Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Links.

Well, my new page is up with all of YOU featured on it! You can view it here and if you don't see yourself let me know and I will add you!


Also, would any of you be interested in guest posting here on "Mama Foster"? I especially would be interested in posts from foster moms who don't have their own blog that they keep up to date but DO comment here often and have helped me through a lot of my journey so far (you know who you are!!!)

So, I would love any foster related stories, any advice...quite frankly, if you have anything you would like to share here (and I am happy to keep you anonymous) feel free to email it to mamatofoster@gmail.com

I will read over it and email you back to let you know when I will be posting it! Please put in the subject line "My POST!"

I am hoping to hear from quite a few of you!

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Of course :)

Dear Beck G.

Of course you count, but when I clicked on your blog I believe it is private (is this right?) which means if I put a link to your blog it kind of sends people to a "dead link" so to speak.

Does anyone have a suggestion for this, and please correct me if I am wrong Beck, because I would love to have you on my list.

-Mama Foster


P.S. If any of you would like your blog listed on my "Foster Blogs" page please leave a comment on this post with your blog address and a few sentences about yourself. I am trying to build a list of CURRENT foster/foster adoption blogs. Thanks! :)

Friday, May 27, 2011

Legalities.

Lizzy's "legal" dad has not come to a visit in 12 weeks.

12 weeks. He answers the phone when they call him so that is in his favor, but last week the agency was literally just going to have someone drive to his house and bring him to the visit and he canceled at the last minute.

Don't get me wrong-this is a VERY good thing.

I just wonder what the judge is going to think of it.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Prayer.

A foster mother's prayer:


Dear God,

Please help me to mentally outwit these children today. Please help me to remember that they cannot help the crazy behavior they have relied on for so long that they are now trying out on me.

Oh, and please help me to always remember that I AM NOT ALLOWED TO SPANK THESE CHILDREN, because I want to.

Amen.


(I feel like I need a disclaimer: This is a joke and only a joke. At least that is what I am calling it. :) )

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Consequences.

Lizzy had a visit with her mom today.

She had a 2 hour UNsupervised visit but she couldn't leave the building with her so it was kind of supervised.

This is changed from the prior 5 hour UNsupervised visits.

The moral of the story is if you freak out, swear at the social worker, threaten to throw them out the window and then storm out leaving your child crying at the office when the social worker threatens to call the cops on you you will go back to supervised visits and go back on drug testing.

That is how things work I guess. It will be interesting to see what is said in court on the 9th.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Intense.

It has been an intense couple of weeks.

Today was calm.

It left me speechless.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Never.

I never thought this would happen, but it has.


Lizzy mom just offered to sign over her rights to me.


You have got to be kidding.


(I told her to wait and see how court goes on the 9th for all of you who were going to ask me what I said. And no, we still haven't changed out minds. I keep asking myself HOW did this happen?!?!?)

Rejected.

I talked to Joseph's foster mom today. (Joseph is a toddler that my family was on the fast track to adopting when we basically out of no where got real with our selves and decided not to adopt him because of several delays we did not feel equipped to handle).

Since we decided to NOT adopt him 2 other families have met him, spent time with him, and then decided not to adopt him.

There are no words.

These other families are looking to adopt special needs and one of them said that even they didn't feel comfortable adopting him with all his needs.

His foster mom is struggling right now. She is carrying the rejection for him and wants him in his permanent home. He is acting out right now, has a terrible time sleeping, and is showing signs of feeling the rejection as well.

It breaks my heart and make me feel like we are to blame. If we had just gone through with it all this wouldn't be happening. I just fear that all new problems would have come up eventually with him here. He has spent almost his whole life in foster care.

I can't wait for the day HIS family finds him. Lord, please bring them soon.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Bus.

I have two beautiful little girls living at my house. They are sisters and they have two brothers that live in another foster home. They came into care in December and came to live with me on December 17th. Since that time their parents have only seen them once.

So.

Our agency has been in contact with mom, who now is living in another state. They keep trying to get her up here to see the kids. They picked a date and she was going to take a bus up here. The agency sent her $124 to pay for her bus ticket up here. That was their first mistake.

At 8:05 am on the day she was supposed to come up here she called and canceled. She asked if we could do the visit next week. Of course we all said sure. Not only did the agency send her money to buy a bus ticket, they also were going to be picking her up from the bus station and bringing her to the agency plus they would have to pick up her boys and bring them because the other foster mom works AND had booked a hotel room for her for that night because the next bus available to take her back home wasn't until the next day. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the very first visit she canceled was the weekend of her oldest son's birthday. I don't know what could be more important than getting up here for that considering she missed her other little boy's birthday the LAST time they came up here and decided to go back home on the day they had scheduled a visit. She doesn't work, her kids are with me...what is there to do?!?!?

Anyway, the following week we all planned on her coming for the visit. The social worker went down to the bus station and watched the bus pull in...but no mom got off. She called and mom never answered. She just didn't come. All the kids were waiting at the agency for her. The boys are older and they were bummed out. Their foster family was bummed out because they had made plans to spend some family time alone during the visit (they are struggling with the boys behavior). When I saw the kids' faces I just couldn't take it. I told them that the boys could come to my house and I would bring them home around the time the visit was supposed to end. I loaded six kids into my car and stopped at McDonald's on the way home and we had a picnic in the front yard and then they ran to the back and played and played and played. The boys never want to leave, but eventually it was time to go.

After mom didn't show and didn't call she waited a couple days and then called the social worker and told her how excited she was about the visit next week. The social worker was like, hello, that was this week. Mom claimed that no, she had meant the 19th. So, we go ahead and plan a visit for the 19th.

You will never guess what happened.

Ok, maybe you will.

On the 19th she called and said she missed/couldn't make the bus she was supposed to be on BUT if she could catch a later bus she would love to do a visit Friday.

Today is Friday. No call. No visit. And, by the way...where is that money the agency sent her???

Seriously, I think we are dealing with someone who knows how to play the system. When the kids first got taken she wouldn't sign anything, wouldn't give anyone any information and then moved to another state. Since then she has had an excuse for everything and managed to get the agency to SEND HER MONEY. Talk about good...

Here we are. The girls were supposed to be moved to the state mom is currently in well over a month ago and we haven't heard ANYTHING.


These poor kids.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Full Moon?

Just wait until you here what my other foster daughters' mom has been up to...just wait.

Answer.

No, this situation with mom has not changed our minds about not adopting Lizzy. I keep hoping that something will change and we will feel that it is the right thing. As it stands there is nothing that has changed our minds, actually it only confirms our decision.

Even though we went around and told everyone that we weren't interested we easily could tell them we changed our minds and no one would have a problem with it. It won't really matter until she is truly legally free for adoption anyway.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

blindsided.


So.

Today was bad. All kinds of bad.

It was so weird because I knew it was going to happen. I just KNEW it. I don't know why, but I did.

So, this is probably going to turn into a long store. Lizzy had a visit scheduled today with her mom. Bio dad usually does everything for her. He wakes her up in the morning, gets her pills for her, drives her everywhere, he does EVERYTHING.

Well, mom had an uncle that passes away a day or two ago. Mom is not mentally stable at all. If anything rocks her boat...well, it capsizes. So, anyway, Mom was staying with a relative so bio dad wasn't there to do everything for her. The visit was scheduled for 9 am. Well, 9 am came and went and she didn't come. I texted her and she didn't answer. I knew she was sleeping. So, I called bio dad, who was at work, and told him. I think he called all the relatives in the house until one answered because I got a call from mom at 9:20 am saying "I'm up...I'm up....I'm up...I'm coming."

Awesome, I have been sitting here waiting and she has literally been in bed sleeping.

So, at 9:45 am she comes walking in. Her eyes are almost swollen shut. She has some scrapes on her face and is VERY jittery. Very.

Even with her acting so crazy the social worker is letting Lizzy go with her UNSUPERVISED AND says that because mom is late (if I agree to it) she can still have her full 5 hour visit.

At this point mom notices that Lizzy pooped her pants and walks with me and the supervisor back into the back — she was going to change Lizzy's diaper and I was going to talk to the social worker.

Well, as I am talking to the social worker she remembers something she needed to ask mom. She leaves me in the room and goes and gets mom and takes her and Lizzy into the supervisor's office.

At this point I leave. I went to my sister's house and for some reason I kept watching my phone expecting the agency to call me to come get Lizzy because...well, it is so hard to explain. I KNEW mom was all wired up. I knew she was mad at the social worker. I could tell she hadn't taken her meds that morning...

I just knew what COULD happen.

And it did.

I actually got a call from mom first. She was back at her aunt's house...without Lizzy. She had gotten into a fight with the social worker, called her a B**** and a liar. She claims that the social worker was lying to her supervisor about mom. Mom LOST it and I guess they threatened to call the police on her and she took off, leaving for Lizzy crying in the office. She was yelling and crying all at the same time when she was talking to me. I asked how long ago this happened and she said about 15 minutes ago.

I was very confused about why the agency had not called me yet to come get Lizzy.

About 10 minutes later I get a call, not from the social worker or supervisor, from the receptionist saying, "You can come get Lizzy now." No explanation, nothing.

So, I drove back and got her. The social worker asked to talk to me. She asked me to please not have any more contact with mom. No phone calls, nothing, and said "This could get very messy." That is all the info she gave me.

After all of this I talked to bio dad. He was so mad. He got into a huge fight with mom about all of it and as of this afternoon they both texted me and said that they broke up. If they actually STAY broken up this will be the end for Lizzy's mom. She is not capable of finishing this without him. She. Will. Not. Do. It.

Lizzy was ok. She wasn't crying when I got there and acted fine the whole rest of the day. I did baby her a little though because this was nothing any child should have to deal with.

Oh, and just this week we decided to start telling all the "official people" that we are not interested in adopting her. Literally hours before this happened we told both her lawyer and social worker we are not interested in adopting Lizzy.

What timing.

Promise.

Ok...seriously...this drawing was totally random. It was not rigged at ALL...I have to say that because the person that won will probably think that I picked them to be nice, but seriously...I did not.

I randomly selected one of the comments left on my last post and this is my winner! :


Rebecca, you know where to find me, shoot me a message with your mailing address and I will get this book to you very soon!

Thank you everyone that entered, you guys are awesome!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Potty.

Tina is potty training herself. The picture above is of the baby sitting on the potty, fully clothed, because since Tina is obsessed with the potty the other two have to be too.

And they don't get it.

And having 3 toddlers running in and out of my bathroom is driving me nuts.

But...how do you say no to "Can I go pee on the potty?" She is just so excited when she asks. Girlfriend gets it too. She climbs up on the potty in the most weird way I have ever seen and then sits and totally pees. It is awesome. I act all excited and give her a piece of candy so then SHE is all excited. And then the two other ones who did NOT pee in the potty get a piece of candy too. Cuz...I am a push over like that.

So, Tina is working on it, I am allowing her to "pee on the potty" when she wants...but I am not really working on it. She can just go at her own pace. We'll see how that goes.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

You.

Being a foster parent can feel lonely.

Some of us have supportive families...and some of us don't.

Some of us have a great support system in place...and some us don't.

Some of us work with great agencies (ahem)...and some of us don't.


One thing that has made a world of difference for ME is having YOU. Some of you have been with me on my worst days. You have prayed for me, you have prayed for my kids, and you cared about what was going on. When they had to go live with their bio families you understood, because you have been there. When you are going through things like that talking to people who have no clue what it is like doesn't always help. It is amazing how just a few sentences left in my comment section managed to carry me through...because I knew I wasn't alone.

This is not an easy road, but you guys have made it bearable.

Thank you.


Now, because I remember being a new foster mom and not really knowing anyone else who fostered, I want to build a place that makes it easy to find other people who are doing what WE are doing.

I am going to be putting together a page dedicated to bloggers who are currently becoming foster parents or are already foster parents. If you fall in these categories I would LOVE to have your blog on my list. If you would like to be included please leave me a comment with your blog address and a paragraph about your situation - how long you have fostered, how many kids you have had, how many you have adopted, ect.

I am pretty excited to put this together because I would have LOVED to have a list like this back when I first stumbled upon the blog world.

Also, don't forget out my giveaway in the post below :)

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Books.

I think it is time for a giveaway...don't you? :)

Well, at least I think it will be time for a giveaway once I hit 70 followers. That shouldn't be hard, just two more and I will be there. I like round numbers people. ha ha

Anyway, what to give a way...




I think Ann Voskamp's "One Thousand Gifts" is exactly what is in order. A lot of my favorite bloggers have read it and loved it, on their recommendation I ordered it and took it with me on vacation. It has been a while since I read a book written like this. It isn't a typical easy read that is finished in a day or two, it is a book full of TRUTH and sometimes I felt like I was waste deep while reading it.

Anyway, here is what I will do. If you want to win it (I will be most likely sending you my copy, which has a little dent in one of the corners on the front cover) please leave a comment in the comments on this post.

You do not have to become a follower of this blog to enter the contest BUT I will not be picking a winner until I hit 70 followers so if you wanna make this faster and you aren't already a follower you might want to consider it.

As soon as I hit 70 followers I will pick a winner and announce it here.

Good luck!

(I will be closing the comments on Wednesday, May 18th and choosing a winner - if I reach 70 followers :) )

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Circles.

So, when I came back I talked to Lizzy's social worker's SUPERVISOR because I don't like talking to the social worker.

I did make sure to tell the supervisor that...and why.

Regardless, it was very interesting to hear what she had to say and to hear her reaction to everything that I told her. It was a good conversation, but what I walked away with left me feeling like we are all just going in circles.

She told me:

"A lot of things are going to have to be looked into before they have ANY unsupervised over night visits."

and

"There are a lot of red flags in this case."

and

"Well, obviously anything could happen."


The last two are words that are probably spoken about EVERY foster care case.

I feel so bad for Lizzy. She wants to be with her biological dad so much. The fact that he has no legal rights to her says volumes about what a mess this child was born into.




Monday, May 9, 2011

Beautiful.


With every nose I wipe I am thanking God they are still here to wipe.

With every disgruntled scream I thank God my rooms are not filled with empty silence.

With every whine I remind myself they could not be here.

With every need voiced endlessly until it is met I remember I longed for this.

With every crying, kicking fit I remember that they need me.

When my arms are just too full I am so glad they don't ache from emptiness.

When I am overwhelmed I smile because I never feel lonely.

When their behavior is just plain ugly I sit in amazement that God gave me the ability to love the little person with all the ugly behavior.



So often I forget to see the beautiful in all of the ugly that goes on when little hearts have been broken a few too many times and little minds are so confused because life doesn't look the way it is supposed to.

Coming home hasn't been very smooth, but I expected this.

We came home to three sick kids who were all confused from being misplaced last week. Behaviors I hadn't seen in a long time...or ever, are out in full force.

Still, it is go good to see them home-comfortable enough in their two year old way to show me that this is where they belong.

For now at least.


Saturday, May 7, 2011

Pick up.

Literally, right after we got off the plane we went to pick up our girls. I went in and the foster mom was entertaining them in the playroom. Tina was the first one to see me and the widest smile spread across her face and she just kept saying "mommy" in the sweetest way. I was shocked that she was the one that was so excited to see me. I thought lizzy would be the one, but she basically ignored me.
Speaking of lizzy, this foster mom has adopted a group of 3 siblings that all are delayed so much so that they are assuming that they will have to care for them their whole lives. Well, she is convinced that lizzy is as delayed as her most delayed child. She said she acts just like her adopted daughter did at that age... But worse. She said that it is obvious that she "just doesn't get it" and that is probably playing a huge roll in lizzy whining, constantly, like she has ever since i met her.
I am not sure that she is delayed as this lady thinks she is, but experience speaks volumes to me so i will be keeping that in mind and looking for things that could help our lizzy.
Also, i had to laugh, in a quite horrified way, at this poor foster mom's description of how hard it is to take care of my two year olds. This is the foster mom that takes the kids that other foster moms kick out and keeps them. She has had the hardest of the hard and was telling me that this experience validated that she doesn't want any more little little kids and she had no idea how i do it with this group.
I told her i was sorry that they were so hard to take care of, but she wasn't trying to make me feel bad, she really was more of just giving me a pat on the back for not giving up on them because they are so hard.
When the girls got home they ate like they hadn't seen food in a week and lizzy and the baby fell asleep on my husband and i and slept like they hadn't slept in a week. You could tell that they felt like they were home.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Home.

We will be home tomorrow. We will be coming home to all three of our little girls. I am so glad that the two littles didn't end up moving while we were gone. I prayed about that everytime i thought of it in the days before we left. I can't wait to see those little stinkers, i have missed them.