Real Changes

It’s been about 15 months since we started this journey of fostering, and it has been quite the roller coaster ride.  I feel like so much is happening all the time, yet nothing really changes.  At least not the big changes that people seem to expect when they ask about the girls.  But we’re about to finally have a big change… one of our babies is going home this week.

I know I haven’t posted in awhile, but I’ve definitely lost the right to call the girls babies.  S is eighteen months and sometimes figures things out quicker than 3 year old Keragan.  She’s been walking for more than half the time we’ve had her, and is definitely a headstrong toddler.  J (we’ll call her Jia since Baby J doesn’t fit anymore!) is sixteen months, and is still in her role as baby of the family, but she’s developing quite the personality and gets very upset when the “big girls” leave her behind.  She’s naturally a cuddler and has only very recently begun to discover her independence, so it’s easy to treat her like a baby still.

Back to the change… this week, exactly one year to the day we got her, S will be going home.  Well, I should say to her new home.  A relative came forward just as they were about to terminate parental rights and put her up for adoption, and they have been building a relationship.  All of the paperwork is done and it seems like a solid match, so she’ll be moving permanently in two days.  To be honest, we always knew this day would come.  Biological family has always been involved in the case to some extent and we didn’t really even allow ourselves to seriously think about adoption because of it.  I think that makes this transition a little easier.  We’ve gotten to know these relatives and I really do believe it’ll be a good home for S. 

Not only is this going to be a big change for S, but also for the rest of us.  S has been the dominant personality in our home for the past year.   While we love her, she can be quite exhausting as she demands attention frequently from each of us.  We’ve had chances to see our home without her as she’s been doing weekend visits with relatives, and it’s so calm and quiet!  It’s also been interesting to see Jia come out of her shell when she’s not in S’s shadow. 

Keragan is probably the one who has been affected the most by all of this.  I imagine it has to be confusing to have her sister coming and going so much.  I don’t think she really remembers a time when the girls didn’t live with us, so she’s asking questions.  We try to answer them the best we can to help her understand, but she’s had a lot of anxiety that I feel is related.  Understandably.  All we can do is reassure her that she’s not going anywhere.

The change couldn’t come at a better time, in my opinion.  We had planned a short vacation at the end of this week, and it’ll be a great distraction for Keragan and Jia.  It’ll also be a good time to regroup and solidify our new, smaller family and relax and have fun.  The summer is flying by so quickly that I know it’ll be over before we know it.

We’ve decided to take a short break from fostering for the summer.  We’re keeping Jia, but not accepting any new placements for at least a month.  This’ll give us a chance to catch up on some things that we’ve fallen behind on and enjoy the freedom that  having only two kids brings!  Having three kids, especially so close in age and so young, was a real challenge for us, and I’m looking forward to a break. 

Sleep

It's funny, isn't it, how much adults want sleep and how little toddlers want?  We've been battling sleep issues with Keragan for the past month, and we are exhausted.  She's always been a great sleeper (excluding a week here or a week there), but it seems like when she turned 3 everything changed.  My good sleeper is now fighting bed time for several hours some nights and waking every morning at 3.  My good eater is suddenly super picky about everything.  And it's not even consistent!  Her favorite food one day creates a tantrum the next. And everything is SO dramatic.  I feel like she turned into a teenager instead of 3!  I'm sitting here on the floor next to her bed after 2 hours of screaming, talkings and spankings, finally giving in so that the rest of the house can sleep.  It's frustrating, but you know what's even more frustrating? A 3 year old AND two 1 year olds screaming and fighting sleep.

Most houses have a monster or a bogeyman, but Keragan has bears. She is terrified that bears are going to come eat her.  We started with telling her there are no bears, but of course there are.  So now we are sending them back to their cave, locking them up in their cages and praying that God keeps them in their cage and protects us.  But she's STILL scared.  We've tried night lights (she currently has three), running a fan to block out the noises, leaving the door open, looking out the window to see that the bears are gone (but they're hiding).   The only thing that seems to work is us staying in her room until she falls asleep.  Some nights that's simple, but others (like tonight) are awful. 

Other than sleep deprivation, the year is moving along!  Somehow a lot has happened with the babies, but nothing has really changed.  We have court coming up, one in May and the other in June.  In both cases, the county is filing for permanent custody of the kids (terminating parental rights).  None of the parents have really done anything to dispute this, but they will, leading to long, drawn out hearings that will last probably into next year.  It seems so long and drawn out for us, but we know a lot of other foster parents who didn't even reach this stage until a year or two from now.  So we'll sit back and continue to wait.  Baby S has a relative in the mix who has been asked again (she said no the first time) to take full custody, so that could change her situation.  If everything is successful with the PC (permanent custody), we'll be asked to consider adopting them next year.  It's a hard question to think about.  We came into this knowing that the goal is always reunification with family, but were attached to these girls. At the same time, the past year has been exhausting.  I've reached my breaking point so many times.  Do we want to have this situation (3 kids with less than 2 years between them) for the rest of our lives?  In the meantime we wait, not wanting to make plans because the system will screw them all up anyway, but constantly thinking of what ifs.  

Drama

My life feels like a soap opera.  People talk about the drama we'll have with three teenage girls if they end up staying with us, but there's plenty of drama even at this young age! Plus the snow and ice storms as well as subzero temps. Then we add in the bio parents and social workers--parents showing up after a year to "claim" their kid, paternity tests, court cases, extra visitations and new caseworkers.  Just when I feel like I'm wrapping my head around things, another surprise pops up! I've never considered myself to be sheltered, but my eyes sure have been opened in the past year to a whole different way of living.

All four bio parents have more kids than I do.  Thirteen between the four of them, yet they're all younger than me.  Not that they parented all (or any) of them, but they have had opportunities to parent.  So it amazes me some of the things I hear from them.  From a bio dad telling me to stop using formula and just water down some 2% milk, to a bio mom feeding her 11 month old a Salisbury Steak TV dinner, to the homeless parent who wants to spend hundreds of dollars on a ChuckECheese birthday party and baby Air Jordan shoes instead of saving up for an apartment.  Oh, and my favorite, a rant in court about how plenty of people do drugs every day and still take care of their kids, and it's ridiculous that he has to get clean to get his baby back.  No one really knew how to respond to that.

But in the middle of all the drama, life goes on!  We've been busy with preschool, trying to figure out which school Keragan will go to next year, celebrating birthdays, and coming up a wedding!  Not to mention meetings, parent teacher conferences and classes that are keeping Troy out late.  I'm ready for a break, but I don't see one coming anytime soon.  

Keragan turned three!  Wow how time has flown.  She's getting so big!

Keragan's life is 100% about her birthday right now.  We had talked several months ago about what kind of party she wanted, and she was adamant about Minnie Mouse.  It was odd because she never really was interested in her before, but we went with it.  She had her first friend party, and I had to limit her to 7 friends, which was difficult.  With our three, we had 10 kids running around, but overall it was a lot of fun!  Keragan was thrilled with it, but has had a hard time accepting that it's over.  She keeps asking when her friends will come back for her party.  

 

Further adding to her confusion is the fact that baby J's birthday is coming up next week.  We're not having a huge party for her, but we'll celebrate it.  Now to convince Keragan that it's not her birthday again!

help

I've always struggled with asking for help.  I tend to want to do things myself and not let people know when I'm struggling.  I don't know if it's just pride/stubbornness or fear of putting someone out, or something else entirely. Troy is very similar, so it's very difficult for us to ask people for help and we usually end up arguing about who is going to ask until we just avoid it altogether. But this week it became very clear that we need help.  We're exhausted, and I feel like I can't keep up with life right now.
In July when we got the call about baby S, we thought baby J was going home in September or October.  That's a whole different issue about communication (or lack of) on the county's side and our naivety and inexperience, but regardless we thought it would be temporary.  Here we are seven months later with three toddlers less than 2 years apart.  Reality is sinking in and troy and I are realizing that we can't keep this up.  From the moment we started talking about fostering, permanency was burned into our heads.  These kids need stability and trust and every time they change homes they are negatively affected.  I don't want to be the cause of that, but at what point do you have to take care of your own family?  I find myself snapping at the kids and getting exasperated when they fall off a stool that I told them not to climb on in the first place.
I know part of the problem is me.  I'm scared to ask for help.  I am with these kids 24/7.  Even when one is at visitation or school, I still have the other two.  Appointments are horrendous taking all three.  Troy is good at helping when he gets home, but even then if I run to the store or another errand, I still take one kid with me.  I know others do it, and it makes me question if I'm cut out for this.
So I'm starting to reach out, ask for help.  I'm sure I'll chicken out a few times, and I'll probably overextend myself, but I have to start trying.  With that said, if anyone is looking to make a little extra money babysitting let me know! :)  Even just one kid helps, and I'm grateful to several friends who have helped me out this past week.
Further causing me to doubt my parenting abilities, church was eye opening today.  I teach the 3 & 4 year olds, and since Keragan is about to turn 3 I decided to bring her to class to try it out.  She is already in preschool, so I didn't expect her to be shy, but wow.  She was bossing the other kids around, acting like she was in charge!  If it had been someone else's kid I would've laughed... instead I was appalled.  It's funny, I always thought of her as a follower, but apparently I was wrong.  At one point she walked up to 2 boys playing with a toy, put her hands on her hips and said, "boys, that is mine. You can't play with it."  What!?  She had never met the boys and they are 2 years older than her.  She hadn't been playing with the toy, either. They kind of looked at her like she was crazy and I told her to go play somewhere else, but my mind was blown.  She also has developed quite the sass/back talk that has landed her in time out and taken away her tv privileges multiple times.  I guess it's safe to assume we've hit the terrible 2s.
So add up 3 toddlers, one case of terrible 2s, one case of attachment issues, one case of drug exposure, two cases of neglect, multiple (4-5) appointments per week and you get an exhauated mama.  I'm not saying all of this to get pity.  I chose this life, and there are many aspects that I love.  But I'm saying this all to myself to convince myself that it's okay to ask for help.  To admit that I'm human and not the super parent that I try to convince myself that I am.  And yes, maybe it's cowardly to do it online where I don't have to face anyone, but it's a start.

Attachment

When I talk to people about fostering, I always hear it; "I don't know how you do it, I would get too attached."  To be honest, we don't know how we are going to do it, because we haven't had to send anyone back yet, but it is a reality that we think about often.  I've been learning a lot about attachment, and the importance of kids learning to attach and develop relationships with people.  In a class I recently took, the instructor summed it up by saying that our entire job IS to get attached to these kids, to show them that there are people out there who they can trust and teach them how to have a healthy relationship.  But with that comes all of the emotions.  Holding back our emotions for a fear of getting hurt only hurts the kids in the long term.

So we made the commitment, and now we get to deal with the emotions.  I know that nothing in the system happens quickly, but living it is different than knowing it.  We've had the girls for 8 and 6 months, and nothing has changed.  No progress on their cases by parents, and so we're just waiting for their court cases.  Court isn't until May and June, but we just found out that both cases will be extended another year.  Seriously?!  I get exhausted just thinking about it.  Selfishly I'm dreading another year of visits and paperwork while the parents essentially have free babysitting.  But when I look past myself, I think about the effects that this will have on the girls. Baby J really only knows us as her family.  She does fine with her mom in her weekly visit, but she calls me mom and is way more excited to see us after the visit than to see mom before the visit.  In a year from now she'll be talking, or moreover listening to her mom talk about us and undermine us.

Baby S will continue acting out after visits, sporadic as the parents are.  I'll be the one having to explain to her why mom and dad didn't show up again.  

Yes, I'm a pessimist and maybe the parents will turn things around.  Or maybe they'll stop showing up and shorten the process.  I don't know, but everyone will continue to be affected.

Keragan will also be affected.  We're starting to see the big sister come out, and it's not necessarily the loving, protective big sister all the time.  She is starting to tattle and boss the babies around, and we often have the talk about who is mommy and who is not.  

But I also see the loving, nurturing side coming out.  Her favorite thing right now is to play the Big Bad Wolf with us.  When we get to the brick house and huff and puff and can't blow the house down, she always comes out and says "it's okay, Big Bad Wolf!"  Sometimes she just gives me a hug, other times she brings me food from her kitchen to eat, and today she actually told me that she would be my friend.  It is so sweet and I love seeing that side.

Troy is also working hard to expand her vocabulary.  Her favorite right now is saying "smarts" for hurts.  Anytime she falls or does something, she'll say "ouch! That smarts!"  Of course I laugh every time, so she keeps saying it.  She has a lot of adjectives for food as well... And it keeps expanding. We never know what's coming out of her mouth!  

So I guess we start preparing for another year of uncertainty, while getting more attached to these kids.

Happy New Year!

Wow, what a year!  I was looking back at my posts from the end of 2013, and I never would have pictured the year that we had in 2014.  We were looking to adopt privately again, and had even filled out all of the paperwork to begin the process again.  Then in January, everything changed and God began to open our hearts to fostering.  I was terrified, but we started the process anyway.  Here we are, less than a year later, with four little girls 3 and under (we're respiting a little 3 year old) sleeping upstairs. Troy went to bed early since he's on the early shift, and I'll stay up until midnight to watch the ball drop by myself.  But I don't think I'd have it any other way!  

The holidays were a little different this year.  I decided early on that I needed to manage my expectations and not plan to do too many things.  I still felt rushed in the end, but it could have been a lot crazier!  

Baby S spent Christmas with her bio family, so we took Keragan and baby j with us as we traveled to see family.  They did pretty well traveling, and had a great time with friends and family.  In fact, Keragan was so used to being with other kids/family that she was devastated when we pulled into our driveway and told her that none of her cousins were coming.  She told us that she was staying in the car until her friends came.  It's hard for me to comprehend this, as I was Sooo greatful to be home and ready to have some alone time.  But I guess that's the difference between an introvert and extrovert!

She didn't have to wait long, though, as we are providing respite care for a little 3 year old foster girl.  We generally aren't doing respite because of the craziness we already have going on here, however we know the little girl and her foster family, so we decided to make the exception.  Keragan is loving having someone to play with again, and it's fun having a guest!

Who knows what the next year has in store for us... I'm trying to embrace that part of fostering (trying being the key word!). Our girls have court in May & June, and at this point the parents have made little to no progress on their case plans.  It's hard to know how to feel about the parents' case plans.  It feels awful to hope that they don't complete it, but at the same time these girls are a part of our family now.  I'm biased, but I believe that the best thing for these girls is to stay with us.  After a year (the May & June court dates), the parents' rights can be terminated (then we could adopt), the kids could go back, or they could extend the case plan for another year of integrating them into our family while having weekly visitations with bio parents to remind them of a life they could possibly have.  The state harps on the fact that disruption (picking up and being moved to a different home) causes so many issues for kids, but they don't se to take into account the upheaval caused by taking them out of good foster homes to place them back with a family they don't know, just share DNA with.  So we love them and do what we need to do while we wait!

Have a happy New Year!

 

Thankful

Well it's taken me forever to update because my computer died.  My phone is always dead by the  time I'm ready to post, and the tablet I got in place  of  my computer is really hard to type on.  The joys of technology!
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?!

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.