Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

I never came back to update. Working with the reporter we determined the family mentioned before was not my kids' family. In a way it's a relief, in a way it's kind of a bummer because now we are back to square one as far as their family history is concerned. Which is to say, we know basically nothing about their Dad's side of the family. We made it through Christmas, and it was actually pretty pleasant. This was the first year in a while that I have felt not stressed out. Granted, I also didn't accomplish all that I wanted to but hey, I kept my sanity and that is saying something! We went to go visit my family in Kansas this weekend. It went pretty well all things considered. Ben slept horribly, he refused to nap for the most part and insisted on sleeping in our bed with us at night which he literally hadn't done in 5 months. We survived, and all the kids are asleep in the car now as we are driving home. :) Hoping Ben will slide right back into his routine at...

We subscribe to the Sunday newspaper. I like reading the newspaper, and coupons come on Sunday, so it's really a win-win. I was going through the paper throwing out the copious amounts of advertisements, and a news story on the front page caught my eye.  It was a big spread about a notorious crime family in our city and the number of crimes that has been committed over the past 40+ years by members of this family. The reason this is news worthy is because a guy in the family is accused of killing four people, and that is just the latest in a long long long string of crimes committed by him and obviously other relatives of his. So inside the paper they have a family tree. Parts of the tree are missing, they only included people with several crimes to their name as well as a few upstanding citizens in the family. There are probably 50 or maybe even more people on the tree. I'm pretty sure one of the guys listed was C, Y, and M's bio dad.  It only gave his name, age, a...

So, I (or I think I can more aptly say "we") are a little bit concerned about Mr. Ben.  He is getting darn close to 11 months old (!!!!!), his adjusted age is 8 months and 1 week.  It is hard to know if our expectations are too high, or if we are being overly sensitive about these things.  I am posting these videos to maybe get some more feedback from other moms who have been through this. The first video is of him army crawling. He started doing this about a month ago, shortly after he got up on his hands and knees for the first time.  He can move pretty quickly and can go about anywhere he wants too, even now he can go on slippery floors without a problem. My main concern here is he seems to be using his right arm to power through and propel himself, his left arm is kind of just there and moving a little bit but doesn't appear to be providing much assistance. When he gets up on hands and knees he uses his left arm to try to grab things while his right arm su...

I've been thinking a lot about home schooling again. I think I've said before, I always thought I'd home school my kids. I didn't have a very good public school experience, mainly because in the majority of classes I was bored to tears. I loved the classes where the teacher would put the homework on the board, and while they were teaching I'd go ahead and read the text book, learn it myself, and then complete the homework before class was over. School felt like a big giant waste of time from an academic standpoint.  So much time wasted going from class to class, listening while the teachers tried to keep misbehaving kids in line, going over stuff that I already knew but apparently the rest of the class forgot over the summer.  Yet somehow I got through school and still had a ton of stuff I didn't know how to do. Like make a budget, cook (yeah I took home ec but that was mainly baking and sewing, not actually cooking), and other life skills. I didn't know any...

What color do you think that would be, exactly? Ben is almost crawling! Monday he started getting up on his hands and knees. Now he can scoot forward, just a little bit at a time though. He kicks his legs and pushes himself forward but his hands stay in the same spot, then he gets on his tummy and when he pushes himself up with his hands again he has gone forward an inch or two.  I'm not sure how long it takes between now and actual bonafide crawling, but this is way way way way sooner than I thought it would be.  I was hoping he'd be crawling by his 1st birthday, which is when he would be 9.5 months adjusted age. Which I think is pretty typical crawling age, but I don't really know. He just turned 7 months adjusted, and is almost 10 months actual age.  I still get giddy when I see him up on his hands and knees. Having a baby is so much fun!!! The child is eating solids like a mad man, 3 meals a day. It seems like he eats a ton of food, I feed him until he stops openi...

Well, bio mom has come back out of the woodwork.  Sounds like she is doing OK.  We chatted on Facebook (sort of), now she has requested to be my friend on Facebook which I'm trying to figure out if it is a good idea or not. Long story short, she's pretty upset that D won't respond to her on Facebook. I know he reads her messages, but he never writes back. The first message she wrote to me she said "If I can help it I will steer clear of nebraske so they can be happy with y'all and not confused about the black lady in there face 2hours a year"...by the third message she said "Can we maybe come up with something in the next year that's maybe fun and entertaining for a little while longer than 2 hours and go from there maybe once a year."  She is still very concerned with herself, with how the kids think about her, if she is strong enough to see them, etc. She wants to Skype with the little ones. I haven't answered her back yet because I...

Technically she's not three until tomorrow. But we had her birthday party last weekend. We only invited family and somehow 80 million people were there. We had 3 babies, plus 2, 2, 2, 4, 4, and a 5 year old.  And I don't even know how many adults were there. Miss M is obsessed with princesses. When I comb her hair she always asks "Do I look like a princess?" I really don't know where it came from, we don't go crazy with the princess stuff. I actually think maybe it came from the teachers at daycare or the other little girls at daycare. Even though she hasn't gone to daycare in 2 months some things still stick I guess! So anyway, we had a princess birthday party, sort of. We did a princess cake, and princess plates and napkins. But no characters, just purple and pink and crowns.  And I got so excited because I found a princess castle by Melissa and Doug that got lots of great reviews, and I thought she would really like it so we went in with some other ...

OK so after writing my blog last night (which by the way I didn't even want to write, but my husband said I ought to do one, so I did) last night Ben only woke up three times. And one of those times was right before I went to bed, so I only got up with him twice! Whaaaaaat!?!?!?  The last time he woke as around 5 or 5:30, I can't remember exactly. But after I laid back in bed I thought to myself "Boy, I sure feel well-rested...zzzzzzzzz" :) Then this morning I woke up at 7:30 and went to check on him, and he lifted his head up and looked around. I thought for sure he was awake and I rubbed his little fuzzy head, but his head flopped back down and he went back to sleep for almost another hour. Silly baby! Then at church he was fussy because he needed a nap, but when we got home I got him down and he has been asleep for...wait for it...almost 3.5 hours.  What? Whose baby is this?? I snuck in a little nap and honestly I'm rested enough that I just couldn't slee...

Things have been kind of hard lately.  I'm feeling overwhelmed with the kids; they have been super naughty and it is so, so frustrating when you have told them 80 million times not to do something and they do it anyway. Consequences are administered accordingly, but still.  I have been making an active effort to spend more time with them (as opposed to cleaning and those kinds of things). We read a ton of books, and I've just been trying to sit with them and hang out with them a little bit and be accessible (not on my phone or busy with other stuff).  But it just always seems like it's not enough, and the weight of all there is to do is heavy on my shoulders all the time. Ben is still not sleeping well, of course.  I tried to let him cry the other night and after about 45 minutes I was crying myself. It's so hard. I so want him to sleep, and I know I will be a better mom and human being if I can get more sleep. He will probably grow better and be happier if he can ...

This blog will be all about Y. I really should think of a more creative name to call him on here. So yesterday, I was taken aback when I told him "I love you!" after he woke up from nap and he looked at me and said "Why?"  My response was "Well, because you are awesome!" And let's face it, he is! I think he has a budding career as a worship leader.  In the past week or two he has been using a magnifying glass as a guitar and singing worship songs. Mostly they are a hodge-podge of songs, lyrics might be "Welcome to my worship, oh my soul, God is the boss of me!" Some of those aren't actually from any songs that I personally know, but oh well! :)   And he also does little commentary, like "OK, today we are going to sing this song and worship God, so let's practice!"  I was recording him on my phone, and he sang a song for 3 minutes straight (that's a pretty long time!) and finally I quit recording but he kept on singin...

I am sick. Uuughhh.  I don't get sick very often, so I probably shouldn't complain. Last night I couldn't fall asleep until like 11:30, and Ben was up for the day at 5:45, not to mention the 2 (or was it 3?) times he woke up in between.  I have been having a terrible time falling asleep lately, I don't know why. I almost feel like I'm just so tired I can't sleep. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself when I regularly get more than 3 hours of sleep in a row. Anyway, my entire face is congested. When I was nursing Ben to sleep this morning (after he cried for, oh, 2 hours, and I had already tried to get him to sleep 3 previous times), the snot literally dripped out of my nose onto him. So nasty.  I need to take out stock in Kleenex because I'm using a TON of them. My goal today is to do as little as possible, just enough to keep everyone happy and the house from completely looking like a pig sty.  I just want to sleeeeeeep. OK I'm don...

I'm feeling a little bad about being such a home body lately.  I feel like Y and Miss M are getting bored. I mean we leave the house every day twice to walk to C's school to get him (we probably walk over a mile a day), and probably twice a week we go grocery shopping (I find everyone's patience levels, especially mine, are a little better on shorter trips). But other than that we pretty much stay home. I have been reading to them a lot, and they play outside and we color and what not, but still not much in the way of experiences I guess.  I don't really have any friends here yet and we don't have groups or anything that we belong to. So anyway I thought I'd take them to the library to get more books.  Then I saw that the library has story time for preschoolers! I realize most libraries have this. However, when the C-Monster stayed home with me I just didn't have the energy to expend in taking them to a place where I knew he would be completely crazy.  Ser...

The C monster is a little scatter brained. Easily distracted. I know, he's 5, I'm sure it's par for the course. Every day he takes his lunch box and back pack to school. Usually I remind him, or Y reminds him. There has been at least one time we made it out the door, I strapped Ben in the stroller and put down the garage door and suddenly he remembered, so I put the garage door back up to let him run inside and get it.  We walk right by his stuff every day as we walk out the door, it's not like it's hiding in some secret place or something. This is the third full week of school. Well today we were waiting on C to leave (as per usual everyone else was ready first). He had his shoes on the wrong feet (also as per usual, even though he has an easy way to tell which side is which he rarely takes the time to make sure he does it correctly). I told him to fix his shoes, and he did. And we left for school. We were running a few minutes late because of his shoes but shoul...

Brian knows a guy through triathlon, and is leasing our office from him. This guy goes to a church that seemed like it would be pretty cool. D also just so happened to make a good friend at football, and this friend goes to this church as well.  So, we were pretty excited to try it out on Sunday! On Saturday, Brian was talking to his friend, and the friend mentioned that kids aren't allowed in church. Like, not babies, not any kids at all until they are in 6th grade.  We keep Ben with us still (for a lot of reasons: germs (no offense to the other babies!), Ben still breast feeds frequently, and quite frankly he usually does pretty well through the service, and when he doesn't I have no problem leaving with him to get him settled).  Anyway, I guess they have a "family room" where you can go sit with your kids if you want to, but otherwise kids aren't allowed in the main service. So anyway.  That was a deal breaker for us right away. It just doesn't seem rig...

C's first few days of kindergarten have gone well. He is really tired but I'm sure once he gets used to it he'll start feeling better. He seems to like his teacher and his class so that's good! We are enjoying walking to and from school, except for the one time that Miss M got lost. :) It was only for about 30 seconds but it sure felt like a long time. We got D an iPhone. We have some pretty strict rules with it, but part of me is still pretty anxious about the trouble he could get in to with it. It's one of those things where we'll just have to trust him. He seems to be liking school too. He's a big man on campus already (according to him at least!) So yeah. Story of his life. I'm slowly but surely getting things unpacked. Trying to get stuff done around the house with a baby, 2 and 4 year old with me all day is no joke! And the house is so big that it's almost a hindrance to getting stuff done. Like, if I have to work upstairs then it really has...

Our new house is enormous. I mean I knew it was bigger than our old one, but it didn't really sink in until we got our furniture in here. Just...wow! I actually feel a little bit guilty about having such a huge house. I mean we can afford it, but I just hope we are always grateful for it and don't fill it up with a bunch of crap and then decide we need more room. We're planning to live here for a long long time. School starts tomorrow! Tonight we're going to walk to C's school to get an idea of how long it will take with the kids. I plan on walking him to and from school every day unless it's super cold or rainy or something.  It's only about 1/4 mile away, maybe a little more. Not far, but walking it with a baby, 2, 4, and 5 year old might take longer than anticipated. :) It took way, way longer to load the truck than we thought it would. Part of the problem was that we brought our refrigerator, deep freeze, washing machine, and dryer from our old house, ...

We closed on our house yesterday! It was a whirlwind of phone calls, and we had to pay $8900 to get a new roof on it before we even owned it, but it's done. Whew!  And awesomely, our closing costs for the house ended up being $8,000 less than we thought they were going to be, so that pretty much paid for the roof. God provided for us for sure! Right now a painter is painting, and I am just so excited about our paint colors and I think everything is going to look awesome when he is done. He is also painting the insides of the closets. They are so gross, for real. Saturday we spent the day cleaning, didn't even get all the way done but at least the bedrooms, kitchen, and living areas are done. And the bathrooms were pretty decent, and those will be easy to clean since there aren't any carpets or anything. So a guy is coming to restretch the flooring on the main level, and since our closing costs were so much less than we thought we will get the carpet on the stairs and 2n...

So Brian called the realtor and kind of ran him through the wringer and told him that he is not doing a good job. Magically, we have a new realtor now! He called and worked it out with the bank that owns the property that we can close on the 1st. And he is going to try to find out if the property was insured during a hail storm in May, and if so then maybe we can get the insurance company to replace the roof.  That would save us a lot of money and if we can close on the 1st that will give us at least a fair amount of time.  Realtor guy has worked harder for us in the last 24 hours than he has the past 2 months! Also can I just say, I'm thankful that the person I married is not like me. I am more of a door mat type person (until it comes to my kids). I was all "Don't make him mad, let's just try to get this over with!" and Brian was all "No! He works for us and he needs to do a better job!" Guess who was right. :) Oh and the home inspector said that t...

Ben has been putting himself to sleep for nap times! Can you believe it? If you would have told me a week ago that Ben would be napping on his own right now I would have laughed in your face and said no way! NO WAY! Yesterday he took THREE naps on his own, the first two were an hour and 15 minutes and the last one was only 40 minutes, but hey beggars can't be choosers! I just nursed him, put him down in his bassinet awake, patted him a minute, then walked away. No crying, no fussing, and when I left he was awake. It's a miracle!  I think it has really helped that he has apparently developed a great love for his middle and ring fingers, and sucks on them regularly. It looks like he's signing "I love you". :) The bad news is, he has a cold so he's not really sleeping any better at night.  Last night he was up 8 times between 8 p.m. and 7:30 a.m. this morning. I downloaded a sleep tracker ap on my phone so I can easily see when he was awake and not have to tr...

So yesterday I tried the same thing as the night before with nap times - nursed him, then put him into his bassinet and tried to pat him to sleep. The first nap he slept for 2 hours and fifteen minutes! Did not wake up one time! This is the longest he has slept by himself since he came home from the hospital! He has slept for longer (the longest was 3.5 hours) but it was always in the sling or next to me in the bed at night. Awesome, right?? Oh I also tried to give him his bottle before that (which, if anyone is curious, was 2 ounces of breast milk, 1 ml of iron stuff, plus 1/4 tsp of formula). He ate one ounce and then started FREAKING OUT and wouldn't take the rest. I tried everything I knew how for 5 minutes to get him to take it and he just kept screaming. So I just nursed him. And even though I had just pumped he was definitely swallowing which I think is crazy. My boobs hate the pump and would rather keep the milk for the baby I think. Then, second nap, did the same thing...

So, sleep has not improved despite denying myself dairy.  Kind of crappy but oh well. So I've been trying to figure out what else I can possibly do. I just don't know how much longer I can go on getting no more than an hour or so of sleep at a time. I have absolutely no problem getting up in the night to feed my child. But getting up 6 times over the course of 8 hours to be his mommy pacifier? Yeah...that sucks. I don't care who you are. And it's not like it's just one bad night...it's every single stinking night.  I could do getting up 2, 3, even 4 times.  But 6 is just crazy. No way he's getting the sleep he needs. I'm definitely not. Another thing I've been thinking of is our day time routine. Right now I'm home alone with Ben while Brian is at work, D is with him (at football practice), and the other three are at preschool. I can nurse Ben to sleep for an hour if I need to, the house is perfectly quiet with no one coming or going.  Once w...

Well, sad to say I have reached the end of my rope with Ben's sleep habits.  After doing a little research, I came to conclude that he POSSIBLY might have silent reflux/heartburn.  He doesn't spit up very often, but he will occasionally get a horribly nasty look on his face and kind of smack his lips, not to mention the fact that he won't go more than an hour and fifteen minutes without waking up. I don't feel that he's waking because he's hungry, because he'd often go right back to sleep into a deep sleep after only 5 minutes of nursing. So, I feel that he was waking up mostly for comfort. I can understand that if you have heartburn (which I honestly have never had, another benefit to having a baby early I guess) you might like a nice drink of milk to cool down your throat, yes?  And then after a little drink maybe you will feel better and go back to sleep. He doesn't have really any of the other symptoms. But I just don't know what else it could ...

We had Y's birthday party on Saturday. We were going to have it the week before, but since he was sick we delayed it.  We just had a small party with the grandparents, which was the same thing we did for C's birthday party. We had pizza, and Y ate I think 3 pieces which is kind of a lot for a 4-year-old. While he was doing the cake stuff I had taken Ben into the bedroom to nurse him, so I missed that part. Anyway.  I guess he started feeling unwell, so he didn't eat any cake or ice cream (so sad!). But he played with and enjoyed his new toys. That night he threw up. Again. At this point we were thinking maybe it was a dairy sensitivity. The chocolate milk seemed to trigger vomit, and the pizza had copious amounts of cheese on it, so...? So we have been somewhat restricting his dairy, definitely no milk to drink, no more pizza, etc. Yesterday I was finishing putting away all the party stuff, and took a look at the number 4 candle he had had on his cake. It looked l...

We have been sick. Thursday night (that would be 1 week ago) Y started barfing hardcore. I'm pretty sure he threw up several cups of liqui-tummy contents, with clearly identifiable chunks of his lunch. I know, gross right? Friday, he puked several more times. Then Saturday, Sunday, and Monday he puked one time each day.  Then Tuesday, no puking! Yay! So Wednesday he was able to go to preschool for a field trip to the zoo (yay again!).  Then Wednesday night after dinner he started complaining that his tummy hurt.  Yup...threw up shortly after. At this point I don't think it's a tummy virus, I think his tummy is just a little sensitive from all the barfing. The poor guy.  I feel so bad for him. He is acting just fine and normal, until shortly after he eats dinner his tummy starts bothering him.  Last night we had pasta and spaghetti sauce...nothing too crazy, at least I don't think so. He didn't even eat all that much of it. Before I had been only giving him t...