Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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