Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

My husband pretty much demanded that I do this post. And he is baking bread,and finishing up the last of the dishwashing for me, so I guess I better appease him! :) Today, my 19-month-old did not nap from 8:00 to 10:30, and from 3:00 to 5:00, and still make it in bed by 8:00 p.m. What kind of a toddler takes nearly five hours worth of naps in one day??? Also, the two year old did not nap from 9:00 until 12:30. Again...what kind of a two-year-old takes nearly four hours worth of naps in one day? And speaking of that, what kind of adult would let her children take naps at such random times? And THEN proceed to let them play with play-doh during their actual nap time? I definitely did not have a two-year-old sitting on the potty trying to poop for approximately 2 or 3 three hours today...and he did not, then, proceed to poop in his booster seat during dinner, resulting in a large splat of poop going on the floor in the kitchen when he announced "I'm pooping!" and I pulled...

Last week, after bio mom canceled two visits (read: 8 hours of visitation that was supposed to occur did not), my husband and I came to the conclusion that I just cannot handle all of my duties as a mother, wife, employee, and business owner when visits get canceled. I just don't have enough time to do everything that needs to be done. The housework part is not what is difficult - the hard part is doing stuff for the business, because I have to sit down and focus on a task and I need to have time to sit at my computer and not be bothered with any distractions, especially when I am working on taxes and that kind of thing. Nap times for me are no longer breaks, since I have the baby and she is awake more and more. During nap times I am feeding the baby, changing the baby, trying to help the baby get to sleep, or just holding and playing with the baby...and then the boys are awake, and then there is no more time. Sometimes she sleeps during the boys' nap time, sometimes not. ...

There has been some weird sleep going on in this house. C woke up kind of early this morning and napped from 7:30 until 9:00. Y was ready for a nap at 9:30 and slept until 11:30 this morning. It remains to be seen if afternoon naps will make an appearance in our house today or not. I am hoping for yes. I have been kinda sick for several days. Finally last night I went to bed at 8:30 p.m. and slept until 6:30 this morning, which is what time I normally wake up anyway. At any rate, I still don't feel that great but mostly I am just totally and utterly exhausted. I could totally take a nap this afternoon...but only if the three little children in my care choose to nap as well! In other news, I'm tracking the baby's sleep patterns when she is here with me. She is 3.5 months old now and might be ready to be on some kind of napping schedule during the day. I just want to see if there are any similarities on her sleeping on a day-to-day basis. I know she goes to sleep at the s...

These are the nuggets of joy that C, the almost-three-year-old, brought me today: 1. He was looking kind of like he was trying to poop, whilst in his underwear. Our conversation was: Me: "Are you pooping?" Him: "No! I better not be!" 2. ‎"C, please don't hammer the wall. You can hammer the floor if you want to." "I'm gonna hammer you!" "No, I don't want you to hammer me." "Can I hammer your belly?" "No" "Can I hammer your back?" "No" "Can I hammer your neck?" "No" "Can I hammer your face?" "No!" 3. He was sitting on the potty as per our every-two-hour routine, and was going potty...and decided that instead of using the wienie guard for its intended purpose (i.e., to point the wienie down and prevent pee from getting everywhere) that he was going to point his wienie up, whilst peeing. I saw a spray out of the corner of my eye, and looked up j...

Welp, we have nearly survived the weekend. Here are some tidbits of the goings-on in the last few days: First, forgot to tell you that bio mom asked in the notebook on Thursday (the first day of the new visit schedule, where visits last for 4 hours instead of 2) what the little boys' bedtime was, and that she thought the visits (which end at 7:15) might be going too late for them. I am thinking they just got bored/confused/whatever with having a long visit - I don't think they've been with their mom for 4 hours in a row in almost 10 months! Their bed time is normally around 7:30 or 8 and I know it's cutting it a bit close, but I think it's fine. I'm wondering if she just wasn't used to seeing them get cranky and stuff. It happens every day, you know, because they are kids, but probably not when they are at her house since they are normally there for such a short time! We had the baby all weekend, from Friday evening and her foster mom will pick her up i...

My meeting with the Senator was last night. She was very kind and her jaw literally dropped at some of the things I told her. I basically just did a recap of my letter, and then gave it to her because I am a far better writer than I am a speaker! Hopefully she will read it. This morning we went to a gym to play. A gym where they do gymnastics. They have all kinds of fun things to play on and lots of room for the little ones to run and run. The boys had a really good time playing with their buddy Levi and they did really well. C asked if we could go again and I think we will! I have to say the highlight of my day, though, was C going potty on the potty at the gym - not once, but twice! This was our first diaper-less outing. He was in his big boy underwear, and proud of it! He never tells us when he needs to go, so I just tell him that it's time to go potty every couple of hours, and then he goes and sits on the pot and goes. It wasn't always this easy, of course...this is...

January 20, 2011 Senator Annette Dubas 34th Legislative District Nebraska State Capitol P.O. Box 94604 Room 1018 Lincoln, NE 68509 Dear Senator Dubas: Thank you for taking the time to listen to the concerns of foster parents regarding the payments that they receive for the services they provide. I have several concerns regarding the payments that foster parents receive. I'm not sure that we will have time to discuss all of them in our meeting, so I have laid out my concerns here. First and most importantly, I feel that the reimbursement provided for Level One children ($12 per day) is not sufficient to provide for their needs. With this money we are required to provide transportation to and from school and other activities, clothing, food, hair cuts, entertainment for the children, plus the additional expenses associated with running a home with more children living in it. My husband and I already owned a 4-door vehicle, however with laws governing safety seat locations and p...

D got all B's and one C for his semester grades. This is AWESOME! I am so proud! This is a testament to all of the time he spent working on his math especially and practicing his drums, and practicing spelling words and all of that stuff. I was expecting much worse (I am ashamed to say that!) but I am very proud! That's pretty much all I had. :)

OK I am still not 100% sure what has happened with visits or why this big push all of a sudden to change something. But I got a call today that they are being changed, so that they will be less frequently for longer periods of time. So that means... T: 3:15 - 7:15 Th: 3:15 - 7:15 Sa: 3:00 - 7:00 Instead of 6 days a week for two hours each day. Hallelujah! And I do mean that. First of all, it is more overall visitation (12 hours a week instead of 10.5 hours a week, since D and C didn't go on the Friday visits). Second of all, the visits are longer which means: a. more time to get stuff done, and I can actually DO stuff instead of rushing around like a mad woman during the 2-hour visits); b. time where DH and I can actually go out to eat, or just spend time together, instead of having the kids getting home at 5:45 which is just when he's finishing up his work day, they won't get home until 7:45 or so which is great; c. we get to have more "family" time with all o...

Sunday was my birthday (it's OK if you forgot, you don't have to tell me happy birthday now! ;) ). The boys were at respite over the weekend so we could try to finish our office in the basement (the basement flooded last spring and we got the water issues fixed but have not re-finished the basement yet). Sunday was D's basketball game. DH had to stay home and work on the office, so I picked the boys up from respite and went straight to the game with all three of them. The little ones fell asleep in the car after not napping at respite, so I let D go into the gym by himself since he had to be there before the game started, and I stayed in the car for a few more minutes with the little boys while they slept. Finally I woke them up, which they were not happy about - especially C. When C does not get enough sleep his behaviors and tantrums are insane. But I didn't see myself as having a whole lot of choice here. Brian couldn't watch the little boys because he was i...

Well the kids are at respite, and it is 10:23 and my husband is working in our bedroom and I am ready to go to sleep! So I am waiting until he gets done. Anyway, I just want to say that today was the first and second time that I have gotten major spit-upped on, and it went down my shirt. Once it even went past my bra (is that TMI?) so that tells you how much barf-volume we are talking here. Sick. It was like she did it on purpose too. She was facing away from me, and then she looked towards me and BAM, barf down my shirt. How does that even happen? In other news, we had an accident free day today again with C. I am still keeping him pretty much pants-less, though he did wear pants for a few hours today and was OK. Baby M has been sick lately, she is on antibiotics and has been really congested, poor little thing! But the bright side (for me) is that she has been sleeping a TON, which makes my days a lot easier. I know, that is probably very selfish of me. Ah well! I bought bok c...

Here are some of the things I did not do this weekend: I definitely did not eat an entire half of a large Pizza Hut pizza for dinner on Friday night. That would be, like, more than a pound of pizza! Close to 1% of my body weight! Gross! Earlier in the week I definitely did not crave a glass of whole milk. I mean, who needs all those calories (and fat!), and besides that I'm lactose intolerant anyway! Almond milk only for me, baby. So I definitely knew that it would not be pretty if I drank that much milk. And I clearly chose NOT to drink it. Obviously. I did not put the little boys to bed almost a whole hour early tonight after having a terrible, no-good day today with them. Schedules are important, people! How many times do I have to tell you that??? I also did not, earlier in the day, attempt to put them down for nap in the same room for the first time in six months. Hello, bad timing! Why not pick a "good" day to do that, instead of a rotten one? I definitely di...

It has been four days. I hate it. C hates it. I really want to be done. I may be going about this incorrectly. He does NOT want to pee on the potty, most of the time. He is OK with going first thing in the morning. Otherwise...no. He sits and sits, and cries, and when he gets up he says he needs to potty, so he sits back down, and he sits and sits. And sits. And he is OK with pooping on the potty too. And he tells me when he needs to poop...usually. I scared him because he peed on the floor and I grabbed him and took him to the potty while he was in the middle of peeing. I didn't mean to scare him! But he cried. And I tried to explain that we go pee in the potty, not on the floor, and I didn't mean to scared him. But I'm pretty sure I scarred him for life. So anyway, I am thinking of making going pee in diapers less fun. Such as, would putting something inside of them (like a cloth, or kleenex, or something like that?) that would feel wet when he peed be possible? I mea...

OK So I got to thinking - at least bio mom is giving her kids clothes! I mean, that's good, right? I went through C's clothes because his drawers were overflowing. He has, no kidding, 24 pairs of pants that fit him, probably more if I would have went through what I already have packed away. And I didn't even bother counting the shirts. But anyway, it's good that she is providing for them. I kind of want to tell her that we have enough clothes but I don't want to be mean or whatever. Technically she's still mad at me over the ipod incident. Which, by the way, we haven't heard anything about yet. In other news, Y has decided he only needs to sleep 11 hours at night, and 90 minutes max at nap time. This is the kid that usually sleeps 12 hours a night plus 2, sometimes 3 hours at nap time. He has been very cranky lately. The past two days I've gotten him out of bed in the morning, fed him, changed him, and put him back down. He slept yesterday mornin...

OK I know you are getting tired of hearing about this, but for the past week (or maybe longer) every.single.visit bio mom has been changing the boys' clothes and putting them in different clothes. She may or may not send their old clothes home, some of which I bought and would like back. I mean technically they are the boys' clothes, not "mine", but I bought them so they could be worn! Not so they could sit at her house or ...whatever the clothes at her house do. I'm not really sure what that is, but I know there is a lot of sharing between family members because the boys have a lot of cousins. Which I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that at all, and there isn't! Just that if I buy stuff for the boys I'd like it to stay with them. Anyway, I'm not sure if I should take the clothes-changing personally, or ask her to knock it off, or just let it go and roll with the punches. DH said I should wash the clothes she sends them home in, then s...