It's been a busy few months, as always. I guess if a busy season extends for more than six months, it should be your norm and shouldn't seem busy anymore, but it does. November was rough, and I had a pretty hard time feeling thankful. In a three week period we had two ear infections, two cases of stomach flu, a random virus, a yeast infection and multiple diaper rashes and colds. Of course it had to be over the time where temps were right around 0, and I was hauling three sick kids to multiple doctors offices in chilling temps. Thankfully I never got sick, although if I had the choice I definitely would've taken a sick day! Things calmed down after Thanksgiving, though, and we've been having a smoother month.
Keragan's imagination has blown up over the past month, and she's keeping us laughing all the time, most of the time unintentionally. Today she wanted a snack that we didn't have, and she kept arguing "I want it!" Finally I argued back and said, "I want a million dollars!" She got quiet, then walked over to me, held out an empty hand and said "here's six dollars." It was hilarious, but the imaginary snack she got in return was not appreciated.
At church I've taught the 3 & 4 year olds for the past 10+ years, and I've always said that I learn more about a family from those kids than from talking to their parents. I guess we're getting to that point now, where we have to be careful what we say and do around Keragan. Apparently much of my vocabulary consists of "careful!" "Time out-2 minutes!" And "hold on, you're next." She's also brought home some phrases from school, so I can only imagine her telling her classmates "time out!" Today she had a Christmas party at school so the girls and I went to join in. One of the teachers came up to us and asked if these were the babies Keragan always talks about. I was momentarily excited, because she's been having a harder time with them recently, and I was thinking that she must really love them. Then I asked what she talked about, and the teacher said how much they poop!!!! What!? Granted, one does have digestive issues leading to more diaper changes, but THAT is what she takes from the whole situation?!
At church I've taught the 3 & 4 year olds for the past 10+ years, and I've always said that I learn more about a family from those kids than from talking to their parents. I guess we're getting to that point now, where we have to be careful what we say and do around Keragan. Apparently much of my vocabulary consists of "careful!" "Time out-2 minutes!" And "hold on, you're next." She's also brought home some phrases from school, so I can only imagine her telling her classmates "time out!" Today she had a Christmas party at school so the girls and I went to join in. One of the teachers came up to us and asked if these were the babies Keragan always talks about. I was momentarily excited, because she's been having a harder time with them recently, and I was thinking that she must really love them. Then I asked what she talked about, and the teacher said how much they poop!!!! What!? Granted, one does have digestive issues leading to more diaper changes, but THAT is what she takes from the whole situation?!
As I mentioned, she's been having a harder time with one of the babies. She gets along great with one of them, but the other is a challenge. And I know she's somewhat resentful of the attention that they take from her. So we're trying to be more intentional about having Keragan time with just her and one of us. It's helping, but it is (and probably always will be) an issue. She's also going through a scared phase right now where she's scared of everything: the dark, shadows, spiders, monsters, and most of all bears. I don't know where the bear fear came from, but it's always a bear at the window or a bear in the yard. Troy has to chase it back to its den all the time. Today the five little monkeys were going in a bear hunt, but it was too scary so they went back to bed. These bears seem to pop up everywhere. At least we can reassure her that monsters aren't real, but with bears we have to be creative.
The babies are not really babies anymore. At 9 and 11 months they are both very mobile, very curious and kind of exhausting. The situations are the same, neither sets of parents are making any progress on their case, so we have visits, which both sets of parents actually show up for. I really think that visitation is the worst part of fostering for me. It's frustrating to see them act so irresponsibly, annoying when they tell you everything you're doing wrong, aggravating when they feed them sugar and freaking Cinnabons that you know you're going to be dealing with for the next two days because of the digestive issues caused by their drugs. And then when they act shocked when "their" baby doesn't recognize them because they didn't show up for visits for over a month, I have to bite my tongue and grin and nod. The system continues to annoy me with the abundance of missteps that they allow from the bio parents with no repercussions. I get it that people deserve second and third chances, but at a certain point it's got to stop. Or so I think. But we just keep taking care of the girls and let the chips fall as they may.
Christmas is usually a big deal for me with traditions and decorating and DIG stuff, but I decided that this year I have to tone it down. And I have. Going into the holiday season with low expectations has been such a relief for me! And I'm enjoying it so much more, even without the homemade advent calendar and no cards. I'm looking forward to next week, even with all the traveling.
Well, my fingers are aching and I know I have a ton of typos, so I'll leave it at that.
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