Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

Bio mom canceled the visit today? Weird, I know. She hasn't missed one since June 1. I drove by her house to pick D up from school (her house and his school are on the same street; I wasn't spying I promise!) and I saw her walking down the street...in a dress...with her hair done. She looked very nice, actually. It's only, you know, a little bit weird. Considering she canceled the visit because she was "sick". I hope she's not falling off the bandwagon. I have much more to say but not much time, so you'll just have to wait for now. :)

Welp, I sent an email to all the important people on the case today asking for HELP WITH D. I am at my wit's end. D has been treating me like total poop and I am seriously considering disrupting the placement, for him only (if that is even possible). Trust me, I NEVER thought I would say that. But every time my husband is not around, D just wants to be a huge jerk. It's a bad example for the little boys, and honestly I dread the times when I have to be alone with D. Normally he can go a few hours at a time being nice to me, but he hasn't made it a whole day in...I don't know. A long time. I'm not even talking about being NICE, just simply not being disrespectful. He actually told me that he knows he treats me bad when my husband is not around, he just "doesn't know why". I feel this could be addressed in therapy; however his therapist is ineffective at best and possibly incompetent. I don't hear from him at ALL, and I know mostly what t...

D was preening in front of a mirror talking about is "6-pack" and I teased him that he only had one because he was so skinny. Then he said "With as much as you work out you should be skinny too!" Thanks buddy! :) We got our carpet in the basement yesterday, and today I am going on an organizing extravaganza. Well really it is going to be a multi-day affair to get it all arranged, so pretty much right now everything is just a big, big mess. It will come in due time, though. :)

Today as we were leaving the house: D: "WOW! Your calves are HUGE!" Me: (pause)..."I'll take that as a compliment." D: *silence* Ba ha ha ha! I don't really know what to make of all this but I thought it was pretty darn funny. He puts his foot in his mouth on a pretty frequent basis, poor guy! :o) If you have listened to Christian radio lately, you have probably heard this atrocious new song that goes something like "I love I love I love I love I love the way you hold me Lord!" Well, as we pulled in to daycare the other day this song came on the radio. It played for about 15 seconds while I parked the car. Normally when this song comes on the radio I change the station, but since we were getting out of the car I just let it be. Big mistake. In the span of 15 seconds, C learned the words to this song. His rendition goes something like this: "I lub I lub I lub I lub HOLD ME!" He yells the "HOLD ME!" part. So we w...

I decided I'd better lighten this thing up a bit. So a few days ago when I picked the boys up from daycare, a lady pulled up in her car as we were leaving. C said "That's my mom!" It was some white lady, so it was definitely not his mom. I said "That's not your mom!" and he got this huge grin on his face and said "I was just kidding!" He's getting to be quite the little joker. :) A few nights ago C was sitting on the potty and pooping, and he looked down at the poo and said "It's a big snake!" I know that's kind of gross, but it was pretty darn funny. :) Y is such a sweet, cuddly boy. I love him so much. He likes to sit in my lap after visits and just has such a happy personality (most of the time). I bought D some flash cards today. Yesterday working on his math homework for him his addition and subtraction was just atrocious. For example, did you know that 51-48=17? Or that 23-15=12? Because that it wh...

It has been a frustrating couple of days with D. It all started well, with my husband and I chatting about my tendency to avoid conflict (i.e., be a door mat). Looking back in my "past" life I can see it clearly, but it rears it's ugly head now in ways that I don't notice. For instance, when D does something disrespectful I tend to let it go. Or do something like give him a dirty look and say "that was disrespectful". Well, hello! I just need to jump all over him and punish him. Because honestly, he does it almost every day. And there is a time for forgiving, and a time for punishing. And the time for punishing is now, man. That might sound rather cold, and I don't mean for it to...but so far he has not changed his behavior, at least not in the long term. So I need to do better to help him remember. So yesterday he did something rude, I called him on it, and then he LAUGHED AT ME. Oh man, nothing quite gets under your skin like being laughed ...

Well the boys' case appears to be progressing. More of the visits are moving to monitored, and there is talk of adding additional visits if the monitored-ness works out. The GAL was all "The visits will be like this, then like this, then like this, then they will go home!" I am a little sad, and I really do feel like these kids will go home. I just want to get this process over with. That probably sounds bad - but if they are going to go home after living in OUR home for a year and 2 months, I think it's understandable that the earlier these ties are severed the better, as long as bio mom has her stuff together. But I am just tired of feeling so torn, tired of having a certain 12 year old that disagrees with every single thing that I do in my parenting, including time outs, naps, sleep schedules, feeding, etc etc etc, and I'm tired of driving him all over the country to get to school, and tired of his ungratefulness. This is kind of off topic, but the oth...

Here is some random information. Last night when I put the little boys to bed, I read them their toddler Bible. We just so happened to read the story of Zacchaeus. Then I had the brilliant idea to teach them the song, so we sang it...then we sang it again...then we sang it again...and finally I just had to say "OK it's bed time now!" So tonight when my husband was putting the boys to bed, they started crying because they wanted to sing the song! So I guess Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man is our new bedtime song. :o) Those boys are so silly! My husband and I went to a class called MANDT on Saturday. Basically it is about de-escalation and how to deal with crises (like behavioral ones, not like an emergency or something like that). It was super enlightening and just pretty much awesome. We should have taken it a long time ago! It was a 7 hour class so my brain was a little fried once it was over, but I feel like we took a lot away from it. A few days ago, a...

Evidence of the matriarchal society these boys are growing up in: Yesterday Y and C were playing while I was getting dinner ready. C: (to Y) You be the mom. Me: (to C) What are you going to be? (thinking he'd say the dad) C: I'm gonna be the auntie. No...I'm gonna be the grandma. Me: Do you mean grandpa? Because only girls can be grandmas. C: (deliberates)...Yeah I'm gonna be the grandpa. When it was time to brush teeth: C: I wanna use that one! (pointing to the minty adult toothpaste instead of the bubble gum kids one) Me: OK! C: (getting the hugest grin ever) That one is SPICY! At breakfast: Y: Tummy hurt! Me (to DH): I think he's saying that because every day at breakfast C says his tummy hurts because he needs to poop. C: Does your tummy hurt? Y: Yeah. C: Your tummy hurts cause you're copying me! Y: No! C: Blehblehbleh Y: Blehbehbleh C: Bleh mehmeh! Y: Mehmeh!

Yeah, M started waving. She is almost 10 months old now. She is not my foster child but I almost feel like she is! Or like I'm her aunt or something. :) I now understand why every person in the world thinks that their babies are brilliant, the best, smartest, cutest, etc. Because I totally think this about M. I mean, it's totally amazing to know that I held her in the Moby all day long when she was 6 pounds, and she could barely even do anything at all, and she slept for hours and hours and hours. Now she crawls, sits up by herself, feeds herself, etc. It's amazing! And she waves goodbye. And it is the cutest thing ever. :)

D has asked to go to the school district we live in. It's in a "nicer" district, and the school is a pretty good one from what I understand. For 7th graders the teachers post ALL of the homework, EVERY DAY, online for parents to look at - this would make our lives 125275289% easier and also make D's average grade at least 1 letter grade higher, I'm guessing. Seriously. They also do a huge project where they actually build a whale. It's a small school, there are I think only 6 or 7 teachers for all of the 7th graders. Anyway, his mom still gets to pick his school. She decided she wants him to go to his old school. When I talked to D he said he still wants to go to our school district, and so I suggested he talk to his mom about it and see what she says. So he did, and her reasoning is because if they have overnight visits she wants him to be able to ride his bike to school. I kind of think it's a dumb reason - I mean I get it, but guess what - we hav...