Monday, September 23, 2013

Why foster parents like me will never agree with the courts decisions.

Yesterday one of my fellow foster moms walked into a court room and was blindsided with a judges decision to move their foster children THAT day.

There was no warning.  The children were not even allowed to say good bye to their teachers, classmates, friends....nothing.  As far as everyone is concerned it will be as if they suddenly disappeared.

The number one problem is the lack of rights that these children have.  From what I have seen, children have no rights at all.  They don't get to express if they would like to even say good bye to someone, more or less where they would like to live.

The thing that literally keeps me up at night is that the decisions that are made in court are. NOT made in order to keep the child as safe as possible.  The judges and lawyers will even tell you that.  It isn't about what is safest or best for the child.  It is about putting families back together in hopes that they won't do anything TOO bad to the child.


As a parent I will never understand that way of thinking.


As a human. I will never understand why a child does not have the right to be as safe as possible.

I will never get it.


I will never agree with it.


Everything is such a broken mess.  Kids get hurt and then are put in foster care.  Then, sometimes, they are hurt even worse in foster care (if they get bad foster parents).  THEN, let's say they don't get hurt in foster care, they easily can be put in harms way again when they are returned to their bio family because of bad decisions or rules that mean nothing.


It gets old fighting a fight that is impossible to win.

For every win I am sure there is a loss.  I so wish the losses were not the norm.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

It's always something.

Lizzy found a TINY rubber band right before bed and slipped it onto her wrist.  She wasn't able to get it off and I didn't find it until the next morning.

It had cut off some (thankfully not ALL) of the circulation to her hand causing it to swell up to almost twice its normal size.

Seriously.  I about died.

I got it off and was so upset.

How do you punish a kid for something like that?  By punish, I really do mean find a way to teach them not to do stuff like that.

I don't know what to do with her some days...what if it would have cut off ALL the circulation to her hand!!!



Monday, September 16, 2013

Fo real.

Getting a house ready to sell with seven kids in it may be impossible.


Uggghhhh. Makes me wanna cry!


So much to do and literally no time to do it.



Friday, September 13, 2013

Pre-school.

I thought the day would never come, but Lizzy is FINALLY in pre-school.  She is RIGHT at the cut off date for being too young to start Kindergarten this year.  That is a very very good thing.


#1 She is socially immature
#2 She is just now starting to get a handle on her impulse control
#3 She would have been in the same class as my 5 year old
#4 My 5 year old would have made Lizzy look...not so smart


It is a very very good thing that she is not in Kindergarten this year...even though I would like her to be going to school full days and not two half days a week.

This is a good practice run for next year.


P.S. This is a pic I took to send to her bio dad of her first day of school...yes, even after he threatened to try to get her back even though she is adopted.  Apparently I will spend the next 14 years of my life learning to be the bigger person (who am I kidding, try the rest of my life period.)

Nine.

Nine people in a three bedroom house is not working anymore.


Let the house hunting begin!

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Future.

Three of my kids are off at school.

Two are watching "Sophia the First", a new love in this house.

The one year is sitting on me and cries if i move.

The nine month old is experimenting with broccoli in the high hair, but is starting to complain,


My days all run together and I get way less showers than I used to.  Every minute of my day seems to be spent filling a need of one child or another.


I chose this.
I love it.
It overwhelms me.


I am not very good at it though, at least in my own opinion.

I am not very patient.
I am not always loving.

But, I am more patient than I used to be.
More forgiving than I used to be.
And better at this than I used to be.


Who knows, by the time I grandchildren I might actaully have this down.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Wonder.


In case any of you were wondering which name won the vote I had a while ago...

This was the name that was chosen, but if you look at the voting on the link I posted it really is not the name that won the vote.  Oh well, I agreed with you guys, but, in the end, this was the right name for THIS book.

There may or may not be a 2nd book someday...shhhhhh...we will discuss that much much much later.

Anyway, if you want to see excerpt from the book (which I will start sharing tomorrow), or be kept up to date on the actual release of the book (the end of Fall 2013) you can head over to our facebook page to become a fan.

We are so excited to get this book DONE and into our hands...and yours!!!