Great support - thank you all, it is very much appreciated. MALMASON, thank you your kind words are much appreciated. ANN, thank you for all your helpful advice. I do not know if I can get in touch with the Judge, though, I would like to, believe me. My former lawyer is sending the whole file back to me. I have received another helpful letter from him laying some recommendations out to me and finishing off with "I wish you well with your applications. I believe they are well supported and I would be making the same types of applications if my grandchild was at risk. Please contact me to let me know of the outcome". Ann you gave me some really good advice which reminds me to constantly be in touch with the authorities etc. In fact I am going to communicate with the case worker on Monday. She certainly has taken on a lot of power and I know does not believe in separating the siblings, but we do get along and is quite easy to talk to. The foster mum though has become a friend and we can discuss things amongst ourselves which we do not share with the case worker, and we are in touch with each other more than once a week. I do have contact information for all the other lawyers, who now are obliged to include us in all notifications. I already have a very large file of my own and have been diligent in saving all e-mails and printing when relevent, infact anything to do with the case, Our huge affidavit, as well as our police records, home study report and anything that we have from the ministries, and our lawyer. Our son who has been involved but in the background, we believe will be more visual on our lawyer's recommendation as he is the birth father. Even though his job as a tree faller makes it impractical for him to parent Ryan, he has made affidavit to the fact that he wants and trusts his parents to do this. Thanks again. ATHENAINWI, thank you so much. Very appreciated. KATHY, thanks again dear friend for your kind words. ROSE NUTTY, you are so right, so many people believe that. If she has not changed in the last seven months the children have been in foster care, what are the chances. Obviously the children being apprended had made no difference to her. Though she says they are her life. Thanks for your encouragement, much appreciated. ROSELVR, thank you so much for your response. Firstly I want to wish you the very best in your own legal matters too. Yes, cost is phenominal. I think we are up to $20,000, but not had the final account yet, there may be a little left from the original retainer. This would have cost us easily another $10,000 if we had retained counsel for the next JDR and trial, I am sure! Anyway, in the end I trust it will not be a complete waste of money, if only to do with the knowledge that Ryan knows we were there and stood up for him, but I am hoping for a little more than that. Roselvr, I need to organize my files like you, I am sure that will be a big help. Similarly, I have one with everything and then another one with the important material I need at the time. When you talk about a binder with plastic sheets, are they attached to the binder so that it really is in book form and they keep the pages clean, or is this something where you can grab the material easily when you need it, sorry I am not sure I understand? Your last sentence is so true, and we hope and pray too. Thank you so very much. ZEFFY, Just an explanation here. Sorry for any confusion. I refer to my son-in-law a lot because he is a lawyer in Vancouver. Though he practices corporate law, he has still been helpful to us, though he does not profess to know a lot about family law. He was thinking we had no rights as grandparents, where in actual fact that is not the case when the children are in a foster home, grandparents and extended family also, do have rights! In our case there are obstacles. Anyway Florence thanks for your response, you are very kind. I do hope it turns out like your friend's situation, that would be great. Situation seems almost the same, it is, where we as grandparents come from, our grandson is important like theirs, unfortunately we have two extra things to deal with, the issue of the half sibling who is years apart in age and the geography, two provinces apart.:SIGH All of you have been great and supportive and I will keep you updated. Roselvr, good luck to. I will be thinking of you on Monday. Florence, lovely to have you back in full force and "walking" around your garden. Hope you have a great season and your daughter comes on in leaps and bounds too! Pauline - Vancouver Island

My oldest child, a boy, had autism spectrum disorder. it began to manifest itself at age 18 months and was diagnosed at age 3. Therapists at that time did not trust early age diagnosis because of other diseases masquerading as autism. For our case, a definite diagonsis was decalred at age 3. We had a heartbreaking time of it. We could not afford proper treatment and insurance did not cover "mystery" diseases. Our kid was antisocial and clever. He exhibited two personalities: one when he was in our presence and another when he was beyond our control or knowlege. He strove to keep these two lives separated, but when the two spheres of existance happened to meet, he tried to shrink into nothing like trying to melt into the floor. For example, one time he was with us when we were standing in line at the village hall to vote. Suddently, he dropped to the floor and covered his head. We were puzzled. The problem: He had spied his school teacher in the line next to us. We had never met this treacher, but we happened to say a casual hello to each other. We had another problem with school. He was an odd-ball at school and others began to either shun or tease him. His anger was held until it spilled over the break point and he would explode on someone. Sometimes, it was not the proper object, but another child who was nearby and whom he knew he could best. The second and major problem was the attitude of school personnel. This problem was festering and they never contacted us until it had gotten out of control. One day, he split he lip of a little girl and chipped her tooth. I beleive her parents were threatening legal action against the school, and it was at this point when the school authorities first contacted us. We were hauled in to inform us our son was being thrown out of school. This was the first time the school contacted us, and it was the first time we became aware of the problem. He had just become a 1st grader and was being tossed out. Nothing was ever done about teasing. There is more to this story and parental tears, but I'll wrap it up with the outcome. We moved to a different school system and when he came to live with us again, he entered his freshman year in high school. At graduation, he won the "most improved" student. He's now 45 years old, living away from home, and managing to hold a job to earn barely enough to pay his rent and food. He still has a couple of personal demons to resist, but these affect only him. One demon he has defeated. We are proud of his progress. It is much more than the progonosis of his childhood. It has taken much support tempered with iron will from his parents. On thing I will say is never give up, and do not accept inappropriate behavior. Do not respond to inappropriate behavior, but always be alert and always respond positivetly to appropriate behavior. As an adult, maintain contact and include him in the family circle. Make a point to visit with him on...

Wanda - I am glad that you found the solution for your daughter. My grandson does not seem to have a milk allergy. That was the first thing the docs checked. Carla - They do keep him upright, in fact, a lot of time is spent holding him that way. If he's down (on his back only) or reclining, they keep his body straight. They have the Bjorn carrier, which braces him pretty well. I'll mention the notion of not burping him, which is amazing! He is not constipated, lol (I know that that is not really an lol, especially for you). His stools are pretty much what is expected when breastfeeding. I think that they are going with the growing out of it expectation. I would like them to press harder, but it is very difficult for me to make suggestions. They are sensitive; they are using all their energy to hold things together. Interesting that you mentioned their marriage. I've thought about that, but things seem to be okay. My DIL is a very calm and patient person, and my son is a very earnest and sincere guy about all this, so I think that they'll be all right. My now ex-husband and I took our elder son through ten years of catastrophic asthma. It was a tremendously difficult, awful ordeal. At around year seven of that battle, we divorced. I know that the illness played a big role; it eventually drove us apart. Even though my husband was a superior dad in terms of being there when the asthma struck and our son was hospitalized, too many times to count, nevertheless he spent more and more time away from home. He needed adventure and excitement and we had a boy who needed all kinds of meds and a breathing machine if we were more than twenty minutes from a hospital, not to mention our home life, which was very quiet. Mainly because my son and I would use the non-crisis times to recover and get normal again. Then it would start all over again. My now DH's love of hominess and just generally being around all the time is one of the things that drew me to him. He was and is always "here". I have also thought that my younger DS, the baby's dad, was deeply influenced by his brother's long illness - in his child's mind he observed that no doctors, meds or many hospitalizations, even surgeries, could make the asthma go away. His brother had to grow out of it, which he didn't do until he was in college. So they may feel that as we were alone, so are they. I have noticed on the reflux boards that many parents are just holding on, even with a battery of doctors and various treatments. Some of their situations remind me of my mind-set with my son's asthma. IOW, hang on, try whatever, there is no cure, only coping, forget about the house, just "hold it together." Thanks for your attentiveness!

I am presently wallowing in some old (quite old!) favorites by the English author Elizabeth Goudge. She has a lyrical way with language that is beautiful, IMO. Entirely unlike modern authors, both soothing and challenging. There is a spirituality to her writing, which is not cumbersome nor "in your face". Am now in the middle of her Eliot family trilogy. Also especially enjoyed The Dean's Watch. Planning to read everything, even the children's books, for as long as I can obtain them from the library. (I find many libraries today do not keep fine older books in their collections, which is a great pity.)