Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

Our daughter, M, did not live with us when she was born. For a variety of reasons we didn't feel we could care for an infant on top of everything else we had going on at the time (you can read back about how torn up I was about this choice, back in September/October 2010). I did daycare for her for the first 6 months of her life, but someone else was her foster mom, who held her at night, woke up with her, put her to bed. Then when M went to a "real" daycare, due to the fact that I was losing my ever loving mind, she still came over to our house at least once a week for a few hours.  When it became clear she would be available for adoption at about the age of 18 months old, her foster mom (who had not been planning on adoption) asked us if we would adopt M.  We of course agreed. Since then, M's old foster mom has been just wonderful. She's come to all of M's birthday parties (except for one, where she had just recently gotten surgery on her foot!), and about...

Peanut's mom's rights got terminated officially today. We went to the hearing which was last week. It was crazy.  There was so much lying etc. I wrote it all down, I just want to be able to remember and my brain isn't what it used to be. Still, bio mom's attorney did a good job of making it seem like bio mom just needed more time. I thought the judge would give it to her.  But the GAL and the state's attorney agreed that 20 months is long enough, and not enough progress has been made.  The initial case from 2016 was never closed, even though he did go home for a few months. I didn't want to go into too many details on here so I'll leave it at that. No adoption date is set yet, I'm sure it won't be for at least 5 more months. I'm pretty sad, but also somewhat relieved knowing that he is safe and doesn't have to be put through any future craziness.  It's a strange mix of emotions.  She can still appeal, of course. We will see! He real...

Gross, I know. I'm sorry. I just have to get this out there. This takes a lot of courage for me to write, but I am putting it out there because I think maybe other people struggle with these things too. And we should help each other, if we can. We have a problem.  Our oldest daughter, who is nearly 7, has been peeing in her room for about the past year and a half (maybe more). At first, when she started sleeping without diapers on at night, she would come out of her room seriously 20+ times to go to the bathroom. Every 5 minutes, at least. She'd go, pee a tablespoon, then go back in her room. Rinse, repeat.  Finally we put the kabosh on that and said look, it's OK to come out of your room at night, but, like, after you go to sleep. I mean how to you explain to a child who can't tell time when it is OK to come out of her room to go pee? She was staying up til well after 10 p.m. and then being super crabby the next day because she was getting no sleep! So, I'm n...

There was a court hearing on July 26, and we got custody of Peanut. His bio mom didn't show up to court, so even though we came to court it was over in only a couple minutes and we didn't even set foot in the courtroom. He moved in this past weekend.  It was a mad frenzy of moving furniture, selling stuff on Craigslist to make room, cleaning, etc.  Hubby's parents have approximately 30+ outfits for him - I have never seen a kid with so many clothes! Seriously!  We barely have room for it all!  :p  So far it has been smooth sailing.  He is such a sweetheart, and all of the kids were totally thrilled to welcome him into the crew. Assuming his bio mom confirms the visit, we are taking him to a visit tomorrow. The worker asked us to supervise but I just don't feel comfortable doing it, since we'd have our 5 other kids with us.  It's going to be at the mall, so we are going to take the other kids shoe shopping (the worker did find someone else to superv...