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In an effort to help us blog on a more regular basis we came up with 'Our Foster Family 5 for Friday' posts. "Carson" likes to give High-5's and so we thought it would be fun to feature five things that we experienced as a foster family for the week.
1. Carson is really into "owies" and any slight bump or knock to any body part is an instant owie that requires a kiss and a "boo boo owl," a kid-friendly ice pack that looks like this:
Well, on Sunday, Carson being the adventurous boy he is had 3 real owie accidents! Two of which left evidence on his face and the third was a surprise fall from his crib when he climbed out for the first time, only five minutes after we put him in bed. This required pictures taken and emails sent to his social worker and our licensing worker to inform them of the incidents. It also required us to take him to the doctor for a check-up as per the licensing worker (who was just trying to make sure we were protected in case there was a complaint by one of his parents.) Reporting owies and doctor appointments for rather harmless owies are some of the things that remind us that while in our eyes these are our kids, in the eyes of the law they aren't.
2. Due to Carson's adventurous spirit we spent Monday morning (rather, Paul spent Monday morning) changing Carson's crib into a toddler bed. The fall was from a decent height and left him uninjured but pretty shaken up. Paul heard a thump and rushed in to see Carson standing in the middle of his room screaming. We don't want any more accident reports or doctor visits so we decided the trade off would be worth it to try to transition him into a toddler bed. And to our great surprise, he has had the smoothest transition from crib to toddler bed in toddler history. If only those darn nightmares would cease we might be able to get a good night's sleep!
3. Since we are on the topic of sleeping, "Maggie" is having difficulty falling asleep when it's time for bed. The solution: a couple of nights this week Paul offered to put her in the Ergo Baby Carrier and walk around the neighborhood until she fell asleep. It looks similar to this (only Paul is much more cuter than Orlando Bloom!):
Sometimes their walks began at 9:30pm! But nevertheless, Paul is the Ergo-whisperer and he has been able to get her to sleep for the night. Did I mention he is my favorite foster dad ever? Getting babies to fall asleep is by no means just a foster parent problem, but what makes us think twice before allowing Maggie or Carson to cry themselves to sleep is the fact that when they first arrive here this isn't their "home." At some point they do need to learn to put themselves to sleep, but we have not had the chance to bond with them from birth, so we try to use as many opportunities to hold and cuddle (and ergo) to build our attachment with these kids. Sometimes we do let them cry it out, but I guess there's a different wrinkle when it comes to foster kids.
4. Maybe the most significant thing that happened this week was Grandma and Grandpa moved away for the unforeseeable future. Their last night was filled with hugs and tears. Carson seemed to know something was happening, the first thing he said when he woke up the next morning was, "Gramma?" and put his hands up to ask "where?"
5. Thankfully, Grandma and Grandpa recorded their voices reading books for the grandkids and gave them as gifts before they left. This is a life-saver because Maggie LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Grandpa's voice. She is so content in his arms when he is talking, she just looks up in admiration and awe. It is the sweetest thing. So these books come in handy when her bottle is taking a lot longer to prepare than expected and she gets fussy. We just pop open the book and Grandpa's voice ceases the crying in an instant. It's kind of fun to think about why she's so attracted to his voice. Maybe she has a great relationship with a biological grandpa or some family friend, or maybe it's just a random coincidence. Whatever the case, we are carefully trying to preserve this weapon of comfort only for emergencies.
About a week ago we decided to put our name back on the list for potential placements. We're licensed to care for 2 foster children, but after receiving "Carson" we felt what I'm assuming is the traditional new parent feeling of being completely overwhelmed. So, we turned down the next few placement calls we received and the placement workers took us off the active list. However, as we've settled into a nice routine with Carson we thought about expanding our family. Our perfect plan included a 2 and a half to 3 year old boy who could walk and talk and get along great with Carson. We even thought it could just be a short term placement for the summer since that would work great with our schedules.
Well, our perfect plan didn't seem quite so important when the placement worker called and said that a 5 month old baby girl needed a safe place to stay. So, about an hour after the call we went down to the office to pick up "Maggie" (not her real name). She is beautiful, has a fantastic smile, and is pretty much wearing us out. We were able to skip this stage of life with Carson since we got him when he was 12 months, but now we are living in the 3 hour cycle of eat, play, sleep, with some crying mixed in. We're back to the overwhelmed stage of life as it is taking what seems like all of our time to manage these 2 kids, but we're hoping that once routines are established and we figure out what we are doing it will get easier.
Through it all, Maggie is being very understanding; in fact I would say she is handling the change better than we are. While we have a limited experience with foster kids, we've noticed that both kids we have are very resilient in the face of change. They are taken away from everything and everyone they know, yet they can still smile, play, sleep, and bond with us. Maybe it's because they are used to a lot of change in their biological families, or maybe it's just the adaptability of human nature and the grace of God, but it is such an impressive thing to see.
As we are trying to get our lives back to a sense of normalcy, we are extremely grateful for our extended family who has been so helpful. I don't know if most foster parents have the kind of family support that we have, but it's hard to imagine the last week without our family helping with meals, being flexible to meet our lack of a schedule, and just playing with our kids. We don't know much about Maggie's situation, or how long she will be with us, but we are trying our best to love her.
Every 6 months or so there is a hearing to review and evaluate the situation of a child in foster care. Our little guy has been with us for 7 months and had his first review hearing not too long ago. We were told to be there at 8:30am and to bring "Carson" with us. We arrived on time and his mom and dad were already there waiting in the lobby adjacent to the courtroom. Thankfully, since this was a juvenile courtroom, the lobby had some toys and books, and even some furniture Carson's size.
Carson's social worker arrived a while later and told us that while the court notification said to be there at 8:30, we had plenty of time to wait while everyone involved got settled. I guess you could say showing up at the scheduled time was a rookie mistake, like not realizing that when you hear the party starts at 8, none of the cool kids will show up until 9. So, like the kid who shows up before everyone else and stands around looking uncomfortable, we spent about 2 hours sitting there in the lobby with Carson and his parents. There was the occasional conversation with a social worker or a lawyer, but for the most part we just sat and watched Carson play with his mom and dad.
I will admit it was a little awkward. It always seems awkward when we watch Carson interact with his parents. We try hard to think of Carson as our son, not a kid we are babysitting or even a favorite nephew, but our own son whom we love more than anything. We are far from perfect, and since we don't have biological children we are still trying to figure out how to be parents, let alone foster parents (This struggle might be an entirely separate blog post). Anyways, we try and love Carson as our own son, but here are his biological parents demonstrating that we are not his only parents, and in some ways, we are not even his "real" parents. His parents have never said anything like this to us, but we see it in the way they interact with him. We sat in the lobby for 2 hours and for 2 hours his mom and dad played with him, getting down on his level and taking toys that probably had 20 minutes of interest and making them last 120 minutes.
In a sad and selfish way, this may be easier for us if we could watch and see that Carson's parents did not really care about him that much. If they were to only give him some of their attention or keep their heads buried in their smartphones, then we could think that we were somehow "better" or something. Of course this really isn't what we want. We are so happy to see Carson's parents engaged, and to see how much they love him, and how much he loves them, makes the likelihood of reunification a lot easier to think about. It's just that times like this remind us that this family we are working hard to create is most likely temporary, and will never be the "only" family that Carson has. We want Carson's bond with his parents to get stronger, and so for 2 hours we have to almost disengage as the parents that we try to be and just be observers as Carson plays, laughs, questions, and cries. While it is a little awkward to interact with another couple who thinks of "your" child as "their" child, what is most difficult is to try and give Carson's parents space to be the parents while not wanting Carson to feel that we are disengaged from him. I'm afraid that Carson will think of us as the parents who take care of him, except when those other parents are around. That's not the kind of parents we want to be, and trying to figure this out for ourselves is hard enough without trying to explain it to a toddler.
Eventually, Carson's name is called and we find seats at the back of the courtroom. There are attorneys for mom, dad, Carson, and Child Welfare. The Child Welfare attorney recommends 6 more months of services, no other attorneys object, and the judge says that we will meet again in December. After 2 hours of waiting, the 3 minute hearing is a little anti-climactic, but the outcome is what we were expecting. I suppose it's fitting that in the midst of a legal procedure leading to Carson's reunification with his parents, we got a little relational procedure reminding us of our unique relationship with Carson as his foster parents.
