Big Boy!

We have quite the chunky baby!!! He had his 6 mo visit (at almost 7 months old) the other day and now weighs 20lbs 6 oz!!! He is 26 1/2 inches long :) His head is measuring in the 80th %ile! I don't know why, but God keeps giving us HUGE foster babies!! LM's head always measured in the 95th %ile! Everything is going really well with him...

Very little reflux since starting on more solids

Sitting up independently

Getting up on all 4's and trying desperately to crawl! (He has 3 big brothers to try and keep up with)

No real sounds (C-V) yet, but that's pretty typical to see speech take a back-seat when they are advancing physically (or visa-versa)

Eating lots of fruits/veggies--there isn't one he doesn't like! He eats puffs, soften cheerios, and tiny bits of "real" food

No teeth yet :(

He is the most social baby I have ever seen! He hates to be alone...he has to be by people :)

He is officially 7 months old today!!!

I was looking back at pictures from when he first arrived and I just sit back in amazement at the changes that have happened! I am gathering pictures to put together in a creative book for his Dad to have. I also started making a pp video of his pics. I still need to find a song that I want to put with it. Any ideas??? His CM hasn't responded to any of my 3 emails in the last week. I'm sure I'll hear from her as soon as she needs something from me :(

Oh Praise Jesus!!!!

Little Man's bio-mom's rights ARE terminated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew I wasn't crazy. So glad that I doubled checked!!! Of course we still have Dad in Oct. to deal with, but like I said earlier...he's not the one I was concerned about. This is such a rollercoaster!!! So glad to know that I am not going crazy and I can interpret things correctly-LOL!!!!

On another note his bio-mom keeps emailing me and asking to call him and talk to him and wants to see him when the adoption is complete. I'm just not ready for all of this yet! I want him to know who she is and have a connection with her on a certain level and when he can handle it!! She makes comments like "I know he would be so excited to see me!" Ummm...no he would have no idea who you are :( You have not visited him since last December and we are all he knows as a family. There are many things that are hard for her to understand. I plan to talk to our adoption worker about the best way to handle her.

Middle Names

Ok..so in the meantime we are day dreaming about what our son's official name will be! We plan to keep his first name because he would be so confused to change it now, people know him as that name, and it's a good name :) The last name is easy of course so it's the middle name that we plan on changing. He shares a middle name with his birthdad and since we don't really like that name it's going! So...I am going to ask your opinion for a middle name. Hubby and I have not yet agreed....I understand this will be difficult since many of you don't know the first name to go with it, but humor me! We are also very "into" name meanings which is why we have chosen these. Make your choice in the comment section or take the poll in the sidebar :)

Misunderstandings stink :(

So we had a visit from LM's GAL today and I found out that when I heard what I thought I heard it didn't mean what I thought it meant :( This is my first time in this 3-ring circus! That explains why I couldn't feel the full joy that I thought I should be feeling. Something in my spirit just wouldn't let me rejoice. Now I know why. The hearing will be Oct. 24th and that will be the official termination for both parents (I might get called on the stand at that point). Wah!!! I am jealous of my friend who at this rate will have complete termination before us and her little girl has been with them 9 months (we're nearly 21 months!) I know..I know...each case is so unique.

So this week will mark 21 months for Little Man and 7 months for Baby!!!!

A long time ahead

We have a looooonnnnngggg many years ahead of us if Little Man's mom continues to think in her mind that she is his Mommy (She will always be his birthmother of course!) The emails I get are so difficult to have a response to. I am all for open adoption when the reality of the situation is clear. That's really hard to do when reality is not on her radar...especially with her mentall illness. GOD'S GRACE IS SUFFICIENT!!!! :)

Waking up after a very long night (teething?) with the baby, discovering LM "decorated" his windows with the lotion he climbed to find, and the email from his bio-mom.....whew...I'm gonna need MORE COFFEE!!!!!

Email

I got an email from Little Man's mom today. Actually a lot of it was directed toward him. It was sad to read because I don't think she even really understands/knows what happened in court today. I sent her a reply with answers to her questions and a couple of pictures. It will be interesting to see how this email thing works out. The last several emails (to the GAL) and this one pretty much all say the same thing. I feel bad things didn't work out differently for her, but the choices she made directed the path of this case...and honestly I think he's better off living in a mentally stable home where all his needs are being met without violence, neglect, and poverty. The future with her in our lives should be interesting to say the least! lol! I am thankful she is now out of state. She is a difficult person to deal with and an in-town relationship just would be too much for me!

On a related note...as I have been discussing Little Grape's future with the big kids they have expressed a desire to stay in contact with him. I think his Dad is a nice guy and if we can be a support for him I would throughly enjoy getting to remain in baby's life :)

Termination...sort of!

I went into court today expecting both parents rights to be terminated. We got 1/2 the victory today! Mom's rights were terminated (the one I was more concerned about). It was weird because they says some things, the baliff has to walk the halls calling her name and come and report no one answered. Then it was over instantaneously! It was crazy how non-chalantly it seemed to happen. I guess I was the only one who felt that tremendous weight lifted and wanted to get up and dance...they are used to it!!

Dad's rights are still in tact because of the diligence search and the lack of rush (apparently) in getting them to the AG's office :( Really...this guy has not seen his son, visited, talked to, or made ANY contact with ANYONE since December last year. BUT WAIT...let's really try to find him because he might still be interested. Ok...sorry for that sarcasm!! Sometimes things just seem ridiculous. So now we have a Distribution hearing on Oct. 24th when Dad's rights **should** be terminated!!! We will also cover the "manifestation of best interest" with the GAL attorney :)

More waiting...I was praying we could finalize before his 2nd anniversary in care and the end of the year. It looks like that won't happen, but it's all part of God's plan so we rest in His plan and enjoy our spunky little guy!!!!

Nutrition

I understand that I may be a bit alone in this and I realize this is not a new problem but it has been bothering me ever since a few weeks ago. Let me start with what eating looks like in our house...we are a pretty healthy household. We don't eat processed foods, we make things from scratch, we eat LOTS of fruits and vegetables, we try to eat organic as much as we can afford it, my kids snack on things like coconut yogurt, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and air-popped popcorn. Two of my kids are GFCF so that helps us to make healthy choices as well.

So at 4 months we started to feed baby rice cereal and have gradually incorporated fruits, veggies, baby meals and puffies/soft cheerios. We add new things in gradually and see how he adjusts to them. Several weeks back I was sitting next to Dad (forgive me if I posted this part already..I can't remember!) and he was talking about how (at 5 months old) he gave baby a chocolate chip cookie!!! Umm...even if we did feed him more foods, it certainly wouldn't be a cookie! Anyway, here is my mistake/frustration...I told the FRS and pretty much was blown off!!! Her response was filled with comments like "well I gave my daughter rice cereal at 7 days old and she's still alive!" She rambled about some other stuff too, but she was talking so fast I couldn't understand her! I would have liked to express to her that perhaps her feeding her daughter all these foods to early is what resulted in your daughter's NUMEROUS allergies!!!

So I dropped it..I could see my point was not going to go anywhere. So FF to last Thursday when he got home from his visit. He was not fed his baby food or bottle by the time he got back so I questioned her. She said that when she got there (he has unsupervised remember) his bottle was full of some nasty juice that she immediately dumped out. I then made another mistake and said "Yikes..the new recommendation is 12 months for juice." That sparked another "something" in her and off she went again! I have NO IDEA what S. fed the Baby while he was there with him, but I do know that Baby did not react well to it!!! I was up off and on ALL night Thursday into Friday because whatever it was his body couldn't handle it :(

I'm so frustrated because what I'm saying isn't being heard and won't change! So I have to suck it up and deal with Baby all night after a visit because people are not considering what his little body can handle! I'm all for trying new foods and textures as they are appropriate! Just wait till S.'s overnight visits and he gets to deal with what he's doing :-) Reality!

OK...vent over!!!

Adoption worker!

This week was so busy and this is the first day ALL week that NO ONE that doesn't live here entered our home :) So yesterday we got to meet our adoption worker :) She gave us a HUGE stack of paperwork and tasks to get started on while we wait for TPR **hopefully Monday**!!!!!!!!!! She said that as long as we get our ducks in a row in a timely fashion that after TPR they hope to finalize within 90 days which means that he could be legally and officially ours before Christmas!!! My wish/desire is that it gets done before the 2 yr anniversary of him arriving here. For that to be the case TPR would have to happen on Monday...yeah..I like that idea!!!

Baby's case also had some new developments...it looks as though Baby could start transitioning back into Dad's care with 4 hour visits, then 1 overnight and then weekends, and complete reunification rather soon! Of course as I see my friend going through a possible loss of her foster child of 8months my heart is feeling heavy but happy at the same time. God knows best and if Baby needs to be with his bio-Dad and it's going to be a good situation then I have to trust in that! The hard part for me is going to be watching my other kids grieve his loss. My oldest (7) is super attached to him and when we discuss Baby's leaving he puts on a brave face and says sweet things like "Well Mom, at least this way you can get some sleep! God has another baby He wants us to love though!" Of course when it actually happens I know that we will have some hostile behavior stuff to deal with...not sure if crying girls (my friend's situation) or angry boys are easier to deal with! lol! I guess we will have to take it one step at a time!

On another note...I HATE fire extinguisher re-tagging!!! it costs so much more to re-tag them than to buy new ones. So...it looks like we will probably have 6..yes 6 fire extinguishers! There has to be somewhere to donate the "old" (never used!) ones. I'll have to look into that. Other than that we are all set with our re-licensure!! Whew...for another year at least :)

I have another post brewing about nutrition and dealing with differences of opinion (with workers!)...hot topic here-LOL!

Another email....

So here we are almost 2 months after our last court hearing and 5 days before our next one and here surfaces Little Man's mom once again! It is everyone else's fault that no one has contacted her. I sent her a page long letter of all the things LM is doing along with about 5 pictures. I actually have more pictures to send her. I sent them to the address given in open court, so if she did not receive them it is not my fault. She requested in her email to have my email address (I gave it to her in the very beginning, but she never used it). She said she has a computer coming her way and wants to do a "daily chat" so we can keep in contact that way. Ummmmm....I will email you, but a daily chat isn't gonna happen sista!

At the end of the email she once again blamed the GAL and CM for her leaving FL and going to NY and that she has an aunt that would take LM, but the important part she said was "it's too late for that now." THANK YOU JESUS!!!!! She understands that LM will not be going anywhere and she pretty much said goodbye (again) to him in the email. I don't think there will be any problems come Monday and there will be a HUGE celebration that evening. Don't get me wrong....I really do feel for A. She is the product of her environment and is doing what she knows. I do (have) grieved for her as a mother, but at the same time knowing that LM will be our son forever is PRICELESS!!!

PRAYING that she has been appropriately served and things can be DONE on Monday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One more step done :)

Yesterday we had our health dept. inspection. It is so quick and easy! The hardest part for him was to use his new computer gadget thingy to find our name-lol! The only thing that he noted (just to us...not on the paperwork) was that we had potatoes in a bag under the sink. I had no idea that was no-no, but they are moved and so voila! PASSED!

I have been busy getting all licensing paperwork together as well as thinking about/gathering whatever paperwork I can think of for the adoption worker!!!! She may get a bit overloaded b/c I am a bit paperwork a*nal and tend to have things done quickly. I will not be the one to hold up this adoption...that's for sure!!! :-)

Of course 3 foster care related appts isnt' enough for the week, so I was expecting more! lol! Baby's case manager emailed yesterday and of course she has to come this week too, so she'll come at 12 tomorrow and our sw at 1:00. I actually like them all coming in one week because my house is super clean and then the other week I can slack off a bit :)

God is helping this week go super quick so we can get to Monday and (hopefully!!!) TPR sooner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WE HAVE A NEW CM!!!!!!

YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were contacted today by our ADOPTION WORKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had no idea they were even working on this since TPR has not officially happened yet!!!!! Doing a major happy dance here!!! We are meeting next week :)

Our health inspection for re-licensing is set for next week as well as our re-licensing homevisit!

Next week is going to BUSY but it is all GOOD busy!!!

Just when I thought...

we were almost done with meds for Baby I get a phone call....the Dr.'s office called (at 6:30pm!) with the results from Baby's nasal swab the other day. It was positive for some bacterial strain and he's getting put on an antibiotic for the next 10 days! We finish the steroid tomorrow and I will be SO grateful!!! That stuff makes him a CRAZY wild boy!!! Not to mention not sleeping (I've been up since 2:30 this morning) and wanting to eat like a horse! The kid weighs enough as it is... I am happy to say that the nebulizer treatments did get better and he will only scream through about 1/2 of it now :)

We also had court today. Mom did not show (expected) but Dad did. The judge seems to think that if he can pass a homestudy and his daughter (whose apt it is) can pass a background check that Baby can be reunified with him there and we won't have to wait for him to have his own approved housing. This is an area where I have to step back and trust God completely!! I won't most likely get to see the place, but I know that it's a 2 bedroom apt where his daughter and her 2 kids live in one room and he and Baby would live in the other room. It would be very tight and it's so hard to not compare that with what we can give him here, but then I have to remind myself that we are not doing foster care to adopt every child...we obviously can't! lol! It's just hard to have to think of him going into a poverty situation with Dad on public assistance just to feed the baby, etc. Please don't get me wrong...I am not judging him or his living situation, etc. It is what it is and I just have to place my faith in God that he will give S. what he needs to parent Baby and that they both will thrive together as father and son!

Potty Training update

I am SO happy to announce that Little Man is pretty much trained as long as we are at home! He wears big boy underwear and runs to his potty from wherever he is. He isn't using the regular toilet yet, but hey...it's not in a diaper so I am thrilled! For my own sanity he still wears one to bed and will for awhile, but day-trained is a big step! Now public is another story...we can go for a walk around the neighborhood, but I'm still a little skiddish about the grocery store or something like that. Baby steps.... :-)

Baby is improving with his breathing! Something else is bothering him today...could be teeth. He's grumpy! Anyway, something else has been on my mind with him and that is that he arches his body a lot. He'll do it a lot when he is sitting on my lap or lying on the floor. He'll do it in any mood, so it's not just when he's angry/upset. I'm thinking it's a sensory "thing" and I would like to have an OT evaluate him. I'll have him/her look at his tongue hanging out too....if anything I think it's more of an OT issue rather the chromosomal disorder/mental impairment that the other lady said! Although he is starting to keep it in more, so maybe it is nothing. His 6 month check up is at the end of the month, so I'll ask for a referral then. Any of you have any experience with OT and medicaid??? I'm thinking it's not going to be an easy or fun experience-lol!

Phone call

The transporter called about an hour ago to see how the baby was and I told her what was up. She said she thought we should cancel the visit and I totally agreed.

She called back about 1/2 hour ago to say that she called his Dad to cancel the visit and he was not happy that Baby is so sick. She said he wanted to how he got so sick (adamantly!) She told him that because he didn't cancel his visit last Tuesday I had to take the baby to the her office, he had to ride in her van to the mall after that where the aunt/uncle did not show for their visit either, then back to the office before he finally came home. He was sick 2 days later. I'm not saying it definitely was that, but it's a pretty good guess!! Add to that...he and two of his siblings all have lung issues and a regular cold for one person gets to be more serious for them.

She ended our phone call asking me to call the Dad (he wanted to speak to me directly) and pacify him. So I *67 ed and called him. I was expecting some irateness from what the FRS was saying, but he was all "yes ma'am" to me :) He asked me if Baby was moving at all. Ummm...yeah! He's on two steroids...he hasn't stopped moving!!! lol!!! I think he had this picture that Baby was lying in bed all "dead-like." Glad I could calm his fears. He wants me to keep him informed. I said that was not a problem, but I hope he doesn't start calling the workers expecting them to ask me to call every hour or something! He tends to call both workers about 4-5 times a day! I'll call him again tomorrow when hopefully Baby will be doing better!

Poor baby :(

Yesterday I took Baby back to the pulmonologist for what was supposed to be his follow-up appt. Poor kid was so sick that the Dr. didn't even need the stethescope. He was wheezing so bad :( So now in addition to the inhaled steroid 2 x's a day he is also on an oral steroid for the next 7 days and albuterol every 4 hours until his wheezing is under control.

Can I just tell you have incredibly exhausted I am??? I haven't slept (nor has he) for the past 6 nights. I have to fight to keep his little body still at every nebulizer treatment. The kid is drenched in sweat (as am I!) by the time we are done and has even wore himself out and fallen asleep a couple of times! We are doing about 6-7 treatments a day between the two meds. I am praying they take effect quickly!!!!! You know it's bad when your kids tell you that you are crabby and need a nap! Oh how I wish!!! :)

I was surprised to see that his Dad did not come to the visit yesterday :( It would have been a very good one for him to be at because he has no idea what Baby is like when he is sick, how he sounds, or even how to give a nebulizer treatment. I am concerned about his basic day-to-day ability to parent a child and even moreso if the Baby is sick! Will he follow through when Baby pitches his fits through the treatments (at 6 mos this baby has a temper!!)? My guess is no. All things that are not really mine to worry about but have been brought to the attention of his workers. Baby's JR is Monday...Dad should be there, but I doubt Mom will be. Guess we'll see!