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!
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
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!
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!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
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!!!
Thursday, July 28, 2011
It consumes you!
Some days are fine, and some days I am consumed by our foster situation! I would say we get 3 days a week to ourselves. No phone calls, no visits, no appointments, and so on. The other four days can be draining!
I wonder how, or why people foster! We had looked into being foster parents in our first year of marriage, and for a few different reasons ended up not doing it. Now we are doing it because we were called and asked to take the kids and we felt it was what we were "called" to do. Not only for them, but for Alex, and for us! During the first two weeks, I wanted to run in the opposite direction and never look back! Not only were we new to foster care, first time foster parents, but all three of our kids ended up with the flu, all in the first week and a half that we had them. It ended up taking about a month to get everyone 100% healthy. On top of that was one of the kids birthday's and Easter. Things were hard! They still are! Now it's hard in a different way.
There are days we wonder if our situation makes it harder. These are our sons siblings! This is the woman who gave birth to our son! There is a tie there that can not be denied! Sadly we may never know the answer to that, because, at this time, we have both desided that we will not be doing foster care after Alex's siblings! Whatever the outcome of these children, it does not feel like something we are ment to do! It's hard to admit, and sad to face, but it truely does consume you!
There are nights I sit in bed wondering for hours what is going to happen to these little children. I have had bad dreams about their birthparents. Last night someone came to our house at 11:45pm, while I was asleep and Joe was reading in bed, and rang the door bell. We both jumped up in shock and rushed to the door to see who it could be. By the time we got to the peep hole all we could see was a girl in a red car backing out of our driveway. Wrong house, maybe, but all I could do is fear that someone was trying to get to the kids! It's sad, but true! It took me a long time to fall back asleep, and even in the morning I was still a little shaken.
The children have been with us 14 weeks now, and every day we are growing closer and closer to them! 14 weeks doesn't seem that long, but it feels like they have been here so much longer.
We have court again in 2 weeks. Part of me wants to skip it! Last time it was heart wrenching and I was an emotional mess after, but the "controlling" part of me wants to be there so I can have all of the most current information.
If there are any other foster parents that read this, please feel free to leave me a commnet letting me know how you go about your life without letting it consume you. Or if you can direct me to a post that has already been writen about this, that would be wonderful too!
I wonder how, or why people foster! We had looked into being foster parents in our first year of marriage, and for a few different reasons ended up not doing it. Now we are doing it because we were called and asked to take the kids and we felt it was what we were "called" to do. Not only for them, but for Alex, and for us! During the first two weeks, I wanted to run in the opposite direction and never look back! Not only were we new to foster care, first time foster parents, but all three of our kids ended up with the flu, all in the first week and a half that we had them. It ended up taking about a month to get everyone 100% healthy. On top of that was one of the kids birthday's and Easter. Things were hard! They still are! Now it's hard in a different way.
There are days we wonder if our situation makes it harder. These are our sons siblings! This is the woman who gave birth to our son! There is a tie there that can not be denied! Sadly we may never know the answer to that, because, at this time, we have both desided that we will not be doing foster care after Alex's siblings! Whatever the outcome of these children, it does not feel like something we are ment to do! It's hard to admit, and sad to face, but it truely does consume you!
There are nights I sit in bed wondering for hours what is going to happen to these little children. I have had bad dreams about their birthparents. Last night someone came to our house at 11:45pm, while I was asleep and Joe was reading in bed, and rang the door bell. We both jumped up in shock and rushed to the door to see who it could be. By the time we got to the peep hole all we could see was a girl in a red car backing out of our driveway. Wrong house, maybe, but all I could do is fear that someone was trying to get to the kids! It's sad, but true! It took me a long time to fall back asleep, and even in the morning I was still a little shaken.
The children have been with us 14 weeks now, and every day we are growing closer and closer to them! 14 weeks doesn't seem that long, but it feels like they have been here so much longer.
We have court again in 2 weeks. Part of me wants to skip it! Last time it was heart wrenching and I was an emotional mess after, but the "controlling" part of me wants to be there so I can have all of the most current information.
If there are any other foster parents that read this, please feel free to leave me a commnet letting me know how you go about your life without letting it consume you. Or if you can direct me to a post that has already been writen about this, that would be wonderful too!
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