Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

So much to say! I'll do bullet points here at first. 1. The state didn't ask bio dad if they could share information with us; apparently the only children that he has that are adopted are ours. So, they could not do it anonymously. We decided that at this time we'll let sleeping dogs lie. He has not reached out to us in any way since his rights were terminated in 2012. We are easy to find, even if he was unsure of our names he could ask bio mom's family since he is still connected with them.  Kids haven't been asking about him as much so I guess we will just hang on here. 2. Jolene (aka big kid's bio mom - not her real name obviously) met up with us in December for her bi-annual visit with the kids. I thought it went really well.  She won't tell me what she is doing, if she's going to school or etc. so that's a little weird. She said she thought she'll be judged on that information, which...yeah, I mean, kinda?  During the visit she said some...

The state got back to me (sort of). They said they could ask bio dad if they could share his info with me, but not actually tell him who I was.  They did say that a) he is currently the placement for his youngest child and b) that he is doing very well, and will get full custody of him soon. What the h e double hockey sticks is going on here!?!?!  So, just waiting to see if he will allow the state to share information with us.  This is just getting plain out crazy. I don't know if/when we'd ever want to meet up with him, or if he would want to meet up with us, or if anything at all will come of this.  But this is starting to feel like something out of the twilight zone. My personal comfort zone with this kind of thing is tiny (VERY TINY) given the history of him that we know...however, people can and do change...it's just very hard to believe.  I may have been fed a bunch of bad information, I don't know. Ugh. I am wasting so much time trying to find more ...

Y has been asking about bio dad. A lot. Several times he has mentioned trying to find him when he gets older. I've been pretty candid with them about bio dad. His history (at least, what I know of it) is not pretty.  I have shared most of it with the kids. What I haven't shared is that he has a lot of other children.  According to his Facebook, he has a lot. As in, double digits.  Not sure how many different mothers are involved, but I'm confident it is more than 4.  We haven't discussed siblings with the kids yet.  Therapist said that around 12 is a good time, based on maturity and ability to comprehend. But of course we wouldn't lie about it either, if they asked before then. Therapist said we ought to research bio dad and get as much information on him as possible.  Thus, I have been doing it. It's kind of hard to research someone with a common name. There are people who live in the same town with the same name, one even with the same middle init...

So, I called D today. I wanted to ask him about Jolene's mom.  I wanted to ask if he knew that the person who everyone said was her mom was actually her mom, if he knew...I thought hey, maybe it's not actually her mom, and I'm the only person who doesn't know? He said...she's crazy, of course it's her mom and it makes no sense that it wouldn't be.  She has one older biological full sister.  He said he refuses to speak with her anymore, and that she told him about a year ago that the government was spying on her and that she went to try to send him money and they were asking way too many personal questions so she couldn't send him money. She then told him to be careful and that they were going to start spying on him as well, due to his connections with her.  He hadn't told anybody about it except for me. He said Jolene's (who he also doesn't talk too) is abusive, and was abusive even to him as a child. Anyway, that's all I'm gonn...

I told the big kids' bio mom about therapy. I was just, you know, trying to provide some information about what was going on with the kids. I thought I should mention it, in case it came up later. Also to show we are being proactive with mental health issues, as her family (and her) have a lot of mental health issues.  I told her we are going to get all the kids in therapy, but right now the therapist only has room for 1 and so it is Y. But the other kids will go as she has room. She asked why Y was going first. Well, it's because he has some problems with getting angry and acting out.  Pretty, I would say, normal, especially for a child who was neglected as a baby. I didn't mention that part to her as I'm not trying to offend anyone.  She was on drugs at the time; any memory she has from that time period will thusly be distorted. And again, I'm not trying to offend anyone, the past is the past. The best we can do is try to recover and move on.  Well. She comes ...

So just a quick little update. Big kids' bio mom is wanting to see the kids more.  She hadn't asked in a while, I haven't really hardly talked to her.  But she did ask a few days ago. I talked about it with the kids' therapist, and with hubby of course.  We all feel like things are just really...strange right now, and it is not in the best interest of the kids to increase visits. And that if we did, it would be very difficult for everyone to reduce them (if we needed to, for some reason).  I know she won't be happy with that. It was very helpful for the therapist to point out that we already are being more open than we agreed to be (with her baking a cake for the kids' birthdays, and the ability to send letters even though the kids really don't write to her).  I think about this daily and wonder if we are doing the right thing. This is nothing we take lightly. I think bio mom has a lot of guilt about the things she did (and didn't do) in the past, an...