The Good Witch

Today I met via phone a very important person in M1's case, his guardian ad litem. From here on out I'm going to refer to her as Glenda the Good Witch (Glenda for short) because she's the one who's responsible for helping Munchkin 1 navigate his way through Oz and back to Kansas. Let me just say that my first impression of Glenda is that I LOVE HER! That woman has spunk. She's feisty. She truly seems to care for the kids she's working for and she doesn't appear to be afraid to make waves to get stuff done. We talked for over an hour! The thing that she said that really impressed me is that she keeps a baby picture of M1 on her desk to remind her why she fights so hard for these kids. Just as some background information, M1 was left in an infant car seat pretty much 24/7 for the first several months of his life and therefor has a misshapen head to show for it. When he came into care Glenda fought like heck to get it approved for him to go the the helmet clinic to get a helmet that would help reshape his head. Because of government red tape he was denied again and again for the visit until when they finally approved for him to have an evaluation for one it was too late to reshape the skull. Even though she did all she could she's still angry at the outcome and keeps his picture up to remind her that she has to fight even harder for all of the kids in her care. I like that about her. Thankfully for M1, now that he has some hair his head shape isn't as noticeable as it was in his infant pictures, but you can definitely feel the deformity and if his hair is ever cut too close or he has male pattern baldness as an adult it will be very noticeable.

Today Lion decided to initiate me into the mama of two club by having a raging 1 1/2 hour long meltdown after school. It was my first time having to try to manage her rage, keep M1 safe and his needs met, and try to work Lion's behavior plan and execute the safe holds her psychologist taught us for when she gets aggressive, all at the same time. By the time Scarecrow got home from work I was drenched in sweat and simply exhausted. I also had 2 very cranky children on my hands. Needless to say everyone went to bed early tonight! They definitely needed it!

Something I am already noticing in foster care that is very interesting is the court ordered visits. M1 has supervised visits with both his birthmother and his birthfather separately. Together they are supposed to add up to about 30 hours a week. In my opinion that is A LOT of hours for visits, but I understand that for a kid as young as M1 to keep a bond with a birthparent the visits need to be frequent and long enough to allow for plenty of care to occur. While neither parent wants to lose visitation time, so far over the week M1 has been with us one 6 hour visit has been canceled, another 7 hour visit was cut short by 3 hours, and a 3 hour visit lasted only 1 hour. If it is so important that these visits occur to preserve M1's bond with his parents why aren't they actually happening?!? You have the time, show up and make the most of it I say! Besides being frustrated for M1 and the way the visits disrupt his meal times, naps, etc. It's also frustrating for me because I have to plan my day around his visits, making sure I'm here for him to be picked up and dropped off from them. So, I can't schedule appointments and such too close to a pick up or drop off time. So, I've been scheduling them in the middle of the visit to avoid the issue. However, when the visit all of a sudden gets canceled or cut short and I have to run home to get M1 and my appointment now lands squarely in the middle of his nap or meal time, I just want to scream. I'm sure this will only get worse and we knew before taking placement of M1 that his visits were screwy, but it still irritates me to no end.

Off to the Doctor's Already!

Poor little M1 hasn't even been here half a week and we've already headed for the doctor's office. He's so congested he sounds like Darth Vader when he breathes!  The verdict was sinusitis and tonsillitis. At least he's REALLY good about taking his medicine. From the way he smacks his lips you would think I'm giving him candy!  Surely it can't taste that good!  I'm hoping that he recovers quickly.  He's got a jam packed schedule with almost 30 hours worth of visits a week. That will be rough if he's feeling yucky.  I wish I could just keep him home and let him chill, but as I'm already finding out being the foster mama means that although I have all the responsibilities of a mama I get none of the rights so I have absolutely no say as to whether he goes or stays home from a visit and HHS says he goes. :(

It was crazy to me how difficult it is to take a child who is not technically your own to the doctor.  The office still wants you to fill out all the forms, but you don't know even half of the information they want!  Then when we actually got to see the doctor and they were asking about health history and even exactly when his symptoms started I felt like a complete idiot because I didn't know! He had his symptoms when he arrived. They had just gotten worse since then. I have a feeling there are going to be many more of these incidences when I either feel helpless or like an idiot when it comes to caring for a child that I have no true authority over his life.

M1 is learning more and more about our routines and house rules and seems to be figuring them out pretty quickly although there are definitely some, like no carrying your sippy cup around with you, that he DOES NOT like :)  I'm starting to see how difficult it will be to enforce limits on this little guy and expect him to understand when there are at least 4 different sets of adults in his life that spend a significant amount of time with him and who all have very different expectations about behavior and the consistency to which they enforce those expectations.  This goes for healthy eating and sleeping habits as well.  It's hard to expect him to comply with my rules when he spends almost as much (maybe more, I should figure it up) of his waking hours in other people's care (who don't share my parenting ideas) than in mine.

Lion continues to do well with M1. She enjoys playing with him and has been fairly helpful in caring for him. We've seen some extra clinginess and jealousy rear up, but really on the whole it hasn't been bad at all.  I would say the thing she struggles with the most is accepting that he doesn't have the kind of language skills she expects from a human. She talks to him and he doesn't respond or he wants to tell her something and it comes out just in grunts and screams. That's VERY frustrating to her. In fact she's had this issue ever since she was close to M1's age!  She communicated so well so early that she had a difficult time relating to the kids her age who were just grunting and pointing. She would look at them with disdain almost!  It really has been an eye opener for Scarecrow and I to see M1's development and remember back to Lion at that same age.  It's helping us to see how very ahead she was and how totally clueless we were about typical development! 

New Life View

It's only been 2 1/2 days and already foster care has given me a new life view. After reading M1's case file it makes me sad to think of what he's gone through as well as what his birthfamily has gone through. It's been tough for all concerned and not likely to get any easier anytime soon :( They warned us about the cycle that can sometime happen to children who grow up with a rough start and it seems that both birthparents have been part of that cycle themselves and now they've brought M1 along with them. It's hard to parent when nobody was ever a parent to you.

M1 isn't quite 2 years old yet, but he's had more caregivers over the course of his lifetime than I can possibly identify! I can't even imagine how confusing that must be for him. To survive, instead of acting out he's decided to just go with the flow. He'll gladly go to anyone and is quite obedient and easy to manage for a toddler, but affection and trust is definitely not on his agenda yet. He doesn't make eye contact unless he's about to do something naughty. He's very stiff when you carry him instead of molding himself to your body and hanging on. He doesn't come to an adult when he gets hurt. AND saddest of all, he had no idea how to cuddle. Sitting on a lap, being read a story, sang to, or rocked is almost torture to him! Besides meeting his immediate needs of food, safety, shelter, hygiene, etc, cuddling has been our top priority. I'm determined for this little guy to know that we are the people he can trust. We won't be going anywhere. We care and we'll show him how to care too. Today at church I put him in a Moby Wrap and took him into service with us. I wasn't about to drop him off in the nursery (although I'm positive he would have gladly gone and been a model child) to have one more set of people he doesn't know take care of him when he'd just been moved to an entirely new house only the day before. Usually the Moby Wraps are used for infants and younger babies, but they easily hold up to a 35lb child. I'm small, 5'2" and I had no problem toting him around for the entire service. M1 wasn't sure what to think about being in the wrap. He didn't like it, but he couldn't escape either. When he's just being held he can wriggle and wriggle until he wiggles right out of your arms. Not so with the wrap! After some protesting he seemed to settle in. I held my arms around him even though I didn't need to do it to support him and we just swayed back and forth like I used to do with Lion when she was an infant and I was trying to soothe her or put her to sleep. Eventually I felt his little body relax some and once or twice he even thought about laying his head down on my shoulder. Bedtime tonight and naptime went slightly better than the last two nights and we were actually able to keep him in the chair with us for a book and a song although he was still restless and uncomfortable. There is progress, but I'm sure it'll take him quite awhile before he truly trusts us.

Lion is adjusting well to being a big sis I think. She of course doesn't like splitting mom and dad's attention, but what kid does? She was unhappy to see M1 leave yesterday for his visit with his birthmother so soon after he had arrived in our house. That actually surprised me a bit. I figured she'd be ready for a break because although M1 is an easy toddler in my opinion, he is still high energy and definitely a toddler! Normally Lion has little patience for anyone under the age of 5 so this instant "ownership" she felt for M1 was pretty exciting. She's having to adjust to a whole new routine which has been difficult for her since she thrives on her routine, but I think she's been a trooper about it. I know we haven't seen the worst of it. We're definitely in the honeymoon stage for sure, but I do think there can eventually be peace and harmony in the house between them both.

Our First Post

This is my first post as a foster mama. I'm excited to be entering into this crazy journey. I'm trusting God to lead me in the right direction so that we can help the children that come through our home make it safely through Oz and back home to "Kansas," wherever that may be.

To tell you a little bit about our family, there's me-Dorothy and my husband the Scarecrow. We adopted our daughter-the Cowardly Lion (hereafter referred to as Lion) as in infant. We have an open adoption with Lion's birthfamily and hope to one day possibly adopt again through the foster system and have another open adoption if possible. Lion is in kindergarten and is very excited about her new role as a big sister. It's a big change for her though. She's been the only child in the house for 5 years and when you add that to some tricky behavior issues (ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder) it's a lot for a little girl to handle. I do think she'll settle in though. It's just going to take some time. It'll take time for all of us I think. Our newest member of the family is our first foster placement-Munchkin 1 (M1 for short). He's 21 months old and we'll be the 5th home he's lived in over the course of his short life. He's only been with us for a day and a half and everyone's lives have been turned upside down! It's a steep learning curve adjusting to having a toddler in the house again and I'm sure M1 has absolutely no idea what to think about what has just happened to his life.

Well, that's us in a nutshell. Come join us as we get aquainted with Oz and all the surprises it has in store for us.