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...