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Showing posts from 2010

I shot the sheriff!

Just kidding. But the police did come to our humble home yesterday! They had a little chat with D about the ipod, and took it into their custody. They will investigate who it belongs to and hopefully it will get back to it's rightful owner. D had to give up the name of his uncle, his aunt, and his bio mom to the officer. He was less than thrilled; in fact he was downright rude. He wasn't scared at all, which I think part of me hoped that he would be. But I'm guessing that isn't the first time he's had to talk to cops about stuff. And if this kind of stuff continues, or if he returns home, I'm guessing it won't be the last time either. So he is mad at us, his mom is mad at us, and I'm sure his aunt and uncle are mad at us too. Probably the rest of the family too. I tried to explain to the mom via our notebook why we did what we did. In response, she wrote absolutely nothing in the book. Because she's mad, isn't that nice? We tried to expl

This blog is going to be a mess

I just have too much to say, and not really sure how to order it. So it's going to just be a mess. Bear with me! I don't know if I've said this before, but D's mom has something like 16 siblings. Some of them aren't approved to be on visits...as in, the couldn't pass a background check or whatever to even be present while a visitation worker was there. So without going in to detail, that tells you a little bit about this family. On Thursday, D's uncle gave him an iPod. I assume this particular uncle isn't allowed to be at visits because his aunt had to go to the uncle and pick it up and then bring it over to his mom's. Anyway, he brought it home, and my DH looked at it...and it has pictures of a bunch of white 20-somethings on it (D's uncle is black, and there are zero black people in the pics). Some of the people in the pics are smoking pot. And there are some videos of white people smoking pot too. It is also entitled "Ty's iPod

18-month check up

I know no one cares about this but me, but here you go anyway! At the doctor today for his 18 month check up, Y weighed 24.6 lbs (40th percentile) and was 31.5 inches tall (30th percentile). So he has grown over an inch in the last three months (if I remember correctly), and gained a few pounds to boot! And can I just say, this is the first time I've ever seen a child that has a higher percentile for weight than for height. Maybe all my friends just have tall, skinny kids; I don't know, but it seems like the height is always higher than the weight. It has been for Y too, up until now! Also, I held baby M today, and compared to my wee little niece M looks like a giant! She's got to be pushing 11 pounds by now, or close to it. She is a solid chunk, too. Man they grow up so fast! *sniff*

Very quickly now!

First of all, my niece was born. I am already an aunt to two little boys, now I am an aunt to a teeny tiny bundle of joy that was only born a few days ago! She is beautiful and precious, and I got to hold her yesterday for the first time. THEN my sister, who is also pregnant with my OTHER niece which will hopefully be born this spring, asked if we would be her baby's god-parents. What an honor! So I am really excited about that. But I did make sure to tell her that, in the event that we adopt these children living with us right now, she and her husband are not allowed to die for at least 3 years. :) Oh AND to top it all off they are naming their baby after me and my mom which is also such an honor. I get teared up just thinking about it! So anyway, I have no idea what we are doing for Christmas. Yes, I know, it's like 5 days away. I have been emailing with our SC since December 4 asking if the boys are having a visit on Christmas or not. Because if not, we are going to be i

Not Me Monday

OK I'll admit it, it's been a while since I have done a Not Me Monday. Not for lack of material, I assure you! I did not feed the children an early dinner at 4:30 p.m. last week so we could go to the Y and swim. Even if I would have, I surely would have checked the schedules to ensure that the pool was actually open for swimming prior to loading up the entire crew and driving several miles, and going into the locker room and changing clothes and diapers. Of course we did not find out that the pool was, in fact, closed for swimming. We definitely did not then have to change ourselves and children out of their pool gear and deal with C's inevitable tantrum over not being able to swim. Instead of heading home, my husband found a little gym for families with children under 12, filled with all sorts of balls and things. Never mind that we were in our street clothes because we hadn't exactly been planning on hanging out at the gym. I was definitely not shooting baskets i

My first court

It was pretty dull, I'm not gonna lie. I was a few minutes late, because I had to walk like a half mile from the parking garage to the courthouse because the mean down town drivers would NOT let me over. Did you know the court has it's own parking lot? And that you can park there for free if you are there on court business? Because I did not know that! Anyway once I made it to the court house, the underwire in my bra set off the metal detector which was great. They just had me cross my arms in front of my chest and go through, and it didn't go off. Does anyone else think that's kind of scary? I mean, what if I had a gun in there or something? OK, so I probably couldn't hide a gun in my shirt without it being obvious. Oh sorry, is that TMI? :D So basically everything in their case will remain status quo. Also the judge didn't ask me any questions so my appearance wasn't really necessary. I think it's good that I went though, and I think it wil

Baby M

Baby M turns 2 months old in 2 days. Today she weighed 10.2 lbs, which is 50th percentile for her REAL age (not adjusted for being born early). She also rolled from her tummy to her back about 10 minutes ago! I am so excited that I got to see that. She was totally confused when she ended up on her back but then again, she's probably confused most of the time anyway. :)

The news!

OK there isn't any. See, that was easy! The SC didn't have anything groundbreaking at all. So I kind of wonder if he just needed to come out before court on Friday, or something. See, I got myself (and you!) all worked up over nothing! But that's how things go, I guess. He did say he wants to get D back in therapy, which I think is good considering all this adoption talk and the amount of visits that have been canceled lately. He also said he is going to try to get the visits to be on fewer days, but be longer. So instead of being 2 hours 5 days a week, they will maybe be only 4 days a week and be a little longer. I think that will be really good. 2 hours is just not very long to parent. That's a short enough time that the kids don't get bored with whatever it is that you're doing, you might not even have to change diapers, it just seems easy. Now once they get into the 3 or 4 hour range, I think it will get more difficult. Not that I want it to be diffi

Random

Y has taken to giving big, giant bear hugs to everyone in the family. It is precious when he hugs me or my DH, but C is not quite so fond of the bear hugs. In fact, Y, even though he is shorter, is much more filled out than C and I reckon that at this point there might be only 2 or 3 pounds difference between their weights, maybe even less. So Y wraps C up in a big bear hug...and tackles him right to the ground. At which point Y continues said bear hug, despite the screaming and wriggling of C who is trying desperately to end the overwhelming affection being shown to him by his little brother. Y laughs the whole time and it is kind of hilarious to see the difference in the two boys' reactions. :) I'm not really sure how to handle this. I feel bad for punishing Y when he is just trying to show affection, and I think C gets a little carried away with showing his dislike. But at the same time, if C doesn't like it then I don't want to make him endure it! Sometime I r

Today!

OK so let me tell you about my last 24 hours. Yesterday I remembered that we were having small group at our house at 10 a.m. today, and that I was supposed to make food (as was everyone else). I also needed to go grocery shopping, which has suddenly become a very difficult task to accomplish as I am really not able to go to the store during the weekdays now, and our weekends have been super busy lately. So I decided to go at 7 p.m. last night when the little boys went to bed, and figured I'd pick up something at the store to make for this morning. So anyway, got home from the store at like 8:20 p.m., and...realized I forgot to get anything to make for this morning. What can I say, it wasn't on my grocery list and so, therefore, nothing was purchased. I do a good job of sticking to my list like a good wife!! :) I filed this information in my brain and decided I would wing it in the morning. I had at least 3.5 hours from when I woke up before guests started arriving, right?

Court

Well our SC called yesterday and said "I need to come out and talk to you guys." I asked if the kids needed to be there and he said no. So that's kinda weird...normally he really only cares about seeing the kids. He is coming out today so I'm interested to see what he says. Also court is next Friday and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, I am going to be able to go! I am excited but also nervous. D has a band concert coming up. He has said several times that he doesn't want us to go. Last night he finally said "All my good memories are from when I was in foster care. I don't want to look back at my first band concert and say 'Yeah, my foster parents were there.'" I asked him why that would be a bad thing and he didn't respond. We are still going of course. His mom has never said if she is going or not...I'd hate for him not to have someone there. C is supposed to have a program at church this Sunday but I think I am ju

Blogging with one hand

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is what I'm doing right now. Oh this baby is spending more time awake and, alas, more time crying! Not that it's a lot of time, mind you. Because it's not. I truly have nothing to complain about. Anyway. I'm teaching C colors, or attempting too at least. I read that you should focus on one color for one week. I wasgoing to do blue this week, but then it snowed so I just HAD to do white. So every thing that is white in this house has been discussed and looked at multiple times. Today we did white crafts: It's kind of hard to see since it is all white. I'm going to hang them up in their room and we will do one for each color. C cried when we were done. Maybe we need to do stuff like this more often! It's hard when they are so little though. I explained to D that we were working on the color white this week. He looked perplexed and asked "Where do you cone up with this stuff?" He also teased me about reading about gardening. I told hi

Not Me Monday

Here are some of the things I did NOT do this past week: I did not leave my husband alone with a newborn for a few hours in the middle of the night in order to go shopping and save a few bucks. Even if this would have happened, I definitely would not have left him alone on our very first night of caring for a newborn! How cruel would that be? I certainly did not keep the little boys up way, WAY past their bedtime because I was having such a fun time playing Monopoly with my dad, brother, sister, and D. Obviously bedtimes and routines are very important! I definitely did not leave Baby M in the hands of my MIL on Thursday, pretty much letting her take care of her the entire time she was here, including while I was not even cooking! I definitely did not use a hand saw to cut down and remove a very large tree branch that had fallen into my garden during a wind storm. No, that is a man's job, and I patiently wait for my husband to do it. I am also not going to clean the leaves out

I survived!

I survived hosting my first Thanksgiving, and my first 24-hours with a newborn. :) The dinner went well. I was a little put off that people kept coming into the kitchen and telling me what to do. I think I did a good job of keeping my cool and just doing what I had planned to do, which was not in accordance with all expectations but hey, what are you gonna do? Anyway, I didn't forget any of my dishes, everything got done on time (maybe a little too early, but still done!) and no one died or starved to death. :) The night with the baby was pretty good. We tried to go to bed at about 10 p.m. and she was really not particularly wanting to go to bed at that time. So I would get her out of the bassinet, hold her next to me for a while, then put her back...then she would fuss, and I'd pat her belly...and then I'd fall asleep for a second, and then she'd grunt and I'd be wide awake. I'm sure this is all very normal. But oh man, I could not sleep through any of h

A blog in which I do not talk about children (much)

This may some as a surprise to some of you, but I do still have a life outside of children. And today I'm going to talk about it. This will be a very short blog, obviously. :) I like to garden. I have a square foot garden which I just put in this spring, with the help of my Dad and husband. I am in the process of putting my beds to "sleep" for the winter, while also trying to prolong my growing period. I have several broccoli plants out there right now, and they seem to be doing well in spite of the fact that we are having frost every night. I'm interested to see if we end up getting anything. I need to get some sort of plastic sheet or something to put over them at night and maybe even during the day to set up a little bit of a greenhouse effect, I think. Anyway, to put the beds to sleep I am 1. tearing out old, dead annuals, 2. adding compost from my compost bin, 3. mixing well, 4. smoothing out the ground and covering with a thick layer of shredded leaves fr

Baby, and adoption

This baby has been awake for like an hour. She has become so wiggly! We had some tummy time and she kicked and wiggled her little heart out - so cute! Last night, out of the blue, D asked "If you guys adopt us, would our last name be (our last name)?" I don't think either of us knew what to say. Adoption has not even been anything that has been discussed in front of D at all, and the parental rights are not in danger of being terminated any time soon I don't think, as the kids have only been in foster care for...let's see 8, almost 9 months? Normally they have to be in care at least 15 before the state would consider termination. Anyway we kind of played it off, my husband said that maybe we could just tack our last name on to the end, and since Y and C already have hyphenated last names they would have three last names and it would be funny. Then later that night I was cutting up raw meat for our dogs (they are on a raw diet), and D was begging me to give

Thanksgiving

Well, there have been some interesting developments in this whole thing. We found out that Baby M's foster mom is not looking at this as a long-term placement, and not wanting it to be a long-term placement. They told us just to let us know because they want to know if we would be interested in taking her for placement, down the road several months. And I just don't know. Right now I'm like dude, our house is so small. I know I shouldn't complain. When we bought this house three years ago I thought we would have children like "normal" people...you know, have one a few years after moving in, and then a few years after that have another one, and so on. For like 10 kids. OK just joking about the 10 kids part. :) And after our second child was born, maybe we would be able to start thinking about moving into a bigger home. But anyway, I knew our house was small when we bought it, but we were very firm on the financial commitment we wanted to make. We were t

Sad - And Not Me Tuesday

C and I just had this conversation after he woke up from his nap, whilst he was eating a snack: "We need to get your shoes on C, so you can go to your Mommy's house." "I don't yike my mommy." (incredulous, not knowing what to say) "What did you say?" "I don't yike my mommy." (still not knowing what to say) "Well honey, you're going to go see her and pick up D from school." "I don't wanna see my mommy. I wanna stay wi yoooooouuuuu." Heart breaking. He has not said anything like this in quite a while. He used to cry when he had to go to see his mommy but he doesn't anymore, unless he is already crying over something else (but that doesn't really count!). The past few weeks he hasn't been asking as much to go see his mommy. Not sure if this is something to do with the baby, or maybe he is getting more attached to me as time goes by. Either way, it's sad. Or, you know, maybe it's one of

Difficult

Yeah, that's how the past few days have been. C's potty training is...not. This morning he didn't want to get on the potty and he peed on the floor whilst having a tantrum. Lovely. Then I put him in a diaper. Then after breakfast he said he needed to potty, so I took him, and he didn't go. He sat for quite a while and said he was done. But I thought, well, at least he told me, right? So I figured I would let him wear his underwear. So he picked some out, and we put them on...and literally 10 minutes later he said "I pee pee on floor!" and, sure enough, he had peed through his undies and his pants and it was getting on the floor. Obviously those items of clothing are not made to absorb vast quantities of urine so it's to be expected that it will get on the floor. So anyway, at this point I'm not sure what to do. He is going to respite this weekend and I don't want them to have to work on this with him. So maybe we'll try some more on Mo

Potty training and pacifier weaning

Today is day one of impromptu potty training. No, I have no clue what I'm doing. I have no tips or advice to offer. Also this blog is about potty training so if you don't want to read about pee or poo then just move along, I won't be offended. :) We've been putting C on the potty every night before getting in to the bathtub. This really started out as a convenience to me. When I had to get both boys into the bathtub at the same time, inevitably one or the other of them would pee on the floor (or on me). So I thought if I get C's diaper off, he can sit on the potty while I get Y's diaper off, and then if he pees, it will be in the potty and not on anything (or anyone!) else. So sometimes he would go, sometimes he would not go. He is staying dry through the night most nights, and sometimes he would wake up in the morning, go into the kitchen and say "I pee pee!" and then stand there and pee his full bladder in his diaper. Just silly, right? I mea

The swing of things

Back to the daily grind today! :) I got some cleaning done over the weekend (SOME mind you, not ALL!) and it always helps me to feel like I have at least a sort-of clean house. I also got my front garden done finally (YAY!) and I am hoping that spring will bring me lots and lots of flowers. I still have lots of work outside to do but hopefully during the visit today I will get some time to work on that. Speaking of visits, the baby is now going on visits with the boys. She also has a visit on Fridays, which they do not have. So that's kind of nice; I will now get "real" breaks during the weekdays except on Fridays. The baby was awake for a long time today after her first bottle. It's so much fun when she is awake! We went outside and played for a little while and it was fun. I think it's OK for her to be outside on a beautiful day like today (the temps are in the 60's and getting warmer!). I figure it can't be any worse than being around her littl

It's Thursday

Not that that is important at all. I just can't come up with a title these days. Life with three children is getting easier. We all stayed home yesterday and today which was a nice break. All of the questions people have when we are in public make me tired. I know they mean well, really I do. People assume she is "mine" and it's a long road to explain that she is the sister of my three foster sons and I'm just doing daycare for her. So, she is in foster care, but not placed with me. But the person she is placed with works during the day. I think it would help if I weren't such an introvert. Having a baby just makes people want to pay attention to you (OK let's be honest, they want to pay attention to the baby, but in order to get to the baby they have to pay attention to me! :) ), and I just don't like being the center of attention. Just not my bag, and it never has been. But that's just how it goes, I suppose! Y has been very naughty lat

This conversation happened today..

"Where baby sistuh aaaaa?" (me struggling to come up with an explanation that a 2-year-old could understand) "She went to her foster mom's house." (obviously, I failed) "I wan go mah foster mom houuuuuuuu" "You want to go to my house? I'm your foster mom!" "I don wan you bee mah foster mom" Ba ha ha ha. I know he likes me. Sometimes he even says "I like Brynnie!"...OK so it's more like "I yike Binniiieeeeeeee." But I don't think he knows that I am his foster mom. I'm just his Brynnie, and that is OK with me. :) Today was kind of a hard day with all the kids. I won't tell you all of the details for fear of boring you quite to death, but...yes. But we all made it through the day. I will say, I hate newborn dirty diapers. Oh my gosh. And all those nooks and crannies on little girls...I hope her foster mom bathes her daily because I totally suck at getting all those things cleaned up. I do

I'm wearing a baby

It's true. And I got her into the Moby all by myself, thank you very much! All due to the generous loan and tips from my dear friend Melissa. I changed two diapers while wearing it, fed two boys, fed myself (only a tiny bit, yes I'm still hungry but this is my blogging time!), got the kitchen sort of cleaned up, and even put both boys to bed whilst wearing the baby. Nary a cry from any of them! And Melissa, you will be happy to know that after her second bottle today she barely spit up at all. Hopefully I got all the kinks worked out. :) We ventured out of the house today to go to a toddler play group, only because Melissa was there to help. I simply do not have enough arms to do this on a regular basis, I think. At least, not alone! The little boys are not obedient enough to stay right by me when we are getting out of the car, and I've only got one free hand now with baby. I'm going to test some things out, such as: a. leaving the baby seat in the car and weari

The latest

I really stink at blog titles. Baby M and her FM, Jill, came over today. M is a.d.o.r.a.b.l.e. She is like a little baby doll. She weighs 5 lbs, 12 oz (up 6 oz. from her birth weight!) Her hair is black and very soft. I held her and for the first time while holding an infant it felt completely normal and natural. I am not sure if it was just because I've been spending so much time with little kids the past few months or what it was, exactly, but it was just lovely. Part of it may have been that the FM is pretty much new to this whole thing too...it's very hard for me to feel comfortable around people who seem like they know everything there is to know. It is intimidating for me, partly because I will be the first to admit that I always am learning and always have much to learn, no matter how much I know (or think I know). She barely cried at all, when she did it was only for a few seconds and then she was back off to sleep. I held her pretty much the whole time they we

Memory

A few weeks ago, I had C, the 2.5 year old, "help" me bake something. I don't even remember what it was. I pulled one of the dining room chairs into the kitchen and had him stand on it so he could see. I measured the ingredients and he dumped them in the bowl. Honestly, I helped him dump them in the bowl because his hand-eye coordination is not the greatest yet. Today, I was giving the boys their afternoon snack and pulling out some ingredients to make pumpkin bars. D asked what I was doing, and I told him I was going to bake. Immediately C said "I want to help! I want to help!" Of course I was getting the boys ready to go on their visit and trying to get jackets and shoes on. I put his jacket on him and then got Y cleaned up and got his jacket on him, and explained to C that he could help once everyone was ready to go if the transport worker wasn't there. He went to a kitchen chair (the same one I used before!) and started to pull it into the kitche

Baby M,, Transport Woes, and Not Me...Tuesday

Baby M has finally been released from the NICU. Had a nice chat with her foster mom, who seems like a super nice lady. She is going to come over with M in tow on Friday and I am really excited to meet them both! She said she would like me to continue doing daycare for M past the 6 weeks, but only if I'm comfortable with it. She doesn't want to take advantage. That made me feel good, and I told her we'd just try it out for a while and see how it goes and then go from there. The bad news is that the baby will not be going to visits with the boys, which I had just assumed she would (silly me!). She will go with them on Wednesdays, but other than that she has separate visits. So I will no longer have those breaks when all the kids are at visits, sadly. Also M's visits are at all different times; I'm going to have to make sure I can do a good job of keeping track of when she is leaving! It would be really bad if we were not home when she was supposed to be at a visit

Day care payment

Since I am going to be providing daycare for Baby M, the boys' newborn little sister, our FSW suggested that I become a licensed daycare provider so that I could get paid for caring for her. There are myriad forms to complete in order to become licensed, and I found out that we would have to have a new background check done as well as a new health assessment. I am not sure if M's foster mom is wanting me to provide daycare on a "permanent" basis (since nothing in the foster care system is actually permanent!), or if it would only be for 6 weeks until she can go to a real daycare. I emailed our FSW for clarification because honestly if it is only for 6 weeks, and it takes a month for me to get licensed anyway, then it is kind of pointless to do all the work for only a week or two of pay. Out of curiosity, I looked up the rate that the state pays daycare providers. I am not 100% sure that I was looking at the correct form, but it appears to me that the state pays $2

Normal

I am not normal. My "family" is anything but normal, with three foster kids of various ages, a 2 year old that gives new meaning to the phrase "terrible twos", and the whole slew of service providers that we have to deal with on a weekly if not daily basis. I have to wonder what people think when they see us out and about and C is screaming his little brains out over nothing in particular. I know most people assume that these are "my" children. Do they think that perhaps I spoil him by holding him when he is crying? Or that he is spoiled at home, obviously, otherwise his behavior would not be so horrible in public? Do they think that I beat him and that is why sometimes he doesn't want to get in the car to go home? Do they shake their heads at this "young" "mother" who appears to be in over her head? In our church when a child is crying for his or her parents at Sunday School, they are normally told "Your mommy and daddy

Eating

The little boys are supposed to eat dinner at their mom's house when they have visits there. Well last night D had to be at a thing at 6:30 and I had to take him. Normally the little boys' bedtimes are 7 p.m. (because they sleep 12+ hours each night). So I figured they would get to bed a little bit late, but not super late. They were both being whiny cry baby pee pants so before we left in the car I filled them each up a cup of puffs because frankly, there was no suitable cereal and I didn't want to walk down to the pantry to get it. So in the car, Y eats all of his puffs and starts screaming and asking C for his puffs. No one was at D's school, where we were supposed to drop him off. So we drove around looking for the place we are supposed to go...and Y kept crying. Got home at 7:15 or so, and put both of the boys in their chairs to eat. Y proceeded to eat: - an entire bun-length turkey dog - probably about 1/4 cup of greek yogurt - a whole graham cracker and then s

I sent this email today...

I hope I don't regret it later! Sent to our Caseworker, our FSW, and our Service Coordinator (names have been changed to protect the innocent, and the not so): CW and SC, I spoke with FSW a few days ago, and she indicated that CW stated she has not received these background checks. 1. SC, could you please send this stuff again to CW? Or could the two of you talk and figure out what happened to these? 2. Is it a matter of cost that the background checks on out of state people can not be done? We will pay for the checks if there is a fee involved or something like that. If it is some other reason could somebody please communicate with me? I feel like I'm going back and forth between all of you and I don't feel like that is really my job. Not to mention the fact that I'm sure you are all getting tired of hearing from me. 3. CW, can you please give me the name, phone number, and email address of your supervisor? I just want to say that I am so frustrated with the foster

Circumcisions and tantrums

I'm just going to come out and say it - C has been terrible lately. His tantrums have suddenly gotten really bad again. Sometimes he wakes up in the morning and just screams for a half an hour or so. Nothing in the world I can do to calm him down. He just wants to be carried around like a little baby everywhere we go. Crying is contagious, in case you didn't know, and so when he starts, Y starts, and then I have two screaming children to carry from place to place. Let me tell you, it's so relaxing and wonderful. Yet apparently C is a perfectly normal 2 year old. My nerves are about shot with this child. I think if I did not have to co-parent I would try purging his system and work on eliminating any food allergies/reactions. I am not an expert on it by any means but I have read that kids can have behavioral reactions to things like food coloring and preservatives and stuff like that. I'm pretty sure that is basically all he eats at his mom's house so it'