Names

Confidentiality is key. I usually refer to the girls by their first initials but now I plan on referring to them as CLW and CB. This is mainly because they resemble Cindy Lou Who and Charlie Brown, respectively. My cartoon kids. Sometimes it seems surreal that we have two small kids. I cannot disclose anything that is happening with their case, but it's always on our minds. Will they be tpr'd? Will things end by next April, or drag on? 

My goal for the new year is to utilize respite so I can enjoy my husband again. 

Visits

Three visits in a row were missed by birth mom. Illness, no ride and today was an outright no show. Toddler was devastated, although today was a bit easier than Tuesday. It might have been the jelly beans in my car...

Christmas came early!

I am cautiously happy to report that the baby has slept through the night for 3 nights in a row! It has been 7 months since this has occurred. Hallelujah! I might get some of my brain function back again.

Serve and return

This work is so very important.

It's a new day

Today was better than yesterday. We've been a little under the weather here with colds and other ailments, plus 2 year old behaviors and all that goes with a newly, independent walking 11 month old.

Today was divide and conquer. The baby was up at 5 and toddler woke up shortly thereafter on cue. By 8 the baby was rubbing her eyes and so I brought her up to her crib and also laid down. We had a 2 hour rest while L and the toddler did their thing. Later in the day L and toddler ran some errands while baby and I watched the football game. She also went down for another nap.There were less tantrums today, lowered voices and better coping skills. Hooray!

Thanks...

There are times when I am tired and have very little patience and I wish the girls' mom would get her shit together. Why isn't she doing the work to get her kids back? I am more than twice her age; if I sometimes lose my cool, how does she do it? I love the girls, but sometimes I am overwhelmed. I am not perfect. I read as much as I can and try negotiating the world of a 2 year old. It's like living with a barely verbal bi-polar person. I miss my old life at times. I think there would be something wrong with me if I thought parenting young kids would be easy.

Challenge

When I am having a particularly hard time with my 2 year old foster kid, I remind myself that when she was born her mom was 15 years old. She was raised by a teenager, and some of her behaviors are purely for survival. Other times she is challenging because she is 2. She doesn't challenge my husband like she challenges me, but her relationship with men is really a new thing. She was fearful of men when she first moved in, but now she adores my husband. If the kids go back to mom, I know that we have given her many gifts. Having a positive male role model has been priceless.

Little luxuries

A daily shower, Raffi, adequate sleep, happy dogs, holding hands with my husband, phone calls with my mum, and did I mention adequate sleep?

Facts

"Six of every 1,000 children -- 1,654 -- were in state custody in 2012. That’s the highest number since 2002, when the rate was 9.6 children per 1,000. The rate decreased steadily every year through 2011, when just 4.8 of every 1,000 children were in state custody."

 Source: 2013 Kids Count Profile of Maine

They attribute the increase to the rise of bath salts and other drug use.

Our day(s)

What does a day in our life look like?

Every day is different but in many ways the same. The kids are up for the day around 5 a.m. The baby is up multiple times per night for a feed, but the 2 year old generally sleeps through the night. We have breakfast, bathe and are out the door a little after 7. I work 40 plus hours a week, my husband 48 plus hours, depending upon his overtime. Some days I am alone 24 plus hours with the kids, 2 dogs and 2 cats. Twice a week our 10 1/2 month old and her 2 year old sister visit their mom. My husband and I take turns with these visits. I am so grateful for that. On Tuesdays the visits are from 9-10:30, and on Fridays they are from 12:30 to 2. When he is working I work around the visits with great support from my work. When I take the kids on their Tuesday visit, I take them to work with me, drop them off to their visit, pick them up from their visit and then take them to daycare. 

Daycare is fantastic. The kids attend 5 days a week and our carer is nurturing and wonderful with the girls. The downside to daycare is how quickly the kids get sick. It passes through like wildfire, so in addition to the weekly visits we have had to visit the doctor a few times. I have to notify the birth mom every time I take the kids for a doctor's visit as a part of our participation in the reunification plan.

Do I like visits with mom?

Visits with mom are complex since instead of doing the work she needs to do to get her children back, she has spent most of her time creating drama for us, accusing us of withholding information, and neglect and abuse.The visits usually end with mom pulling some passive aggressive move, some sniping comments or plying the 2 year old with open containers of food (something we asked her not to do).

I hate the visits.

Nighttime consists of dinner for kids, feeding the animals, sometimes a bath, and then the baby to bed first. That leaves time for play, stories and bed for the 2 year old, and then L and I try to sit down and have dinner. There are bottles to be made and packed, bag for daycare to be packed, and I try to be in bed by 9 so that I can get a few hours of sleep before the baby wakes.

Every day is an exhausting whirl. Some days we are incredibly tired, but incredibly happy. Our lives have changed for sure, and the future is uncertain. We could be back to where we were on April 28th, or we could be a new family.

What we have been doing lately.

About 2 months ago we were driving back from Boston. My mom had been hospitalized in their winter home state and their flight home had to be changed. My sister arranged for a direct flight to Boston, which is several states away from home. On the drive home my cell phone rang. It was a caseworker calling us to see if we would take an emergency placement of 2 sisters. 2 young sisters. The caseworker drove for many hours that day to find the girls. Their mother hid them, in an obvious place, and ran. She was not following her safety plan, and leaving them with bad people while she spent time with someone who was violent with her. We thought the girls were 6 months and 2, but they were 4 months and 21 months. They arrived to us in the middle of the night. The first week was an exhausting blur. The last 2 months have been also. We have also been accused of abuse by the birth mom, and experience the ups and downs of 2 young, growing, demanding children. They have visitation twice a week, to be increased by a third day. They attend daycare while we each work 40 plus hours a week. Evenings fly by and we are screwed if we are not in bed by 10 p.m. (9 is better). We sometimes say, "we are too old for this shit." But, the girls are growing and we have good days with the challenging ones. Even if the mom gets the kids back we can at least say that we made some impact on their lives, even if the girls may not remember us.

Change of direction

My posts got a little morose there. Time to change direction, as I have had a shift in my thinking and am at peace with things (for now).

In this state there is only one agency to work with for foster/adoption (other than going through a costly, private agency to adopt infants domestically or foreign). It is a state run program. It's a small state, in many ways. This agency approved our home study and licensed us, even though not all the work to our home required was completed. Several months later we met and were placed with a child who was older and had never had a successful placement with a family. He was living at a residential facility less than a mile from our house. We have come to realize that it was far cheaper to place him with us than to continue to pay an institution to do so. They were upfront with this but not with other things. We were inexperienced and excited. We thought we could help him. We didn't know what questions to ask.

He lived with us for almost 2 years. He definitely had some attachment issues, but even worse was that we were completely unattached to him. His behavior was at times typical teen, and at other times completely bizarre. He began running away about a month before he finally left. The first time he ran away his caseworker had weekend plans and so our team meeting had to wait 5 days while the kiddo came and went and acted like nothing had happened. The second time he left he was foaming at the mouth in the street, screaming obscenities at my husband, thumping his chest.

Was I a good parent? Were we good at parenting together? Was I perfect? Did I do everything I could to help him? Will he be okay? Are we capable to care for a child with special needs? All good questions that I have grappled with inside, and with my husband. My marriage was severely tested over the last 2 years, living with a foster child and through my mom's health issues. In many ways I value the health of my marriage far more than the possibility of being placed with a child who puts the health of my marriage at risk. But don't all parents ask themselves questions like these, and struggle with their answers?

For now we are working on our house, our marriage and continue to live life.

Cycling (not the fun kind)

I think that I have come to that place, that place of reality and acceptance.

Recently I told my husband that the world is full of unhappy, broken people. How they became that way I do not know. There's a good chance that they were born into poverty, to broken parents, who were also raised by broken people. The cycle continues. I feel as if the cycle could be broken if people stopped...stopped having children that they could ill afford to care for. I'm talking specifically emotionally and mentally, rather than financially. These broken children becomes broken adults, who frequent my place of work, who can't ever seem to catch up to that place where their lives are not cycling.

But I wax and wane. Be a parent; not. Find a different purpose, stop judging myself as somehow inadequate for not having kids. Be happy with what I have. Stop my own cycle.