Munchkin 5 is Coming Back!

I got two phone calls for potential placements today after a long dry spell.  It's funny how they seem to come in groups!  The first call didn't work out even though we were willing, but the second call was about Munchkin 5, the little girl we had done respite for last month.  Apparently her current foster parents can't keep her any longer. I'm not sure of the reason, but I wasn't super impressed with their care and affection for her in the first place to be honest.  I'm so excited to have her back.  She was so reserved and anti affection.  She is what I imagine M1 would have been like had we got him at 3 yrs old instead of 20 months.  I think she has a ton of potential and I can't wait to work with her.  She's a good fit for our family based on what we saw during her respite stay with us.  It will be interesting to see how things go once the honeymoon wears off.  Since this is a transfer from another foster home the transition shouldn't be as crazy as it was when M2-4 came.  I shouldn't have to do the whirlwind of doctor, dentist, and optometrist appointments.  I will have to figure out preschool though.  Preschool would definitely be a good thing for M5, but I have a feeling our local headstart is full. I'm not sure if the state will pay for preschool other than headstart or not.  It will also be interesting getting to know the particulars of her case.  From what little I gleaned during the time she was with us, it appears she has a very complicated case, but then I'm starting to learn that they all do.  Well, I'm off to go change bedsheets and get everything ready in her room for her to move right on in! 

Respite

We had our first respite placement last month and I really enjoyed myself.  The house has seemed so empty since Munchkins 1-4 left that it was nice to have some energy back in the place.  Munchkin 5 was a 3 (almost 4) year old little girl with boundless energy.  When I said I wanted some energy back in the house, God certainly answered!  M5 went full throttle from the time she woke up until the time she dropped exhausted into bed.  Respite care was an interesting experience.  Whenever someone unfamiliar watches my child I always give them TONS of information about what to expect, what her routines are, where I'm going to be, insurance cards, doctor's phone numbers, etc.  When M2, M3, M4 went to respite for a week I did the same thing for them.  You want your kids to feel comfortable and you want the person watching them to feel confident right?  Apparently not everyone rolls that way, at least not for their foster kids.  I had to ask repeatedly to have M5's foster mom contact me so that I could get even very basic information about her.  When she arrived she came with her clothes (albeit interesting selections for the forecasted weather) and that was it.  There were no phone numbers for how to reach her foster parents, no mention of who her doctor was, no medicaid number, I didn't even know her last name for pete's sake!  The foster mom gave me basically no information (even when asked) about her likes, dislikes, routines, etc.  All she told me was that the kiddo wouldn't sleep and that she usually puts her to bed at 8:30pm with a portable DVD player and then she ends up end the foster parents' bedroom every night!  Oh, and that she didn't/wouldn't take naps.  The first night of course was rough.  M5 was scared and confused.  She woke up 6 times sobbing, but never left her room.  Each time I went in to comfort her.  After that first night she never woke up even once during the night and never left her room once put there.  In our house, sleep is a priority and we are pretty good (if I do say so myself) at sleep training kids.  The Lion was a stinky sleeper for most of her life and M2-4 had to be taught from square one even though they were old enough they should have  known better.  M5 was a piece of cake to "train."  All it took was a consistent, calming routine and she was golden.  She even napped (actually slept not just rested) all but 2 days she was with us.  I truly believe she was simply lacking a good bedtime routine and was over tired before they were even putting her to bed.  We put her to bed a full hour and a half BEFORE they had been putting her down plus she was taking 2-3 hour naps during the day.  That most likely had the most to do with it.  One of the saddest things about M5 was that she, like M1-4, didn't know how to cuddle.  This really surprised me given the fact that she has been in her current foster home for over a year.  In general, she just didn't want to be touched at all, not even to have her back rubbed.  I don't know what her situation was like and why she was removed, but it still made me sad to see her so averse to affection.  We had a nice time while she was here and would definitely take her back again.  She fit in pretty well around here.  Now, we just wait for the next placement!

AWOL

I realize I've been AWOL for almost 4 months now, but boy has our life been in an upheaval.  Munchkins 2-4 seriously gave us a run for our money.  We had food issues galore-gorging and refusing to eat for 4-5 days at a time - from all 3 of them.  Making themselves vomit because of both issues.  I thought the Scarecrow was going to flip his lid as he presented plate after plate of food we KNEW the Munchkins liked and they refused to eat it.  They started refusing to eat any food at our home and ONLY eating the junk their birthmother gave them.  The girls went through 3, count 'em 3, therapists before we were finally able to settle down with one that seemed competent and was able to stick with them.  Within weeks of starting up with the new counselor there was a report of sexual abuse and the munchkins had to head to the child advocacy center to be interviewed.  We weren't surprised, we'd been voicing our suspicions from day one so we were actually relieved that they might actually get some therapy for it and whoever hurt them would be held responsible.  Then while they were being interviewed one of the munchkins accused us of spanking her with a wooden spoon and WE were investigated!  That was a nightmare and Scarecrow was once again inches from sending them packing.  Then there was the Wicked Witch of the West, that was Munchkins 2-4's caseworker.  She was the most WORTHLESS DHHS worker I could have dreamed up!  Not only did she NOT do her job, I believe she actively worked AGAINST the girls' best interest.  Not once did I ever meet her.  Not once did she come visit the girls in my home.  Not once in 5 months did she conduct a team meeting.  Not once did she ever return an email or phone call even after I complained to her supervisor who only made excuses for her.  She dropped the ball on more HUGE issues than I can even begin to mention here.  I can honestly say that I will never work with her again. If I know a child is on her caseload I will decline that placement.  She was THAT bad.  There was violence.  LOTS of it.  There was refusing to sleep until the wee hours of the morning EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.  They were so hateful to each other and to the other children.  There was their birthmom and her manipulations.  Oh the manipulations.  It was easy to see where the girls learned it.  There was precocious puberty-a 7 year old AND a 6 year old with pubic hair, body odor, and moodiness.  In the midst of all of this chaos, Munchkin 1 was moved from our home against his caseworker and the Good Witch's wishes (and of course our wishes) on a judges order to go live with a great aunt whom he did not know and somehow appeared out of the woodwork after 2 years of foster care bouncing, but was able to pass a background check.  It was essentially a move to yet another foster home since M1 did not know her at all, but to this particular judge blood beats stability and he was moved.  It was heartbreaking.  As I had to hand him over to his visitation worker that day knowing he would never come home, he pleaded with me, "Stay home today Mommy. Stay home today?"  I cried and cried and cried.  It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.  Then, when August rolled around we got M3 and M4 enrolled in school and M2 enrolled in preschool and set up for speech classes.  We bought school supplies, delivered them to the school, met the teachers, saw the classrooms, etc all 4 days before school started.  Then TWO days before school started they decided to move the girls to a foster home closer to their birthmom.  Now, don't get me wrong, I was thrilled for ME that they were moving, but the timing STUNK.  They had all summer to move the girls and allow them to get settled before starting school.  Instead they gave us 2 days warning and decided to pick them up on the first day of school.  I had to take Lion to her first day of school and then rush home to get the munchkins ready for their departure. 

It's very interesting the differences in how I feel about M1 leaving and M2-M4 leaving.  I long for M1. I miss him and think of him every day.  I would welcome him back in a heartbeat and long for him to be mine forever.  Scarecrow and Lion feel the same way.  We LOVE him.  M2-M4, I worry about.  I wonder if they are getting proper care.  I wonder if they are settling in and getting the medical attention they need.  I wonder if anyone is making them eat healthy.  I worry about their future.  BUT I don't miss them.  I'm relieved they are gone.  While I cared deeply about them and their welfare and I advocated fiercely for them, I did not like them.  I know WHY they are the way they are.  I know what caused their personality and character flaws.  I know the roots of their behaviors.  But when I watch little girls be deliberately mean and vicious to each other, Lion, and M1 it makes it hard to LIKE them.  It pains me to admit this.  Maybe it's not Christian like.  I prayed for Jesus to grant me the ability to like, to love these girls the way they deserved to be loved, but it just never came.  It was a daily struggle to keep my cool as they continued to torture M1 and Lion.  I feel like I failed them.  Even though I saw a HUGE difference in them from the day they came to me like a pack of wild animals trashing the house to the day they left, I still feel like I failed at the most basic of levels.  I needed to love these girls. I needed to show them them what love felt like, but I just couldn't.  I treated them well. I met all of their needs and many of their appropriate wants.  I gave them experiences and discipline they were lacking and taught them many things, but I never could answer them back when they called out, "I love you mommy."  I feel that will haunt me forever. 

Now I just pray for God's forgiveness that I failed these girls and ask for another chance, another placement to help, another chance to make things right.

Holy Mackerel!

The last month has been ROUGH!  When we were told the girls (munchkins 2-4) were coming we were assured that they were super sweet and polite and that the only behaviors they had were some minimal food hoarding issues.  Well, that could not have been farther from the truth.  While we do see food issues, there has been no hoarding of food yet.  There HAS been hoarding of just about everything else though.  Possessions in general are a problem.  Then there is the aggression.  All 3 are physically and verbally aggressive towards each other, M1 and Lion, the Scarecrow and I, and the pets.  They are manipulative, sneaky and compulsive liars. There have been multiple incidences of stealing (both from stores and people within our home). We've had excrement issues galore from 3 completely potty trained children.  Then there is the stuff we expected: disobedience, pushing limits, lack of boundaries, exposure to bad language/gestures, etc.  PLUS the lice that was supposedly all taken care of at the transition home was still in full swing when they arrive and continued to rise from the dead again and again as the girls had visits with their mother.  If you've never tried to get a non compliant child to stand/sit still for 2-3 hours so you can pick nits from their hair every single night (and multiply that times 3 kids) and had to launder 5 sets of sheets, blankets, pillows, stuffed animals, and clothing every single day then maybe that part you won't quite understand, but let me assure you it's brutal and lice may very well be a deal breaker for us if a call ever comes in for a placement with it again. All combined it's made for a serious roller coaster of a month.  Still, we seem to be holding up ok aside from a few freak-outs from the Scarecrow.  Whenever I wonder how much longer we can hold  out if the current level of behaviors continue long term I think about the fact that WITH the glowing report of zero behaviors we were the ONLY home for hundreds of miles willing to take all 3 of them.  NOW, with all the known behaviors that have been discovered, it would be practically impossible to find a home to take them.

Possessions

Munchkins 2, 3, and 4 have a problem with possessions. They obsess about them. They hoard them. They fight about them. They steal them. They've never really had anything so now that they have clothing, a house with furniture, toys, beds, etc they have gone round the been about THINGS. They have decided that absolutely everything they see or touch is THEIRS whether it is or not. M3 steals things (both from stores and from other people in the house) and then hides them in her little stashes all over her room. None of them can stand for another person to even look at something they have claimed as theirs. They've even become possessive about the chairs at the kitchen table! If M1 (who is only 2 years old today!) climbs onto the chair they sat at during the most recent meal that child will go crazy shouting, "Get off my chair! Mom, M1 wants my chair! He can't have MY CHAIR! IT'S MY CHAIR! MINE!" I've even been told I could not sit on a chair! Today the big thing was library books. They checked out books from the library on their last visit and now that they are home if either M1 or Lion so much as walks toward one of those books the girls will flip out. Even after repeated explanations about how the books belong TO THE LIBRARY and we will ALL share the books at our house they can't handle it. If it continues to be as big a problem as it was today then they won't be allowed to check out any more books from the library. I can't handle the added drama. We have more children's books than our local public library anyway so it's not like they NEED to go to the library to get books!

It was M1s birthday today and M2, 3, and 4 had a BIG problem with that. They could not stand that today was not all about them. They even tried to claim his gifts even though they are baby toys! Thank heavens we had planned (before we knew about the girls) to keep M1s birthday low key because they absolutely COULD NOT have handled a party. At least now we know better than to plan a party for any of them. That would be meltdown city.

M1s case continues to go nowhere. We are getting more and more frustrated with his visitation workers and the agency that employs them by the hour. They are consistently late, do not call to let us know when there is a canceled visit, end visits early at their own discretion, and in general do not insure M1s well being as they are supposed to be doing. Technically they are supposed to be providing parenting training during the visits instead of just watching what happens, but they do not step in when unsafe/unhealthy food is given or no food at all is given. They allow inappropriate situations to occur frequently. It irritates the heck out of me! Still no word on when court will happen next. We are now past the 15 out of 22 month mark for M1 being in out of home care for M1's birthdad so technically termination could happen for both parents simply based on that regardless of what else the state has against them.

Today I had to send M3 to her room for awhile and she was not allowed to be playing with anything so I need to remove any possible play thing from the room. I knew the girls had been hoard things in the room, but I truly had no idea how bad it was. When I started cleaning out the room I found tags from their new clothes that I had thrown in the bathroom trash stashed between the mattress and box springs, dirty tissues inside pillow cases, toys belonging to the other kiddos hidden under the bed and under pillows, clothing stashed in the window sills, random stuff in empty doors and hidden in the corners of the closet. One thing I found were some clothes the girls had brought with them when they came that I had never seen before. The clothes smelled so badly that I almost vomited. I put them in the washing machine on the sanitize cycle and the smell still did not go away. If those clothes smelled that badly I can only imagine how bad their trailer must have smelled! I'm going to try to wash them one more time and if I still can't get rid of the smell I guess I'll just have to throw them away. It was interesting that the girls were hoarding those particular clothes though. I wonder if they remind them of their house and they wanted to keep them close? I can't keep something that smells that badly in my house though. It was unbelievably foul. I can't even begin to describe the stench.

New Munchkins!

We are deep into the throes of settling in our newest placements, Munchkin 2, Munchkin 3, and Munchkin 4. These sisters are super sweet, but boy oh boy do they have some serious issues stemming from their recent past. Munchkin 2 is 3, almost 4 years old. She has a shaved head because her mother decided to shave it to deal with the chronic lice that all three girls (as well as herself) have. M2 is pretty much scarred from having her head shaved and is terrified that everyone will think she is a boy. She is clingy, without any sense of personal boundaries (even for a 3 yr old), demanding, and extremely whiny. Still, one look at those beautiful brown eyes and your heart just melts. Munchkin 3 is 6 years old and in kindergarten. Of all three of the sisters, she is the most screwed up by all they've been through. Even though she's 6, she throws daily toddler temper tantrums (complete with throwing herself on the floor and kicking and screaming) anytime she doesn't get her way. She's got quite an attitude and is seriously behind in school. She's beautiful though and I think she's used to batting her pretty lashes and having people cave to her will. Munchkin 4 is the oldest at 7 years old (almost 8) and is in first grade. Though she is almost 2 years older than M3 they are the same height and M4 weighs significantly less. She's not even on the growth chart! She likes to speak with a baby voice to get attention and is the physical aggressor of the bunch. We've had lots of problems with pinching and hitting the other kids in the house covertly and then lying about it. I wonder if since she's so small she thinks she needs to make up for it by pushing others around?

Their situation that they came from just makes me sick to think about it. They lived in a trailer with no running water that was extremely unsanitary. The policeman who removed them had to leave the house multiple times while he was there to keep from vomiting from the smell. The girls had chronic lice that their mother refused to treat and went to school unbathed and in dirty clothes. All 3 were beat with a belt and made to drink hot sauce when they were in trouble. They were also food restricted and punished for taking food when it was withheld from them. With all of that, it's no wonder the girls have the issues they do and quite frankly it's amazing they came through as well as they have! If lying, stealing, mild physical and verbal aggression, tantrums, food hoarding/binging, and no limits and boundaries are all we have to contend with then I'd say the girls came out very lucky indeed.

Going from 2 kids to 5 has been a HUGE switch. Munchkins 2, 3, and 4 aren't easy kids to add to that mix either. Simply the logistics of getting 7 people out the door every morning has been a staggering adjustment for me! Then there's feeding seven people when truly I hadn't even adjusted to feeding 4 yet from when M1 joined our family. Everything we do is a production from getting into the car to brushing teeth. AND it's definitely going to take me awhile to get used to the stares when I go out with all 5 kiddos in tow. We definitely cause a scene since none of them really obey! We've even already been asked if we were a daycare when we were out at Pizza Hut once!

New Placements

Yesterday was a BUSY day. The Scarecrow left for a trip out of the country for work and pretty much as soon as he left the calls for placements started coming in. The first call was for two little boys-a 1 year old and a 3 year old with severe cerebral palsy. Either one of the boys by themselves would have been fine, but both of them, combined with Munchkin 1 would have made it impossible for me to go ANYWHERE. I would have 3 kids needing strollers/carts/being carried and no way for me to manage that by myself with my current equipment. So, with great regret I had to call the placement worker and turn down the placement. During that very same call I found out that she had another situation for me to consider. This time it was for 4 children, 3 girls and 1 boy. Unfortunately I couldn't possibly take all 4 because my van isn't big enough to haul any more than 5 total kids and I already have 2. So, I offered to take all 3 girls if they could find another placement for the infant boy. It was pretty easy for her to find a home for the baby so sometime next week I will go from a mama of 2 to a mama of 5. I will now have a 7, 6, 5, 3, and 2 year old living under our roof! I must be crazy!

In other news, we had to make a 3rd hotline call for M1 after a visit. This one we had to take him to the doctor's office to make the report. I ended up held hostage in the exam room with a cranky, sleep deprived M1 for 3 1/2 hours. It was a horrendous experience. I had to talk to multiple law enforcement officers and an investigator. The doctor took photos, the investigator took photos, they drew blood, they took statements. It was an ORDEAL.

On a happy note, M1 said, "I love you," twice last week completely unprompted! He probably doesn't know what it means, but it still made me feel good anyway :) M1 has also learned to recognize the letters H, M, D, and sometimes S. He won't say the letter name, but he'll excitedly point to them and say a word that starts with that letter.

Still no news on when M1s next court date is or if termination of rights for his birthmother will begin soon or not. The courts around here seem to move at a snail's pace so as long as they don't think about moving M1 anywhere until he's going to stay then I guess I don't care how long it takes.