Not to overwhelm you...

...but I'm overwhelmed, so you get to share.

Yesterday, as we were getting ready to bring Niblet home, we did our normal routine of changing her back into the clothes she came in. We always change her into "playclothes" that we keep in a drawer for her, because we like her to be able to get dirty and we don't want to worry about her dirtying the clothes her parents put on her. Plus, most of the clothes they have for her are still a bit too big (because she's a skinny, skinny kid) and they often fall down.

So anyway, we were at our friends' house, in their well-lit living room, and I stripped Niblet down and changed her diaper. When I did, I was confronted with a large, healing bruise on the side of her stomach. My heart dropped, but she's a toddler, and toddlers get hurt. As we well know. I pointed it out to fostermama, but there are a million explanations, so, yeah...

I had to keep looking, though. And I found more. On both of her upper arms, there were big bruises. Either from someone grabbing her too tightly, or from someone smacking her arm hard. We tried to document them, just in case more show up, but the only camera we had access to didn't end up working very well.

There's nothing we can do about it. Yes, they probably grab her too hard sometimes. She pushes their buttons, she's a handful. In the year we had her, I often felt the desire to toss her out the window. I didn't, but different people have different breaking points and different lines that they're willing to cross. Smacking a kid or grabbing their arm are things that some parents find acceptable. They're not a reason for a call to CPS.

The bruise on her belly, I have no idea how that got there. Hopefully it was self-inflicted. She's clumsy and falls all the time, so she could have fallen onto something.

Now we're in the weird position where we'll be looking at her for bruises every time we see her. We'll be taking pictures of whatever is there. And if something really crosses the line, we're going to have to mention it to her parents. Niblet spends time with a lot of different relatives, so it's possible that the bruises aren't from her parents. Anyway, we're not going to go behind their back and call CPS on them, because then they'll never trust us. We would probably never see her again.

When we still had Niblet living with us, fostermama and I used to dream up elaborate ways to "kidnap" Niblet and start our lives over elsewhere. Last night, as I was falling asleep with my son safe and secure in my arms, my mind was whirring again. It's not going to happen, but it's much easier to think about ways to take Niblet from them, than to think about watching her grow up being yelled at and hurt.

To top it off, if she did end up getting pulled from their home, currently we couldn't take her in. Because of the Joy Fiasco, we're not currently allowed to foster.