Funny.

So, today after picking up my son from school, I was driving down my street almost to my driveway when I see that 2 cars in front of me Lizzy's social worker is turning into my driveway.

No appointment, no call, THIRD time she has tried this!!!!!!!! If you want to come here CALL ME.

So I did what any good foster mom would do. I drove right past my driveway, and down the street, did a loop big enough that I knew she would be gone by the time I got back and then went home.

Lady, you better start calling me before you come to my house.

Three.

My three little girls had a better week last week then they had had in a while. Less fighting, less screaming, less getting in trouble...

It has been nice. I am trying very hard to be very calm with them and I know that helps as well, I am sure they are feeding off my stress at times and it just makes things worse.

Our two new girls were supposed to be moved to a different state...as you can see they haven't been...yet.

They have court on the 16th. I don't know if they are being moved or not. Today as I played with the littlest baby I was a little heavy hearted as I see in her eyes that I am turning in "mama". I will be very sad when/if she leaves.

Returned.

I never told you about my trip out to Joseph's foster mom's house to take him all the things she had sent with him to our house and all the things we bought him.

When I went I had all 3 girls with me. I walked in and he smiled at me. I was greeted by his foster siblings who are too cute and his foster mom...have I mentioned she is awesome. She never made me feel guilty and has called me just to talk. Not to talk about Joseph, just to talk. I am so glad I didn't loose that.

Anyway, after I came in, Joseph wanted me to pick him up which I was surprised about, but of course I gladly scooped him up.

He wouldn't let me put him down.

I went out side to get some things out of my car.

He wouldn't let me put him down.

He confiscated my keys and cell phone because I let him play with them at my house.

He wouldn't let me put him down.

He was sitting on my lap a little awkwardly so I scooted him back away from me and he scooted right back so that his body was pressed into mine as much as it could be.

He wouldn't let me put him down. It worked out pretty good though because I didn't want to put him down.

His foster mom and I exchanged looks, both knowing that at least one heart was breaking in that room, if not two or three. He is little, he will forget, but I will never ever ever forget.

I haven't forgotten why we decided to make the decisions we did, but in those moments I questioned EVERYTHING. I also knew that once reality set in again the decisions would remain the same.

I stayed hours longer than I intended. His foster mom knew I was saying good bye and never rushed us out. We talked and talked and talked and I cuddled with a little boy that I love, but couldn't commit to.

When I left he cried. I never would have dream that he would do that. It felt a little wrong to leave without him in the car. At the same time packing him up and taking him with me didn't feel right either.

I never dreamed that I would have to do any of the things that I have had to do since becoming a foster parent. It is truly another world, another world full of beautiful yet hurt children that I never would have known. They deserve to be known, they deserve to have a voice and hope. They deserve so much better than this little hidden world has given them.

Spilled.

You may remember this post.

So, despite the fact that I know these things will not stop Lizzy from being returned home, when her lawyer called me I kinda spilled my guts and told him everything.

He was not so happy, thankfully he isn't going to go and tell everyone what I told him. He is going to call Lizzy's worker and tell her that he does not want her to have any over night visits before he approves them and that will not be until after the next hearing.

Her next hearing as in mid March and it does not look like returning her is even on the radar, which I have mixed feeling about. I am glad Lizzy will remain in a stable environment for now, but when I know that there is no difference between her going back today or 6 months from now I tend to just want to get it over with. Things should get interesting...

Oh, and the picture above, that is a picture that her mom send me via text today of Lizzy at their house...notice the stove door open...

Biology.

I just spent the last hour on the phone with Lizzy's mom. That will teach me to answer the phone...

In that hour she...

...slurred her words constantly...

...read me almost all the paper work from the last hearing (which I have already read)- all the while spelling words out for me that she couldn't sound out and then wanted me to interpret the whole paper to her...

...told me how she adds cream cheese to mashed potatoes because she watches the cooking channel all the time...

...made up stories about all these things Lizzy says while she is with her not realizing I know that Lizzy can't say long sentences...

...told me all about how they owe the power company $800, but they are on a payment plan...

...and explained to me how if her dog gets cancer she isn't going to get rid of her, she is going to let her die at home and then she will bury her in the back yard.

Yes, it was a "interesting" phone conversation. She had to get off the phone finally because her meds were kicking in and she was about to fall asleep.

I am betting that tomorrow she will show up for her visit in pajama pants. Just an educated guess.

Beauty.

Sometimes beauty isn't when everything goes as planned.

Sometimes beauty doesn't make sense.

Sometimes beauty is messy.

Sometimes beauty shows up where you least expect it.

Sometimes beauty is hidden so deep you have to dig for it.

Sometimes beauty is all around you.

Sometimes beauty seems so far away.

Sometimes beauty isn't something to be found.

Sometimes beauty is already sitting in your lap.

Stuck.

You gotta love when a kid gets themselves into this position and then can't get themselves out.

I had to listen to "I stuck! Out!!" about 45 times before she figured out how to get herself "unstuck". And, no, I didn't help her because getting "unstuck" by yourself is a very good life skill to have. :)

Phone calls.

Sabrina's mom's friend called me tonight (Feb. 18).

We met at Sabrina's 3rd birthday party and we exchanged phone numbers. She calls me and tells me all the horrible things going on at the house Sabrina lives in, she did it while Sabrina lived with us, and she did it again tonight.

She claims that Sabrina's mom threw Sabrina across the room about a week ago at their home. She said that Sabrina got ahold of a pair of scissors and cut off a huge chunk of her own hair. She said so so many things.

This same "friend" hangs out with Sabrina's mom all the time. It seems that the crowd that Sabrina's mom runs with is a group of backstabbing psychos that like to call CPS on each other when they are mad at each other.

I am assuming that 25% of what she told me is the truth. The rest is loosely based on truth, but is extremely exaggerated.

It is so hard hearing that Sabrina isn't living in some wonderful little life. She is living in the exact life I was worried she would be. I try not to think about it. Tonight, as I listened to this woman tell me all this I was shaking. It is so hard.

I miss my girl.

Go read this, it is amazing.

http://bound4life.com/blog/2010/11/24/hidden-in-the-womb

Similar.

My bloggy buddy Diane wrote me a response to the private email I sent to you that asked. I asked her to post what she wrote to me about on her blog so I could link to it so that you all could read it too.

Her post is very similar in intent to what I sent all of you. We would NEVER discourage anyone from adopting, we just want to make sure everyone goes into it with "eyes wide open".

You can read her post here

And thanks Diane for sharing!

Private.

I have a post that needs to be posted, but due to the fact that even I have some things I won't be sharing on this blog I have created so I can hide behind a fake name and still tell the truth about foster care publicly here is the best I can do.

If you would like to read this post that concerns adopting through foster care & RAD please email me at mamatofoster@gmail.com with at least a link to your blog or a few sentences about yourself so that I can make sure I am not emailing this to anyone I shouldn't be.

Sorry for the secrecy, but I don't want anyone to get hurt even though this is a topic ANYONE thinking about adopting through foster care should research and understand before meeting any children that are up for adoption through your state.

Back.

The day before we decided not to adopt Joseph I had dropped him off back at his foster mom's house and in turn she had sent home with me a few bags of his Christmas toys because we were all planning on him moving to our home in the near future.

When I put those toys in my car I had every reason to believe they were my son's toys.

Turns out that he was not my son.

Tonight I am gathering up all the toys and tomorrow I will make the drive out to his foster mom's home to give them back.

I am tired of packing up kids.

Today they had a PPC meeting where they talked about where to go from here. They are going to revisit a family that wanted to adopt him, but were told they couldn't because they already had too many kids. They want his adoption worker to ask the state for an exemption if the family is willing to revisit the idea of adopting him.

By this Friday he will be on our state's website for wards of the state that need to be adopted. I will never forget the day I saw our Kellen on that same website. The picture of him was one I took of him in our home. It seemed so wrong to see a child in our home on that website.

That same picture was the first picture his new family saw of him, and is the picture I keep of him in a frame by our front door with pictures of all of our beautiful kids in it.

I just got finished putting all the pictures we had taken of Joseph while he was with us on a CD to put in his file for his future family. As my husband and I talked tonight it is obvious that we made the right decision for us, I just struggle to know if we made the right decision for him.

Ultimately if it was right for us it was right for him, it just makes me sad I guess.

Re-arranging.

Well, we have started a new routine around here that is making it so that I can handle Miss Lizzy & Miss Tina. Two days a week they are going to a baby sitter's house, one day a week Lizzy has a 4-5 hour visit with her mom and 2 mornings a week I am doing a pre-school program with the girls at home.

Today was their first trip to the babysitter's house (hi babysitter if you are reading this!) and that was SOOOO nice. A day with just me and the baby...it was wonderful.

I have always been a huge advocate for being a stay at home mom if possible, but this situation has made me realize that sometimes you have to do what is best for everyone and that isn't always everyone being together all the time. That is where I am with my two crazy girls. I love them, but I can't be around them every second of everyday. I just can't.

I actually think that this is a realist solution to foster parents in this situation. My girls seemed to have a great time at the babysitter's and was happy to see me when I came to pick them up. Win win.

I have enjoyed do pre-school with them too. We go over the letters, numbers, colors, and animals. We color and do craft and play games, I think that these girls need LOTS of structure so I am being forced in to this Tina & Lizzy shaped structure, but it is working so I am just going to go with it.

Response.

I knew that most, if not all of you, would think that I should report those things-at least some of them.

I don't disagree.

I also stick with comments I made that these things don't matter to people in authority.

I have already had almost all these SAME issues with Sabrina's mom. I have been there and done that and here is how the story goes:

Medication: They (the bio parents) take it when they feel like it and that is good enough for everyone (but me). They always have an excuse ("I left it at home while I was spending the night at a friend's house") and that is the end of it.

Fighting: If there is no police report "it never happened". Just ask the detective on Sabrina's case or her lawyer.

Heating the house: Maybe I should have been more specific. She said that they warm up the house this way along with space heaters they have all over the house. This stuff is up to the social worker to deal with when she does the home study. In the mean time all there is for even the social worker to do is to ask them not do that while Lizzy is there. I may even do that myself.

These things seem like big deals, especially when you are new to this like I was with Sabrina, but they are not. Sabrina's lawyer said it best, "If we were deciding on who was best for the child, the foster family would almost always win, but we are not. We are not expecting these people to turn into "The Clevers", they got their kids taken away for a reason."

Notice he never could get himself to say that the bio family needed to be actually capable of raising, caring for, or protecting the child.

Then he went on to tell me about a child who died after they were returned to their bio family. He said, "We don't have a crystal ball, we don't know what these people will do, but we have to give them a chance."

So, I hate to reiterate it, but yes, I am jaded and I know that kids go home even when they shouldn't. Even when you do everything you can. Even when you will end up questioning God about it everyday there after.

Someday I will see the whole picture, today I am just taking care of my kids and if something arrises that needs to be reported I absolutely will report it, unfortunately I know these are not those things. At least where I live and with the people I am forced to work with.

Comfortable.

Lizzy's mom is getting WAY too comfortable around me. She thinks we are really good friends, and yes, I am a good friend, but it is hard to get "close" to these people because eventually they start talking too much.

In one conversation she ended up telling me THREE things that technically I should probably report.

1. She had been off her medicine for a week. She is only allowed to have Lizzy back if she stays one this medicine.

2. They heat their house up by tuning on the oven and leaving the door to it open. She even went as far as to tell me that during their unsupervised visit when they went back to their house with Lizzy that she, Lizzy, saw the oven door open and said "Hot!" and ran over and slammed it shut. Safe, huh?

3. She told me her and her brother got into a fist fight last week while she was staying at her aunt's house.

Now, as I said, I probably should report this, but I am not going to and I will tell you why.

I have already been there and done ALL of this with Sabrina's mom and it didn't change anything, no one did anything and it didn't seem that legally there was anything to do.

1. The medication. If she started taking it again then what is there to do? If she didn't start taking it again they would tell her to, but have no way to follow up with this.

2. Heating the house. They would tell they not to heat the house like this. Then what? They aren't going to "make sure" that they don't.

3. The fighting. Because Lizzy wasn't present and the police weren't called it doesn't matter.

I have already been there and done ALL of this and am officially too jaded to think other wise.

Messes.

At ANY time my kids are busy...making messes.

It's what they do.

It's how they are.

And they seem to like it.

(does this pic make up for the one of the dead rats?) :)

Dreams.

So, I found Lizzy's mom on Myspace.

I looked at all her pictures and saw Lizzy on the day she was born, at her baby shower, with her Grandma, in their dilapidated house and tons of other interesting pictures. I looked at all of this right before I went to bed the other night and...well, oh my is all I can say.

My brain decided to take all of this information and swirl it around into one of the most disturbing dreams I have ever had.

In my dream I was at their house with Lizzy, almost as if I was there to supervise a visit she was having with them or something and I was sitting in the kitchen on a stool on the floor.

In walked Lizzy's mom and bio dad and the had some plastic shopping bags. They set them on the counter and then started pulling out...dead rats. There were black ones, brown ones, white ones, white with spots...so so many dead rats with all the fur still on them and everything...

...and they were putting them on a grill like this...
...in order to fry them and eat them - hair, tails and all.

They got them all laid out on the grill and they were frying and at some point they had left the kitchen and I saw that the rats were going to get burnt on the one side so I went over and flipped them over...you know, because we were going to eat them.

Thankfully I either don't remember the rest or woke up before we got to the eating portion of the show. Anyway, this was one of the most vivid dreams I have had in a long time...of course it had to be a disgusting demented one.

Daycare.

OK, I was under the impression that if I work (which I do) that the state is supposed to pay for my foster kid's daycare-not based on our income.

See, I went in to my local DHS probably close to a year ago and worked with a social worker totally unrelated to my agency, the foster kids, ect. and she had no idea what she was doing and didn't know how to do the paper work so that they would pay for me to put the kids in daycare so I just gave up.

Can someone please tell me what YOU did to get this all taken care of and paid for through the state as apposed to me paying for it out of my own pocket which I have the entire time I have been fostering when have I needed a baby sitter.

Thanks!!!

Played.

Yesterday I was in the worst state of mind ever.

I had made my husband call and tell Joseph's foster mom that we would not be adopting him and made him call the adoption worker too. I just couldn't do it. Well, the adoption worker didn't get the message and called me to ask how our visit went over the weekend (that we didn't have) and I ended up being the one to tell her and yes, it was as bad as I imagined it would be.

She was obviously disappointed, and in a round about way acted as if we should have known that we didn't want to do this and made it clear she wouldn't be calling us for anymore kids. Towards the end of the conversation she got nicer, but everything I was worried she would say she did. I lived through it and thankfully at this point in time I truly am not interested in THEM offering us any other kids either because I DON'T TRUST THEM. That ended up being the whole problem. We should have never even been offered this child let alone led to believe that his issues would "go away". The minute I started digging into everything everything that they had told just were "delays" started to be called "disabilities" and it was obvious things had been very sugar coated to say the least.

Joseph is a wonderful little boy and he does not deserve to be "marketed" like this. Who ever adopts him needs to know everything BEFORE they are one signature away from forever. I know that he will be a JOY to someone, we just are not ready to dive into the "what if's" of a child that we are already struggling to connect with.

Anyway, first I had that phone call, then, as you know, I called to beg Lizzy's social worker to make a plan for her transition. Our agency closes at 5 pm. I got a call at 5:05 pm from her worker telling me she doesn't think a transition is a good idea and she thinks we should just do the move..."unless we are having second thoughts."

I am pretty sure this is where I GOT PLAYED LIKE A FIDDLE. I think that she declined the transition period in hopes that I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do that to Lizzy...and she was right. She told me to sleep on it and let her know in the morning. Lizzy was scheduled to be moved at 1:30 pm the next day.

I called my husband and was in the middle of asking him if he thought we should keep her as Lizzy hopped up on me and swung her sneaker covered foot into my face and kicked me in the face. As if her screaming the whole ride home from picking my son up from school wasn't enough to remind me of what I was agreeing to the kick to the face was that extra push I needed...to go ahead and agree to keep my Lizzy until she is returned to her parents.

I love this little out of control, whiny child. I am not sure why (j/k), but I couldn't bring myself to hand her over to strangers and then just leave her, crying I am sure. I couldn't do it. I was in the worst mood ever that day. Sad about Joseph, stressed about Lizzy, overwhelmed by other things that are going on in my life and the only thing that made me feel better was the idea of KEEPING her.

So, as of this morning it is official.

Lizzy is here to stay.

And I am enrolling her in daycare this week.

Alternate Title to this post: "With One Swift Kick to the Face She is Here to Stay"

Transitions.

This weekend I started freaking out about Lizzy moving, about her being scared, about her sleeping in a new place, about everything.

Today I called her social worker and the social worker's supervisor and begged (literally I said to them "I am begging you...") them to make some type of transition plan so that she wouldn't have to be scared. I left all of this on their voice mails so I am hoping to hear back from them.

I told them I would do anything, drive Lizzy any where, in order to get her acquainted with these people before I just hand her over to them. PLEASE pray they will see that this is what needs to be done in order to help Lizzy.

Words.

Sometimes there are no words.

There are no words to describe how horribly nervous I am to put Lizzy in a car with people she has never met on Tuesday and hope that she isn't scared.

There are no words to describe how heart broken I am that we decided not to adopt Joseph.

There are no words to describe how sad I will be when it is time for our newest girls to move.

Sometimes there are just no words.

Lost.

I will never loose my kids.

Because...
...they always, always, always...
...leave a nice trail for me to follow...
...to find them.
Thanks Tina :/

Tuesday.

Well, the big Exodus will begin.

Lizzy is being moved on Tuesday (if all goes as planned). I found out today from her social worker that she had found a home for her. So did Lizzy's bio mom and she is not happy. She wants Lizzy to stay with me and is mad that the social worker made me mad enough to go ahead with moving her regardless of what we decide about Joseph.

At the last visit I gave them this letter:

(you can click on it to make it bigger)

That was my last straw. It has been a very long time since I put what our family needed before what the state tells us we HAVE to do concerning these kids. If you decide to foster you basically sign your life away, you have to be willing to push right back (Rebecca!) and not worry about them moving the kids because realistically they won't. I know that I worried a lot about that with Sabrina. Now, because of everything that has happened I am kinda over it. They can ask me to do anything they want, I have to learn to tell them NO if it doesn't work for me.

Snow.

We were snowed in today.

It was nice.

Today Tina had a good day.

She is a prime example of a child that needs to be parented in a way that is tailored just to her. When I parent her like people who have kids with RAD parent their kids she does VERY well. I think that she falls into the category of "parenting children with past hurts", not necessarily RAD. It looks like RAD, but it is different.

I had to smile when some asked "So, you are only 27?" Yes, I am only 27. I have always been told I act older than my age. If I was to take a test on "how old I act" I am sure it would be in the ball park of 40. I am boring, for sure. And not into anything a normal 27 year old should be. Well, I like babies and that is about the only age appropriate thing I am into. I have an 8 year old so most of my friends are well into their 30's. Now that we are older it doesn't seem like such a big gap but I am usually around 6-10 years younger than anyone that is in the same circles I am.

It's just my life, I am used to it. :)

Friday.

Friday night my hubby and I went out on a date. A date like the kind we used to go on, you know B.K. (Before Kids). Our last date had had to be canceled because it was scheduled for the weekend of our puke-a-palooza and thankfully I had enough sense to cancel the baby sitter when the kids were showing early signs.

Anyway, back to Friday. We went out, dinner and a movie - just like when I was 17 and he was 21. We smiled and cuddled while waiting to be seated and laughed at stupid stuff. We sat and ate and didn't tell anyone to "Stop putting your feet on the table" or "Spot eating catsup with a spoon!" or "Eat with your face over your plate" or "Stop taking your sister's bottle"...anyway, it was nice.

As we walked into the movie theater I held onto his bicept and it reminded me of how much I still love him.

We have so much to think about. So much to decide. I hate "deciding" things that I THOUGHT had already been decided. We love our kids, every single one of them.

But, there are decisions that need to be made, issues that need to be address and priorities that need to be re-evaluated. Things have been getting harder and harder and haven't leveled out for a while now and that has been hard.

No matter how hard everything gets we are still the same 17 and 21 year old that fell in love close to 10 years ago. Everything in life is a choice. We just have to step up and make some hard choices.