Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

Yesterday we went to a park and had breakfast with a bunch of strangers and a few people we knew from our church. It was a pretty fun time. During breakfast, C decided he wanted more sweets and did not want to eat the food he had on his plate. I told him to eat what he had, then he could have some more sweets. He said "NO!" and went to pick up his napkin, which I promptly grabbed away to keep him from throwing it. He looked at me calmly and said "I need my napkin!" Me, being the somewhat naive person that I am, thought to myself "Well, maybe he just wants to wipe his face" and so I gave it back. Then he threw it across the table! I about died (of laughter!)! Thankfully I think I was the only one that saw it - wouldn't want the rest of the world seeing how naughty these little ones can be! ;) This morning during breakfast, C had another tantrum. I pushed his bowl away from him so he couldn't knock it over/throw it/whatever. So since he had no...

Those of you that aren't around C that much might not know this, but that boy can talk the hind leg off of a donkey. I'm serious. Sometimes after sitting in the car with him for extended periods of time I get a head ache. Sometimes if I appear to not be paying attention he will ask me "Can I talk to you?" and whether I say yes or no, he's off to the races! If he can't think of anything to talk about, he'll just say "Is that a car? Is that a truck? Why? Is that a tree? Do you know that cow? I want a cow! Why? Where Bontay? Can I see my mom? Why? Where are we going? Why?" blah blah blah. So this is kind of only funny in that context. Yesterday I went to the boys' daycare to pick them up, and C was still napping. In fact, he was napping SO HARD that his teacher and I were tickling him, rubbing his head, legs, feet, back, saying his name over and over for several minutes before he finally opened his eyes. Once they were open he just laid...

Took D to school, and dropped the boys at daycare Went to four different grocery stores for various deals and bought, oh, 50 pounds of meat or so ...ok maybe closer to 60 pounds (lots of good deals for Memorial Day!) Ran 5 miles with my loyal dog On the way home from said run, my dog discovered a baby bird chirping on the ground inside of it's nest, which had fallen out of the tree. The parent bird was dead next to the nest. I rescued the bird, called the Wildlife Rescue people to figure out what the heck to do with it - considered keeping it for about 5 seconds, and promptly decided that I did not need a helpless baby bird to care for (and keep safe from our dogs and cats!) on top of everything else! Showered Took the bird to the wildlife rescue volunteer, who will feed it and raise it until it's old enough to release back into the wild Picked up the boys from daycare Took them to Children's Museum While there Y stuck his hands into the public toilet while I was trying to ...

Guess what? My little boys started bonding therapy this week with their mom. Guess what else? NO ONE TOLD ME! That's right. They are getting picked up early from daycare (one gets picked up early Tuesdays, the other gets picked up early Wednesdays) and taken to their own one-on-one therapy session with bio mom before the rest of the kids show up for the visit later in the afternoon. I can not believe no one told me. The only way I found out was by asking the GAL if/when they would start therapy, to which she replied "I think it is this week, but you will have to ask the service coordinator". So I did, and she responded that yes, they started this week. My response back to her was..well, I'll just let you see it. Is there any reason I was not informed of this ahead of time? I feel like I am extremely out of the loop, and am not notified of things until the last minute. I do want to be involved, and I do want to know what is going on. I know these aren't my chil...

When you are little, you just tend to think that everyone's life is like yours is. My home life was wonderful - I had two parents that loved me, believed in me, encouraged me, told me I was wonderful, taught me about God and how to be selfless and loving and truthful. When I found out that not everyone had parents like mine, it was a little bit of a shock. When I found out that sometimes parents couldn't (or didn't) take care of their own children, maybe even hitting them or letting them go hungry...I couldn't bear it. It made me so, so sad. Fast forward to five years ago, when my husband and I first got married. I told him in advance that I might not be able to have children. We both wanted kids, but I think maybe I wanted them a bit more than he did (ha!). I was very open to the idea of children of any race, and even pictured our little (big) family with multiple races represented. In my dreams none of my children look like me - I am talking about actual drea...

Bio dad's visit time got changed so it is not during nap time. Yaaaaay! It will be tomorrow morning. The kids go to daycare tomorrow before their visit with mom (because they HAVE to go to daycare every day), so their day will start at 9 a.m. with a visit with their dad, then from there they go to daycare, then go to bio mom's, and they won't get home until about 7:30 or 7:45 at night! I won't get to see them hardly at all. :( So far visits have not been canceled for almost 3 months straight (with mom, at least). That is pretty amazing. I am trying to find out what the next few months hold, now that it appears mom is holding up her end of the deal. I am unsure of what to expect. This (not knowing what to expect) in and of itself is nothing new, but I guess at this point I am just expecting my boys to be leaving sometime in the next 6 months. Nobody has given me this time frame but I guess if mom is doing everything she is supposed to do then what is keeping them...

That's pretty much what has been going on lately. I'm spending more time working with my husband. Work overall is picking up (YAY!) which is a blessing. I got to tour some pretty nice homes today which was pretty fun. :) Not a whole lot new with the boys - D is almost out of school for the year so that's exciting for him. He is in some summer programs but he will still be around the house quite a bit over the summer. It will be hard to get used to (especially with the little ones in daycare)but hopefully we can make the best of it. C's tantrums are getting somewhat violent. He is doing more and more kicking, and I would say his tantrums are more frequent and over much more random things. For example, yesterday he had a tantrum because I did not stop and check the mail when we got home from picking D up from school. Getting the mail isn't even normally my habit (which is why I didn't stop) - DH usually gets the mail. But it led to some serious screaming an...

Sometimes it is nice to have a normal family. I don't feel that our family is normal very often - most likely because it's NOT normal. The boys didn't have a visit on Saturday because it got moved to Sunday. This gave us one whole, entire day with nothing in particular scheduled!!!!! So Saturday we had a normal family day. My husband woke up and made the kids waffles for breakfast (I slept in until 8:30 - thank you husband!). When I woke up we got the kids around, D invited a friend over, and we headed out to the car show at church. My husband pulled the little boys there on the bike trailer and I drove the big boys. We browsed, we looked at colors and shapes, peeked at each other in hubcaps so shiny they looked like mirrors, we walked aimlessly, we watched someone fire up one of the oldest cars I've ever seen, we ooohed and aaahhhed over the crazy things in the old cars. We ate hotdogs and hamburgers and made messes. Came home and I went for a run while the litt...

Welp, the visit with dad went OK I guess. I dropped the kids off at daycare at 11, and they got picked up for the visit at 12:30. I guess the worker gave dad both of my communication books (one is for mom only, one is for dad only) and dad wrote in both of them. Today I CLEARLY labeled them to hopefully avoid confusion next time! Dad said that he picked up with the boys right where they left off, like he was never even gone (for 6 months and then 5 months before that)! I'm keeping the snarky comments to myself on this one but I'm sure ya'll can fill in the blanks on what exactly I'm feeling. :) The boys went to bio mom's house after that but she did not get either of the books which was upsetting for me and for her - they both went back to daycare with the baby (who by the way is not going to visits with the boys anymore on Wednesdays because she is having a special visit on Thursday where they can work on bonding with her and mom which is a good thing of cour...

He's making an appearance again. The state in their infinite wisdom have decided that the best thing to do is to put this "dad" (who has not seen his children in almost 7 months) on a visit with a 3 year old, a 23 month old, and a 7 month old, all at the same time, DURING NAP TIME. Doesn't that sound like the most pleasant experience you can possibly think of? Apparently there is just no other time to do it other than during nap time. Personally I find that a little hard to believe. I have written several complaint emails but everybody just pretty much tells me too bad, so sad. The bonus for me (but the bad thing for bio mom!) is that straight after the visit with dad the kids will be coming to her for four hours! So they are going to be a) not napped, b) probably confused about having spent time with a stranger/their dad that they vaguely remember, c) extremely tired/fussy/crabby/etc. The GAL is not standing up for these kids on this and it pisses me off. Maybe I a...

Yeah, we went to the poop doctor today. C is being tested for celiac disease and milk allergy, and other stuff too - they took enough blood for a whole battery of tests, methinks! Starting him on a different poop prescription too, and going to be giving it to him 3X per day for 3 days to get his whole system cleaned out. Sounds like fun, right? As soon as the doctor felt his belly she asked "When was the last time he pooped??" cause she could feel it all in there. Is this TMI? Sometimes i feel my TMI filter is simply non-existent. :) At any rate, hopefully we'll start getting some answers here soon! Saturday D had his cousin spend the night. She was a pretty good kid and fit right in with us it seemed like. She was a little shy at first but warmed up pretty quickly. I liked having her here! I picked the kids up from their visit with bio mom that day and when I walked in to her house C got right on my lap and started asking me for stuff: "I want a toy, Bwin!...

I have many things going through my head right now, and very little desire to flesh them out. So for you, my dear readers, I provide...duh duh duuuuuh! A bulleted post. :) Time goes so, so quickly. Tomorrow will be the first day since the kids started daycare that I don't have anything I HAVE to do. There are several things I WANT to do, but nothing that absolutely must be done. It's a first and kind of exciting! C visited with the ECD people for our school district and did not qualify for services. Basically they only look at the educational component, and determined that his issues are not educational in nature but rather medical. The evaluator was excellent and super kind and understanding of my situation - I was there with the three littles by myself so it was kind of crazy. It is just nice to see a kind smile sometimes when you are feeling overwhelmed! The evaluator was impressed with C's language skills and was very impressed that he was potty trained too. Go C! :)...

I never heard of Cee Lo Green in my life before tonight. We were watching The Voice on TV for the first time and decided that our little Y probably looks exactly like Cee Lo did when he was 22 months old. Especially when Y does his big old cheezy smile - oh man that kid is the cutest little kid when he smiles! :) Randomocity: C: "Am I gonna see my mommy today?" Me: "Yeah!" C: "I'm not gonna see her tomorrow?" Me: "You see her today AND tomorrow!" C: "no!" ....a few seconds later C: "My mommy not sick anymore?" (we told him she was sick when she canceled visits for 3 weeks straight) Me: "Nope, she's not sick!" C: "She happy now?" Me: (tearing up a little bit ) "Yes honey, I think she is happy now." Kids are so perceptive. I'll do another update tomorrow most likely.