Permission

Even though I became a mother at what seems the ridiculously young age of 23, I didn't become an aunt until I was 42.  It wasn't that I had much younger siblings either.  My brother Kenny is only four years younger and was married in his late twenties.  For various reasons, many of them health-related with his then-wife, kids weren't in the equation.  That meant that in our family, there were no babies sine 1996 when my daughter was born.

Tiny Miles and tiny me 

When my nephew Miles was born in March 2015, the whole family was obviously enamored beyond belief.  I drove the four hours to their house so often on weekends, I went over my lease mileage within a year.  

By the time I started the foster classes, I couldn't go nearly as often because no one else was home to take care of the dogs.  Still, I would pay for a kennel service once a month so I could still get there to see my darling boy.  I didn't want this to change once I actually had a baby in my house.

Now remember, foster parent = glorified babysitter. You can't get the kid a much-needed haircut let alone bring them out of state for the weekend.  But I didn't want being a foster mother to keep me from seeing my nephew.

Baby O was with us for such a short time, it never was an issue.  I didn't have to ask anyone to go anywhere with him because I didn't go anywhere with him except local places.

But with Bram, it was different.  After a few weeks, I wanted to see Miles (especially since by this point my then sister-in-law was out of the picture and staying there was even more pleasant).  I wanted to show off Bram too.  He was such a gorgeous boy!

Before I called his case planner, I called Erin and asked for permission.  She was so cool about everything.  "Of course. I trust you guys."  It was, and still is, such a great relationship between the two of us.  

I called the case planner and filled out the paperwork.  One of the questions asks what the "occasion" for the visit was.  Um?  Because I love my nephew and want to see him?  Wasn't that enough?  I wrote down "family visit" and hoped that was good enough.  

I let the case planner know that we would have to do this AT LEAST every six weeks.  Her face dropped.  Bram was probably one of her many, many cases.  In addition to meeting with me once a month, she had to meet with Erin, with Ibro, and with both Erin's other children once a month for an hour,  In addition, there were meetings with the case planning team (social workers, DSS workers, etc.)  And that was just for THIS case.  She probably had 20+ kids she was responsible for.  

"Let me see what I can do," she said, and later came back with a blanket permission form from here supervisor that Erin signed saying that I could go see Miles whenever I wanted for up to four days at a time.  Cool.

So that's what I did.

The first time, Tiernen came with me because I didn't know how well Bram would do in the car.  We left close to his nap time and Tiernen sat in the back with him so he wouldn't be lonely.  Overall, it was a pleasant drive down.

Photo evidence that this was the case

At first, almost-three-year-old Miles was quite loving to Bram.  

But then Kenny put Bram into Miles's old walker.  Sometimes pictures tell the story better than words, so below is the pictorial journey of how that went...

The exact quote from the little guy was, "Um, A'zi, can you get this baby out of here?"

* * * 

We visited many times, sometimes with Darryl and Tiernen, sometimes just me and Bram.  Everyone met and loved my little Bramio , including my long-time bestie Chris.

Ken started referring to Bram as Miles's "foster cousin."

Once, when we were leaving and Ken was on speakerphone with his soon-to-be-ex-wife, I heard her ask, "so is she adopting him or what?"

Et tu, Brute?