her son
They are doing a parenting assesment on her and contact is to be upped to 3 times a week!!! at a contact centre my Grandson hates and he needs his routine after school which will be totally disrupted!!!
I told the sw this and she said she put that to the solicitors and managers etc but they shut her down and were even talking about 4 times a week!
I understand they have a duty to properly assess my daughter but with the current news she is still drinking and is refusing to go to counselling it is not looking good for her!
My concern though is for my GRANDSON who loves his chilling out time after school and I love the calm routine we have as well which is about to go to pot now ( poor little man )
We have a meeting on Monday morning and I will definitely be voicing my concerns about the contact centre which will probably be 2 to 3 times a week after school God knows for how many hours! I understand they have to write notes about my daughter and how she presents herself and interacts with my Grandson and how often she shows up etc but what about what it puts him through???
Plus I need to know they are serious about offering me guardianship if my daughter fails the assessment which I still suspect they will do but I am still worried as they 'voiced concerns' about his dental appointments which are actually all up to date and have actually been fighting to get the treatment he needs as his regular dentist was refusing to remove his baby tooth which has been loose for nearly 2 years now so I got my doctor to refer him to the dental hospital and it's not my fault it is taking them so long to offer him an appointment as it can take approx 6 months but why are they picking any holes in my care of him when everyone else supposed to be happy with it
Plus poor little man has still been wetting himself nearly every day since his Mum told him he has his room at her new house she has recently moved to and his behaviour has become more difficult so with this new change on top of it God knows what sort of meltdowns etc we are in for as how much is this poor boy meant to cope with? xx
I also cannot afford the transport 3 x per week as he is not good on public transport so we have to cab it but they have already said there is nothing they can do about that! x
I don't feel like I'm winning and if my daughter was in genuine recovery I would not mind even though I would miss him like hell and have to grieve the grief will be different with CONCERN , anger and worry mixed in with it
If little man is happy back with his Mum then maybe that is winning , would just prefer it if she did more work on herself first but she is doing the bare minimum and acting and lying her way through , comes clean when FOUND OUT but then carries on living her double life again seemingly thinking or even knowing she can get away with it!!!
It seems common that the addicts do the bare minimum to get their kid/s returned , then the family member/s spend the rest of their lives worrying if there is going to be another serious episode or if their loved one is properly cared for to which the answer is NO but it's not serious enough to remove the child so they have to SUCK IT UP!!
Little man had 4 meltdowns today after visiting his Mum BUT this time it was because he did not want to leave and he wanted to be with his Mum and managed to say he misses her and ''wants Mummy''
So he is re bonding with her but I hope it is not to his detriment poor thing as if she let's him down there will be so much emotional fall out to deal with but I will continue to be his therapeutic environment in whatever way it is needed
He was angry with me today for taking him away from his Mum and bringing him home , so the upped contact has meant he has truly rebonded with her again which would not be a bad thing at all if it was a genuine recovery and she was not still lying about stuff
When I got to her house there was a man there who called her ''babe'' and kissed her on the lips when he left in a hurry as she did not know the social worker was coming round for today's visit till I told her when I got there , she pushed him away and said ''my Mum's watching'' so she must know I will report it as THREE DAYS AGO SHE TOLD SS WHEN ASKED THAT SHE IS NOT IN ANY RELATIONSHIP WHATSOEVER so that was quite obviously a load of bull but why LIE about it if he is some decent bloke she has met etc but this DOUBLE LIFE is doing my head in and I am glad he was gone by the time my GS got there
My GS does not understand about alcoholism and the things his Mum hides like her LIFESTYLE and to GO BACK to that lifestyle will NOT be good for him which is why I am fighting for him
It was always , visitors , noise , drink , chaos etc and even if she has calmed down a bit it is not TOTALLY and the bloke did not seem like Mr Wonderful to me
He would have to be CHECKED by SS so maybe he has something to hide and my daughter knows it!!
So who the hell will she be bringing around my GS , she mentioned one of her exes in front of the SW and said ''My Mum did not like him because he had 6 kids from 4 different women and I thought to myself NO the main reason I did not like him was because he was an ALCOHOLIC so not a good influence on her! ( Not with her own alcoholism ) but anyway , it has been pretty stressful for me as at supervision it feels like my care of my GS is being assessed as well as THE SW has started asking me questions about his care she did not ask before and my daughter is happy to bring up anything negative she finds like the scratch on his arm that both me and the school don't know how got there so my daughter is pointing out things implying it ''would not happen in HER CARE!'' LOL
Yeah right but could you deal with 4 meltdowns in a row while cuddled up with your boyfriend? And would HE be able to deal with it properly too??
I used to have to take my GS in the other room to give him a calm ,therapeutic environment for a while and we would cuddle up and watch his favourite cartoons until he fell asleep
I used to try and protect him from the world he was in but I could not protect him enough x
I will do my darndest to protect him now but I have a horrible feeling I will fail at that too because my daughter can prove her parenting is 'good enough' and he won't be at risk of SIGNIFICANT harm!!
I don't know what is going on but my daughter just tagged me in a photo on Facebook of the guy who was at her house today , it was from 2015 so maybe she is trying to show me it is 'someone she has known for years' but I still don't want to be tagged in his photo!
I queried it under his photo asking her why I have been tagged in it?
I am wondering if she was drunk or her reasoning behind it? 
I just realised tagging me in an old photo of his does not mean she KNEW him then ( she was not in the photo , just him and 2 of his friends )... my guess is she is drunk and illogical on a Friday night ( after her perfect Mum performance with her son earlier! ) 
It is creeping me out being tagged in this guys photo , will see if I can untag it myself!!
Ok , she says it was her dog
I give up with all this sh*t ...
I don't know whether to laugh or cry sometimes , but you have to laugh! 
x
I am not doing very well , still dealing with the anger and pain , was angry at the authorities at first ( and still am a bit ) but actually I can see what they are doing as everything usually comes out in the wash and they want to be able to make records of it for evidence for court
I think deep down the anger and pain are about my daughter and what she is and has put her son through and the fact that she is still lying and using DECEPTION to try and get her son back so it is not a genuine recovery but if little man was GENUINELY MORE HAPPY AT HOME and his Mum could cope well then that would be the ultimate happy ending for him as he only has one Mum and he knows I am Nanny not Mum
I just don't like her dirty tactics as well , slating areas about my care of my GS in front of the SW to imply she could do a better job ... yeah right , when you are drunk on a Friday afternoon which would be the time he would get back from school!!
All I can do is hope that everything comes out in the wash either way but my gut still has warning bells going off and I do not feel comfortable with the thought of him being returned home the way things are unless there is a drastic change which I am not entirely sure will happen in the next 6 months as she is trying to pass her assessment using deception!
If he is genuinely happier with his Mum and she can take care of him then that is what I would want for him because I want him to be happy 
xx
I want and am doing everything in my power to ensure that is the ONLY scenario he would be returned to!!!
This has got me thinking about how things were 'before' and I do NOT want him returned into that sort of environment but then also not want to leave her because he loves her!
( and I am the baddy for wanting to keep him safe )
I would hate it if he ended up hating me for keeping him from his Mum and it is heading that way so I will just have to deal with everything which comes along including dealing with his difficult behaviours possibly for the next 6 months or so as the assessment takes 6 months x
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