It's Friday. Where did the week go? It's definitely been jam packed.
Today, C2 had his developmental specialist appointment. She comes to the house which is nice. The agency is ridiculously slow so it's only her 2nd time here and now his problems are pretty much gone. Though she did stroke my ego by telling me that we were poster foster parents. C2 walks, talks, jumps, and one of the parents at his pre-school even told Mary he seemed "advanced". Advanced?!?!? We never thought we would hear that word and C2's name in the same sentence.
When he came to us at 26 months, he had just learned to walk so he crawled most places, he couldn't talk AT ALL aide from "goo goo ga ga" *literally* We really thought he was at least mildly retarded or had severe developmental issues because of drug exposure. Now, he's a completely different kid. It's amazing what environment can do.
Oh, and a HUGE thing happened yesterday when a judge in Maine ruled that 2 women could adopt their foster children. YAY!!!!! For details - http://www.glad.org/
Enough random thoughts - on to the weekend *aaaah*
Friday, August 31, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
McDonald's & The Tubes
Mary was a sweet pea and took the kids to McDonald's tonight. I said I'd NEVER take my kids to McD's but they absolutely love it...and plus, they're not technically my kids *I'm terrible*. Anywho, we don't exactly have perfect weather here so some days require the "inside playground".
The food from McD's I could do w/out so 1/2 the time, one of us gets a coffee & we feed them normal food later. The other 1/2 we try to at least order the happy meals with apples (instead of fries & we don't use that ridiculous caramel dip they supply - what's the point of getting apples if you're going to cover them in sugar?) and apple juice or milk (instead of a soft drink which of course they do not drink at all).
I had C1 home with me yesterday. I decided that on his play therapy days he could stay home for some one on one attention. Mary and C2 ended up getting home later than expected so C1 and I were done with each other by then but otherwise it was mostly fun. The kid just NEVER stops talking. Some of it is pretty funny but he just cannot SHUT UP.
Anywho, I have the special treat of an empty house for a bit while I get over the nausea from my HSG test today. This was NOT fun but it went way better than I expected. I think the anxiety leading up to it was far worse. I had chatted with a couple of people online who had it done & it seemed miserable. One said it was basically the worse experience of her life and the other said she couldn't finish the test because it was so painful. Needless to say, mine went off with not *too* much pain though I have felt some cramping & nausea from the iodine in my belly. Everything seems to be in working order but the actual results will come later. *fingers crossed*
The food from McD's I could do w/out so 1/2 the time, one of us gets a coffee & we feed them normal food later. The other 1/2 we try to at least order the happy meals with apples (instead of fries & we don't use that ridiculous caramel dip they supply - what's the point of getting apples if you're going to cover them in sugar?) and apple juice or milk (instead of a soft drink which of course they do not drink at all).
I had C1 home with me yesterday. I decided that on his play therapy days he could stay home for some one on one attention. Mary and C2 ended up getting home later than expected so C1 and I were done with each other by then but otherwise it was mostly fun. The kid just NEVER stops talking. Some of it is pretty funny but he just cannot SHUT UP.
Anywho, I have the special treat of an empty house for a bit while I get over the nausea from my HSG test today. This was NOT fun but it went way better than I expected. I think the anxiety leading up to it was far worse. I had chatted with a couple of people online who had it done & it seemed miserable. One said it was basically the worse experience of her life and the other said she couldn't finish the test because it was so painful. Needless to say, mine went off with not *too* much pain though I have felt some cramping & nausea from the iodine in my belly. Everything seems to be in working order but the actual results will come later. *fingers crossed*
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Baby Benjamin
Congratulations to my good friend Connie & her husband Scot on the birth of their son Benjamin Scot on August 22. Baby Ben came in at only 5 pounds & 12 ounces.
I can't wait to hear the birth story from Connie and to meet the lil' one!!!
I can't wait to hear the birth story from Connie and to meet the lil' one!!!
Monday, August 27, 2007
One Weekend Down
The weekend is over. This is almost a relief for me since the weekend usually involves a lot of work and I'm presently overwhelmed. We did have fun for the most part but as usual we have been doing a lot of work on the outside of the house esp with the arrival of the dirt pile.
I was thrilled this morning when M's biz trip was cancelled. She was supposed to be going to Canada this afternoon 'til Wed night. Besides, having to take care of the boys on my own (which is a difficult thing for any 1 person), I'm having a medical test done on Wed and it was suggested to have someone to drive me home. Ummm, yeah, the only person I know in this area is M. So I am relieved since I was already having anxiety about it anyways.
Well, I am off to go for a bike ride since the weather is absolutely beautiful today and I am sans wifey and children for the afternoon :-)
I was thrilled this morning when M's biz trip was cancelled. She was supposed to be going to Canada this afternoon 'til Wed night. Besides, having to take care of the boys on my own (which is a difficult thing for any 1 person), I'm having a medical test done on Wed and it was suggested to have someone to drive me home. Ummm, yeah, the only person I know in this area is M. So I am relieved since I was already having anxiety about it anyways.
Well, I am off to go for a bike ride since the weather is absolutely beautiful today and I am sans wifey and children for the afternoon :-)
Sunday, August 26, 2007
the drama of fostering continues...
Friday night, Mary & I enjoyed some time at the Folk Festival (FF). Before hand, we had "re-tried" the sushi place here in town. It was much better than we remembered so that was especially good.
Saturday was spent playing in our dirt pile. Yes, we have an extra large dirt pile. All summer, we tried to buy dirt - yes, when you own a house you have to buy dirt. When we failed, we asked one of the construction sites nearby if we could have some dirt. Well, a decent amount of time has gone by so we thought we weren't going to get any dirt. Then Thursday, they drop off 2 extremely large truck fulls of dirt. Ummm, we don't need this much dirt especially so late in the season when grass probably won't grow. Needless to say, the kids are obsessed with it. The kids & Mary were home before me on Thursday so when I returned, I was greeted by a VERY dirty C1 & C2 with C1 declaring "we got a prize - dirt!".
Anywho, Saturday afternoon we met up with our friends T, P, and their son Q (that's Todd, Pam, & Quinton) at the FF. There's an extreme number of people at the FF - prob more than the entire population of our town. Well, we always have this fear in the back our mind whenever we go to local events or places that we'll run into relatives of C1 & C2. To avoid this we usually don't do local things, we even go to a McDonald's that's 20 minutes away rather than the one that's 5 minutes away. We avoided the fair last month but decided we'd do the FF since there's SO many people and it's the one really fun thing that comes to town.
The FF is free so they have volunteers collecting donations. We give a donation to one of the volunteers and she gives us & the kids stickers. I did a lil' "hmmm" in my mind when she referred to C2 by name as she was giving him a sticker but I thought she must have heard me say it. Then she asked to take a picture of them, we said "sure" figuring it was for festival related stuff. Meanwhile the kids aren't allowed to be in any publications so we should have said no. I was more confused when I then hear her call C1 by name. Then she says to me, "the reason I know their names is I'm their great aunt D". oy vey! Anywho, she was nice and we did the nod & smile thing & it turns out she lives in Florida anways. We did take her email address and promised to send her some pictures. But WTF, it was just typical of how overwhelmed with their extended family we are. We're also kind of ticked that nobody stepped up to the plate to try to take care of them (though they were with 2-3 sets of different relatives before coming to us) yet all of them still want to see them on a regular basis or rather at their convenience.
Needless to say, this reinstated yet another reason I think of not adopting them. We've already decided that we have to move since their family lives in the same town we live and they all know where we live. *scary* I believe M is using this as some sort of collateral or bribery since she knows that I want to move to a different town anyways esp the town that she has considered even though she wouldn't have given it a second thought before the boys.
Oh well, my "free" morning is about to end.
Saturday was spent playing in our dirt pile. Yes, we have an extra large dirt pile. All summer, we tried to buy dirt - yes, when you own a house you have to buy dirt. When we failed, we asked one of the construction sites nearby if we could have some dirt. Well, a decent amount of time has gone by so we thought we weren't going to get any dirt. Then Thursday, they drop off 2 extremely large truck fulls of dirt. Ummm, we don't need this much dirt especially so late in the season when grass probably won't grow. Needless to say, the kids are obsessed with it. The kids & Mary were home before me on Thursday so when I returned, I was greeted by a VERY dirty C1 & C2 with C1 declaring "we got a prize - dirt!".
Anywho, Saturday afternoon we met up with our friends T, P, and their son Q (that's Todd, Pam, & Quinton) at the FF. There's an extreme number of people at the FF - prob more than the entire population of our town. Well, we always have this fear in the back our mind whenever we go to local events or places that we'll run into relatives of C1 & C2. To avoid this we usually don't do local things, we even go to a McDonald's that's 20 minutes away rather than the one that's 5 minutes away. We avoided the fair last month but decided we'd do the FF since there's SO many people and it's the one really fun thing that comes to town.
The FF is free so they have volunteers collecting donations. We give a donation to one of the volunteers and she gives us & the kids stickers. I did a lil' "hmmm" in my mind when she referred to C2 by name as she was giving him a sticker but I thought she must have heard me say it. Then she asked to take a picture of them, we said "sure" figuring it was for festival related stuff. Meanwhile the kids aren't allowed to be in any publications so we should have said no. I was more confused when I then hear her call C1 by name. Then she says to me, "the reason I know their names is I'm their great aunt D". oy vey! Anywho, she was nice and we did the nod & smile thing & it turns out she lives in Florida anways. We did take her email address and promised to send her some pictures. But WTF, it was just typical of how overwhelmed with their extended family we are. We're also kind of ticked that nobody stepped up to the plate to try to take care of them (though they were with 2-3 sets of different relatives before coming to us) yet all of them still want to see them on a regular basis or rather at their convenience.
Needless to say, this reinstated yet another reason I think of not adopting them. We've already decided that we have to move since their family lives in the same town we live and they all know where we live. *scary* I believe M is using this as some sort of collateral or bribery since she knows that I want to move to a different town anyways esp the town that she has considered even though she wouldn't have given it a second thought before the boys.
Oh well, my "free" morning is about to end.
Friday, August 24, 2007
A Friday
Oh, my not so fun life. This morning I had coffee with Mary. The one good thing about the boys having visits with their bio mom (bm) is that we can once in a while enjoy some coffee together.
I went on my own to Sam's Club, the grocery store, Target, and Home Depot. Oy. If you told me 2 years ago this would be a typical Friday morning for me, I'd laugh in your face.
The boys normally have 2 visits/week with bm, she normally shows up to 1. This week was 3 due to a cancellation last week by the place they're at. She showed up to all 3 *shocking for us* so I'm sure we'll see the effects of them during the weekend.
They are supervised visits at a place that normally helps young mothers raise infants. As much as I like the staff (actually 2 members of the staff, the rest I dislike - too long of a story), I feel the visits shouldn't be at this particular place.
Both the boys have regression or whatever you want to call it with wanting to be babies (more C1 in a MAJOR way) and I think this time around actual babies does not help at all. I realize it's part of their development that is stunted because they didn't receive what babies need when they were babies but I feel like we see more typical "baby" behaviors after these visits. I think part of it is from seeing bm and part is seeing babies getting lots of attention and every single need met instantly.
Anywho, it's Friday - this isn't generally exciting for me because I dread the weekend but tonight we have "date night". We were gonna hit the Folk Festival here in town but it's rainy so it will prob just be dinner and drinks. Our babysitter "T" is our life saver!!!
Hopefully the weather will clear up and we'll be able to take the boys over to the festival tomorrow or Sunday.
I went on my own to Sam's Club, the grocery store, Target, and Home Depot. Oy. If you told me 2 years ago this would be a typical Friday morning for me, I'd laugh in your face.
The boys normally have 2 visits/week with bm, she normally shows up to 1. This week was 3 due to a cancellation last week by the place they're at. She showed up to all 3 *shocking for us* so I'm sure we'll see the effects of them during the weekend.
They are supervised visits at a place that normally helps young mothers raise infants. As much as I like the staff (actually 2 members of the staff, the rest I dislike - too long of a story), I feel the visits shouldn't be at this particular place.
Both the boys have regression or whatever you want to call it with wanting to be babies (more C1 in a MAJOR way) and I think this time around actual babies does not help at all. I realize it's part of their development that is stunted because they didn't receive what babies need when they were babies but I feel like we see more typical "baby" behaviors after these visits. I think part of it is from seeing bm and part is seeing babies getting lots of attention and every single need met instantly.
Anywho, it's Friday - this isn't generally exciting for me because I dread the weekend but tonight we have "date night". We were gonna hit the Folk Festival here in town but it's rainy so it will prob just be dinner and drinks. Our babysitter "T" is our life saver!!!
Hopefully the weather will clear up and we'll be able to take the boys over to the festival tomorrow or Sunday.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
I never know what to post or where to begin so here goes...
The drama continues with the chitlins. Their great-grandmother is currently suing for custody. I wouldn't mind them going to a family member if the family member was: normal, not going to die before they reached adulthood, & didn't already put their fair share into messing them up. I never realized kids this young could have so many issues and her time having C2 and then both really did a number on them. C2 was like an infant when he came to us at 26 mos. C1 still has severe issues when he has visits with her.
Anywho, apparently this is going to speed up TPR (termination of parental rights). We thought it would slow the process down which in the beginning we wanted to go very quickly but now are kind of happy to see it play out. One so the right thing happens and two so we are not forced to make a decision on adoption anytime soon.
The drama continues with the chitlins. Their great-grandmother is currently suing for custody. I wouldn't mind them going to a family member if the family member was: normal, not going to die before they reached adulthood, & didn't already put their fair share into messing them up. I never realized kids this young could have so many issues and her time having C2 and then both really did a number on them. C2 was like an infant when he came to us at 26 mos. C1 still has severe issues when he has visits with her.
Anywho, apparently this is going to speed up TPR (termination of parental rights). We thought it would slow the process down which in the beginning we wanted to go very quickly but now are kind of happy to see it play out. One so the right thing happens and two so we are not forced to make a decision on adoption anytime soon.
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