Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

Today, I am resisting the urge to beg the caseworker for information. Denying my desire to call her and demand that she tell me what the heck is going on. Instead, I am filing and organizing our lives on paper for the almost 6 years of our marriage. It's a lot of paper...I tend to save everything. And I am still giggling over my husband and D's behavior last night. Ba ha ha ha!

So D was in the kitchen brushing his teeth, and sniffing his nose (sucking the snot back up in to it, you know what I mean). My husband gets really annoyed when people do that and he told D "Either blow your nose or go away and quit annoying me!" D came in to the living room, still brushing his teeth. I was sitting where I could see both of them but they couldn't see each other. D started mimicking my husband and making faces and stuff, and I was giggling. Then he walked away, and my husband looked over at me and started mimicking D and making faces! Of course he had no idea that D had just done the exact same thing. I was busting up laughing, oh man these two guys are so much alike it's just hilarious!

Well, it sounds like overnight visits will not be starting up for at least a month. Visits will remain fully supervised. When overnights do start up, it will be gradually (i.e., they will start with one a week, then add more as things progress). Up until a few weeks ago they had built up to 3 overnights with D and M, so I'd say it's a pretty serious set back. We haven't told D yet. I'm not sure if his mom will tell him, or what. It's so hard to know what to say and how and when to say it. I hate it that I feel like it's our job to deliver this bad news to him. We've kind of adopted a wait-and-see approach I think, we'll have to tell him Friday if he doesn't already know by then. But maybe he will ask ahead of time, or maybe his mom will tell him at a visit. Court is sometime in early March, I have to check to find the actual date. The kids went into foster care in March 2010. And I'm thinking OK, if we get to court, and visits are still fu...

Before I start, I just looked at my sidebar and realized how out dated it is! Y is now 2.5 years old, C will be 4 in March, D will be 13 in May! Oh dear, the thought of having a teenager in this house makes my little heart go pitter-patter - and not in a good way. :p Speaking of ages, I started a new Bible study on Tuesday night and one of the very kind ladies in my group thought that I was 23. Which is really funny considering I'll be 30 in less than a year. I'm just glad people don't think I'm in high school anymore. :) Yesterday the C-monster had a horrible day. It's so strange. Every once in a while he just has these days where he reverts to his tantrums phase...and I'm talking the long, drawn out tantrums where he cries in his room for 30 minutes at a time. And it's over such small things...like the fact that he had 10 minutes to get his coat on decided not to, and then when it was time to leave he suddenly wanted to put it on. Huge meltdown! S...

I have 40 followers! That is amazing to me. Hello, new people! :) The boys are at respite this weekend because I had a 1/2 marathon yesterday and we were going to be gone all day long (we left at like 6:30 in the morning and didn't get home until after 7 p.m.). Since they had a visit and it was pretty darn cold out we felt it was best for them to go to respite. Well...bio mom canceled the visit. I feel like she is spiraling down hill at this point and it is very, very sad. I have been anxious to get this case over, and even though she frustrates me to no end I still feel a great deal of compassion towards her. But for the grace of God, I could have been in her shoes too, you know? It's just such a roller coaster - last month I was pretty much to the point of accepting that the kids were going home and we would be getting a new placement in the near future, now it appears that that is out the window. But I also know ANYTHING could happen at this point still. The thought ...

I am just writing this to remember it later. The boys had a visit on the night of my birthday, and when they got back somebody said something about how it was my birthday. Y was so upset, he said "We missed it!?" I told him not to worry, we didn't have a party or anything so he didn't miss much. Then C wanted to sing happy birthday to me and I told him to go ahead. It was so cute! He held out the last yoooouuuuuu for a long time...it just seemed kind of like a grown-up thing to do, I don't know. It was cute. :) So the C-monster was the only one to sing to me on my birthday! And I was blessed to have him to sing it for me. :)

So, let's talk Love and Logic. It's about logical consequences for bad choices. So when it's, say, 6 degrees outside, and my 2 year old refuses to put on his coat, I ask him "Would you like to wear your coat or carry it?" Carry it, he does. The idea is that if I force him to wear his coat he will just hate me, but if he learns "oh, it's cold outside, I need to put my coat on!" then he makes his own decision and is able to learn for himself. But then, when I am picking him up from preschool, he also decides to carry his coat. Oh and leaving the restaurant when it is again about 10 degrees outside, he also decides to carry his coat rather than wear it. Meanwhile, I feel like a terrible human being letting my child suffer! Even though it appears he doesn't mind it. For me personally, being outside with a hat, gloves, and coat on when it is 6 degrees out keeps me warm for approximately 30 seconds, at which point I begin thinking constantly about...

I guess there will be no overnights for the next 2 weeks, still only a 4-hour visit on Saturdays instead of the new 8-hour visit, and also all visits will be fully supervised. I won't say why what happened, but I can say that the changes are for a good reason and that D is very disappointed. I will be interested to see what happens in 2 weeks. I'm not sure if everything will go back to normal or what. Pray for our boys and their mom, please!

Welp, the team meeting got canceled by bio mom...she's "sick". I am really not surprised. I should probably give her the benefit of the doubt, but she just always seems to try to avoid uncomfortable situations. :/ On the bright side, hopefully this pit I've been feeling in my tummy all morning will go away, now that I have nothing to dread! :)

Finally, after months of searching, we are getting bunk beds for the little boys! Y is still in a crib, which he can climb into and out of (but thankfully he doesn't do it). The ones I found are really nice wood ones, which also come apart to two twin beds if we wish to use them like that (yay for versatility!). They also have a ladder that is angled to the top bunk, which I think will make it easier for C to climb in and out (as opposed to the ones that are straight up and down). They will go very nicely with the Spiderman and Toy Story bedding that I got for the boys for Christmas! And also C's current twin is going into D's room. He is sleeping on a queen-size bed currently and it takes up approximately 2/3 of his bedroom, so it will be nice for him to have a smaller bed. Then we are getting rid of the queen size and the mattress, so if anybody wants it let us know! :) It's free to a good home. I took C to his final appt with the poop doctor yesterday. Basica...

...the best Toddler Tidbit we've had in a while! My sister was visiting us from Japan. She breastfeeds her baby. One night when we were all over at my parent's house hanging out, my sister got her nursing cover thing and started nursing her baby. C walked up to her slowly, staring at the cover. He reached out and touched the baby's back (covered by the cover), and got this really weird look on his face. Then he asked my sister "Why is there someone in there?" Ba ha ha ha ha ha! I think all of his family just uses formula for their babies (the state pays for it!) so he has probably never seen a baby being breastfed before.

The other day Y was shouting from the bathroom "I can't do it! I can't do it!" I headed back there because really, when a child is alone in the bathroom, you just never know what will happen. Our toilet is a handicapped person toilet, so it is really high and sometimes he can't get on or off. We have a stool for him but that doesn't always work out for various reasons. I got back there and he was sitting on the potty. "I can't do it!" he said, pointing to the the toilet paper. He had unrolled probably at least 10 feet or more of it and it was pooled on the floor. He was trying to roll it up, but it just kept coming out more and more. Darn kids! A few nights ago we went out to eat with my family. Y was sitting between my brother-in-law and my dad, grabbing their arms and just being really ornery (and let's face it, pretty cute too). A little bit later I looked over at him and he had this totally horrified look on his face and was presse...

CW lady came over today. And boy, was I surprised by what she had to say! First I should tell you that bio mom has ended two of the last three visits early (incidentally, both were visits where all 4 kids were present). She hasn't written to me in our communication log for a week. Last Saturday she had all the kids for 8 hours to make up for a missed visit, and she couldn't get the little boys to take a nap and they were, of course, not the most pleasant children to deal with the rest of the evening, thus the visit ending early. She also texted me today and told me that she is still having control issues with D and that she kind of doesn't know what to do with him! Kind of scary since he spends the entire weekend there. CW lady said that it is becoming more apparent that bio mom simply can't handle all 4 kids at once. She only has ALL of them 8 hours per week. She said that, by her understanding, D is taking care of M during the night on the 2 nights when they sp...

CW lady came over today. And boy, was I surprised by what she had to say! First I should tell you that bio mom has ended two of the last three visits early (incidentally, both were visits where all 4 kids were present). She hasn't written to me in our communication log for a week. Last Saturday she had all the kids for 8 hours to make up for a missed visit, and she couldn't get the little boys to take a nap and they were, of course, not the most pleasant children to deal with the rest of the evening, thus the visit ending early. She also texted me today and told me that she is still having control issues with D and that she kind of doesn't know what to do with him! Kind of scary since he spends the entire weekend there. CW lady said that it is becoming more apparent that bio mom simply can't handle all 4 kids at once. She only has ALL of them 8 hours per week. She said that, by her understanding, D is taking care of M during the night on the 2 nights when they sp...

I'm so frustrated with the whole system. I feel like I have a lot to say but I am hesitant to put it on my blog...not that's it's horrible or anything like that, just because my fear of my blog being discovered is growing. Even though it's anonymous and I never name names I still am not sure if it is OK to even have this blog or not. It's probably not, really. Team meeting on Wednesday, and I believe that drug court is happening on Thursday. So I am interested to see what happens there. I'm feeling a little bit better but I'm just so tired. Not sure if it's because of being sick or because of what has been going on in this case. I need to just quit thinking about it. My brain just grabs onto a thought and sends it through my mind repeatedly, thinking through all the things I've said and all the things other people have said and trying to make sense of everything and trying to ensure I've done and said all the right things. And I, once again,...

I think bio mom is mad at me. When she is mad she does not write in the book we send back and forth to visits and she has not written in it for 2 visits now! So I am not real sure why she should be mad at me. Maybe she just got busy and didn't have time to do it. There is a team meeting on Wednesday so we'll have to see each other then I guess...fun times. I really don't like her being mad at me, but a very big part of me is just over this case. These kids have been in foster care for 21 months, there are still concerns about if/when the kids will be going home, and I am just trying to be honest and make sure that everyone knows what is going on. I am just tired of everything. Long term foster care that ends in reunification just sucks. Well honestly long term foster care that ends in any way sucks. I feel like it's a lot of yanking the kids back and forth. Caseworker lady asked to come over and talk with us about the Christmas visit, so that will be happening...