Miscellaneous updates

• I still check up on the girls' birth mother periodically. Kayla went to jail in late November and stayed there until very recently. She gained a significant amount of weight while incarcerated (and complained about that on Facebook), but was so very thin before hand that I suspect she's actually closer to a healthy weight now than she was. She also commented about the weight being a result of being sober. I hope that her time in prison helped her break her addictions. What remains to be seen is whether her social circle is such that will support a lifestyle change to stay that way.
• We're half expecting a DFCS call in about 9 months telling us there's another baby. (To which we will have to say: thanks for letting us know, feel free to share our contact info with this one's foster/adoptive family. There's just no room at this inn.)
• Peter got his driver's license. There's a 15 year old Toyota Camry in my driveway that is "his to drive." Having him able to get himself (and his siblings over age 2) places has simplified life a bit. In our state, he's not allowed to drive friends for the first 6 months (and then only 1 at a time for another 6 months). (The not-driving-littles is a family rule which he is perfectly okay with obeying. They're just too distracting as passengers.)
• Lucy has learned how to say "help", which is awesome for letting her tell us when she needs us to step in and when she wants to work at it and figure something else. She's also taken to saying "helper" when she wants to do something for you that she thinks will be helpful. Like pick up the Cheerios that Jill has dropped out of the high chair.
• Susan will go to high school in the fall. We've had a meeting with her special ed team at the middle school as well as a representative from the high school to talk about the "transition plan." It all sounds pretty good. The real test will be next fall when she gets a whole new crop of teachers to work with and we find out how well the IEP gets enforced at the high school level.
• Lucy has begun saying "stop it!" Eek. I wondered and guilted myself and struggled to remember -- do I say that to her too much? I don't think I've heard others say that particular phrase much? Then, I heard it come out of my mouth. And realized I do say "stop it" quite a good bit . . . to the dog. (She jumps at the television whenever there's any kind of animal on it and I scold her to "stop it!" She barks at the UPS truck making a delivery across the street and I fuss "stop it!" She growls at the bird in the back yard and I snap "stop it!")