Still Here!

Things have slowly falling apart here for a few weeks now, but we just keep working on putting things back together.
I started my new hours a few weeks ago, and it's not going as well as I had hoped for.  My three don't get along that well when left alone, and so this leaves me very little time to get things done.  Although I am home with them from 7am-10:30am, I can hardly leave the room they are in for more than a few minutes.  Right now I hear "Is this mine?" "No, that's mine"  "It is mine" but, this time I will be letting them work it out!  It's is very hard having three children so close in age!   Each day does get a little better, and I am finding ways to get things done, while still watching closely over the kids.
Alex has been a real spit fire lately!  He is in a toddler bed now, and not sleeping well.  He went from about 3 hours of naps a day, to 1 hour.  He also went from falling asleep right around 8 and sleeping until 7:15, to falling asleep after 9 and getting up before 7.  This lack of sleep is making him very grumpy and short tempered!   His hitting is at an all time high, as well as his whining.  I hope to get past this soon, because it is very wearing on us!  I have no idea how to get him to sleep more, but again, each week is getting a little better and soon I hope he will forget that he can get right out of bed, and he will just go to sleep instead.
"Big boy" has expectantly pulled away from us.  He has been her five months now, and has just started talking about "going home".  He rarely smiles, hates his new school (daycare), is always bickering with the other two, and is just not himself.  He got to go to his great grandparents by himself this past weekend and we hoped this would help snap him out of it, but so far it only seems to have made things worse.  He came home very mouthy as if he is in charge of the house, and we were told that was how he treated his great grandpa all weekend. I guess we will try to find another way to help him through.
"Princess" has her days.  She loves her new school (daycare), and does great with the boys one on one.  Three really is a crowd in this house! 
We are pretty brunt out on the system right now, and are wondering where we go from here! We have a big court date next week, but in the last two weeks the kids social worker left and we have a new one, the supervisor of the case left, and our licensing worker was changed!  It's all been a bit much!  Which is why I have not been on my blog.  I have not even had time to read other blogs, which I always found time for. 
I'll try to write more often, since it makes me feel so much better.  

When your baby is not a baby

As I was sitting in the living room taking a break from cleaning, Alex is sitting next to me chatting my ear off. He's telling me what he wants, and talking all about how he does everything "mineself" (myself).  I try to hold his hand to help him off the couch and he pushes my hand away.  He yells out again "MINE SELF".  Then he sees his potty book on the floor and remembers he just pooped on the potty, so he runs around cheering for himself  "potty yeah potty yhea". I look at the wild man running back and forth, and it hits me!  My baby is long gone! Tears start to flow and Alex looks at me and says "mama cryin", then he gives me the sweetest kiss. I try hard as I can to remember what it was like to have an infant. I can kind of remember because of the sleepless nights, and consent feedings, but I can not remember 3-9 months for anything. I try to remember what it was even like before he became this running, talking, climbing machine and it just wont come back to me. 
We have been in survival mode for the last 4 months, but now it's time to get back to enjoying life.  I start my new job in two weeks and I can not wait for things to slow down, and to have more time to enjoy my kids!  I do not look forward to the day I am again sitting on the couch and I am crying my eyes out as I help Alex pick out his graduation announcements! 

18 weeks

We are 18 weeks into our foster parenting journey and going strong......most days!  We had a pretty big court hearing about two weeks ago, and things seem to be moving as we would hope.  I don't want to say too much, but we should know even more at the end of September. 
I think my last post was about my job dilemma.  Well, I will be moving on.  I have five more days with my current family, and will have my last day on Sept 1st.  After the holiday weekend I will be starting with my new/old family.  I am going back to nanny for the family that I was with before I was where I am now!  Get that?  I am excited about the hours (about half as many), but I am a little worried about the money.  Some how we will make it work!  I look forward to the time that I will have with the three kids, and think that the other two will benefit greatly from not being in daycare so many hours a day! 

More to come soon!

What to do next

I really can't get out of my head this week! 

As of two weeks ago I had decided that it was time for me, as a nanny, to move on.  This scared me to death since I now have my son, who I would like to bring with me. On top of that I have two foster children, who some people might see as a potential problem, which I get!  I mean, what am I going to do if the kids day care calls me and needs me to come pick up one of my sick kids? Plus I do not want to work 45-50 hours anymore.  It was fine when I only had one child, but now it's too much.  My foster children have a lot of appointments and I need a little more freedom to work around that. 
I would love to not work and be able to just care for these three children all of the time, but financially we can not make that happen right now.  On top of that, I need at least a few days out of the house each week.
So, I am trying to see if I should get licensed to provide care in my home for other children, and that way I can make up my own schedule.  Or if I want to try to pick up a new family to nanny for, but not so many hours.  I go back and forth on this decision a lot!  The part that is really stressing me is that I only have about a month to get it all worked out.

On top of that, the foster care part of our life is crazy busy right now.  We have court coming up again soon, and it really gets crazy when that happens!  We have all members of the case trying to fit in a visit, plus relative visits, plus non-stop phone calls!  It's pretty overwhelming!  I look forward to next week being over, which is sad since next week is my birthday! 

I really hope to find a solution and some clarity soon!!!