Allow me to review myself.....

The day before Miss Delia is due for her visit, we receive an email from her boss... aka Janet Street Porter. It's long, intense and serious. She highlights all of LBM's ongoing issues and explains why they came to their decision not to place Jelly-tot with us. It's clear from this, the outcome is pretty much final. This disappoints me that they can base a choice like this on seeing LBM a handful of times. If they had spent any time with him over the last week, they would have seen how increasingly happy and settled he is becoming. How he loves having friends over to play. How awesome he is at sharing toys. Just how amazing a little soul he is. But I realise I have no argument here and just have to accept the situation.

Miss Delia arrives late as usual and we spend the session concentrating on LBM. We don't even talk about Jelly-tot until towards the end when the issue of siblings comes up. She explains that they have taken our points on-board as to how it was dealt with and that perhaps they should have approached it in a different manner. She looks guilty. Remorseful. I am always honest with her...sometimes regrettably so... and before I know it, I find myself telling her that I was just simply 'pissed off with the lot of them.' Feck. But it's too late...the words are out. She smiles and says she understands. She explains that her heart just sank when she realised she was going to have to give us the bad news. Respect.

But in case you feel we haven't had enough social worker visits, the very next day we have another one. This is his second LAC review. The big one before we can officially put in our request to legally adopt LBM. The vultures are due at 11am. I am amazed at how far I have come on this journey. How much I have relaxed. Before I would have been pacing up and down making sure the house was spic and span, ensuring everything was 'just so' and that there was something scrummy on the cake front. Now, here we are.. out on a dog walk until the very last minute.  We arrive back home at 10.55am to find them on my doorstep with several missed calls on my mobile. Cake is the last thing on offer. In fact they are lucky I even remembered to buy semi skimmed milk for their tea. LBM is a legend throughout the review and charms the panties off all of them. He manages to steal all of their car keys to play with and indulges in some kind of key orgy on his own. Those of you who know him well will know about his love of keys. They are his little comfort. His little fix in helping with his anxiety. Could be worse I guess. Could be a love of gin like his mummy.