I thought you all might want to hear what has been going on with Ricky.

Ricky is still at the children’s shelter because of his bipolar disorder and us being unable/unwilling to have him at home — not wanting to endanger the other children. We are having court this coming Friday. The social worker had to file another petition in order to keep Ricky at the shelter when the director of DFCS suddenly demanded that he go home if there was no petition, a few weeks ago, and this will be a jurisdiction disposition hearing (where DFCS would officially make him a ward of the court).

Well, since the petition was filed, we have worked hard via therapy and home visits to get ready for Ricky to come home. He has also had some med adjustments and I think that has made a difference. Anyway, Ricky was home ALL WEEKEND, the longest amount of time yet, and it went really well. I am so happy! I have missed him a lot and it seemed really sad to take him back to the shelter tonight.

So hopefully we will have him home within the next couple of weeks. At the hearing on Friday, the social worker is going to ask the judge for a continuation to give us just a little more time. Keep your fingers crossed that things continue to go well!

Ricky’s health has been excellent. At this point he has not been in the hospital since April of last year. He has put on some weight and I think he’s also grown taller. We will find out at one or another of his several upcoming specialist appointments. He has been having some knee pain, and the nurses at the shelter have been theorizing that this is due to growing pains. I have heard of this happening with boys around this age.

The last week of school, Ricky was kicked out of the public school he was attending because he had a rage and injured people. We have been battling with the school districts (our home one and that one) since then but meanwhile he is attending a very rough private school for kids with behavioral issues. It has turned out not to be a good environment for him so I have requested another IEP meeting to get him put into another school.

We want to thank everyone as always for sending cards, letters, and other things. It really means a lot to Ricky to get mail when we bring it to him at the shelter.