50 tooth brushes

We are back from Malibu and we all had a great time. On the coast it was in the 60's-low 70's, so a light jacket was required. Now we all are sunburned even though we used sunscreen. The baby was slathered every 2 hours so he is the only one that's golden brown. We only left the water to sleep and eat, so I guess we had it coming to us. I will write more about the trip later and put up some pictures.
Right now I am going to continue my story about my first night in foster care.

The next morning I woke up to a Huge surprise. Not one, not two or three or even four, but Five little heads were poking around the bed beside me. Is she awake? Who is she? What's her name again? None of the kids were over the age of eight or nine. And even though they didn't mean any harm they were on one of my nerves.
I asked them where their mom was. I was talking about the lady I had met the night before. We will call her K. Remember I'm new to all this. They told me their stories about how they came to this place, about their real mothers. They told me about the drugs, the beatings, the abandonment. I remember thinking where the hell am I. I was so sad for them to be in this situation at such a young age. Their hearts were so heavy with grief. They grieved for a life they probably never had. Right now I'm thinking of them and I wonder how many of them went on to become successful and achieved what they wanted to do. I wonder how many continued a lifestyle that they grew up to see. What happen to those children that I met that day?
With all the commotion K came in and asked for them to give me some room. She sent them out to play and asked if I needed to talk. I didn't want to talk, I didn't want to be those kids. I was Ok, there was nothing wrong. I'm sure she had heard that a thousand times before. She told me that it was almost lunch, that I had slept right through breakfast. She said that she would go over all the rules and what was expected of me while I was there after lunch.
I remember getting dressed and going to the bathroom. There were like 50 tooth brushes I swear! In the dinning room there was this huge table with chairs. All the kids gathered, I think there were 11 of us total at the time. It changed frequently. And over time that really gets upsetting with kids coming and going and sometimes they came back again.
K went over the rules they were posted up in every room of the house. We had a ton of them, but looking back they were not all bad. The consequence was sentences and if the mood was right you were grounded for a month. A month is a LOOOOOOOOONG time to a kid. So, I was going to be good. You may ask about our activities. We were not aloud to have t.v. except on the weekends we could have a Christian or G rated movie. There was no radio except in the kitchen and van,that was only christian music. We had horses and a trampoline.
It was the weekend so I didn't hear back from the social worker until Monday. I knew she would get me out of here. On Monday she did call, but the news wasn't to tell me I was going home. She explained to me that Kathy no longer wanted to have me in her home. She gave the social worker all the names and numbers to all of my existing relatives. The social worker explained that I would be here for awhile & that she wanted to introduce me tomorrow to my new long term social worker. Her name was Sheila. I loved Sheila, I always wanted to make her proud of me. Over the next few years we became close, she felt like family when nobody else did.