Blog Hop

There are SO MANY wonderful blogs out there to bless you with information and understanding.  Check some of them out and go hopping!

http://foster2forever.com/foster-care-blog-hop

More delays?

Bio-Dad was supposed to have a visit this weekend where the GAL was going to serve him to appear in court.  Grrrr...of course this visit didn't happen.  So now what?  I asked the Guardian and her response was that the CM said he was going to appear in court on the 26th and he will be served then.  

Ok....and he has said he'd be at court all along and hasn't been to the last 3 or 4 hearings. 

 So then what?

Then they have to reschedule the advisory for 6 weeks out and do the publication.

WHAT?  ANOTHER stinkin' delay when SOMEONE has to know where this dude is!  I am sure the uncle or at least bio-mom COULD tell but won't.  

I will be so annoyed if bio-Dad does not show to court.  That would mean everything gets pushed back and that would put us well into June and probably July for a trial date.  

What I keep thinking about is "why does this surprise me?" LOL!!!!

The Staffing

From what my FDS said, it was rather uneventful!  It made me feel ok that I wasn't there.  Apparently Uncle didn't show either.  I figured out that this week is Spring Break and he probably couldn't get a sitter either.  

It was explained to me that the feeling of the staffing was "cold" and that is pretty much how it typically goes. The supervisor draws/doodles on her folder (of insignificance) and the CM is asked questions for which she has no answer (status quo once again).  

The things that did actually happen.....

Dad will hopefully get "served" this weekend at his visit with Uncle/Aunt.  If he doesn't show to court after being served we can officially take him off the board.  As for Mom...she has decided to do her task and that will take a MINIMUM of six months.  This is where I am praying (and asking you to as well) for WISDOM for the judge.  This mom has been MIA for nearly 2 years and NOW she decides to get help.  Uuuummmm....I am praying the judge sees through this and decides that Mom can get the help she needs but Choo Choo does not have a shot at living with her and termination continues.  Apparently Mom and Dad (up until recently) were living together in a hotel.  I do not believe their story of how they got "reacquainted."  

So......that's pretty much it.  We have known all along that this agency wants Choo Choo to be with his bio-relatives and have made that very clear, but it wasn't until today that I saw it in writing.  I don't see how they can totally dismiss his complete attachment to us.  Oh and on that note...the bonding assessment has been approved so hopefully that happens soon and we "prove" that Choo Choo is more attached to us than to his aunt/uncle.  

I just have to say how much I adore our FDS and how much she goes to bat for us and is REAL with us :-)  This has not been an easy road with this case...AT ALL...but with our FDS and our GAL God has blessed us with it has been do-able!

A recent comment

Recently someone said to me "foster care is taking over you life!"  While this person did not mean to be rude or imply I was doing something to let it take over my life, it was a bit convicting.

 I think that being a foster parent you kind of sign up for this life.  When you get licensed you are **to a certain extent** saying that you will allow your life to planned around foster care.  It's just the reality of it.  Courts, staffings, case worker visits, GAL visits, parent visitations, sibling visitations, and the list goes on!

While all of the above is true, I think that there are things that I do as a foster parent that perhaps could make it too much of a focus of my life, or things perhaps I spend too much time on....for me, it's constantly mulling over in mind the numerous ways this case could go.  What would I do? How would I react? What would I say?  Or sometimes I talk about it too much when really God is saying "ok enough...move on!  You've told enough people!"  I like to think I am a smart girl, so maybe there is something else rolling around in my brain besides foster care :)

What ways do you feel you "obsess" about foster care?  No boundaries...saying yes to everything? Stalking bio-family facebook pages? ??????

I think it's soooo important that I keep my eyes focused UP instead of on my circumstances and all of the what if's and what could be's of this insane case!  So thank you to the person who said that to me and I am going to really try to keep my mind focused on things other than foster care...ya know like those 4 precious hurricanes gifts I have running around :)

Nutrition

Last year I wrote the following article about nutrition and fostering for our agency's quarterly newsletter.  I had a little flashback of it yesterday and decided to share it here.

On Saturday I took the older 3 kids to a local festival (or "vegetable" if you talk to Michael).  I let them indulge in a corn dog and we shared a strawberry shortcake.  That was it.  The rest of the day we ate snacks I packed or a home-cooked meal.

FF to Sunday....our boys were OUT OF CONTROL CRAZY!!!!  Oh my gosh!  Anyone who says that nutrition does  not affect a child's behavior needed to come to my home yesterday and see first hand.

We also see this with Choo Choo when he returns.  His aunt/uncle do not eat well at all (very obese) and hit the drive thru more in a weekend than we do in a year.  I'm not judging...they do what they do and we do what we do, BUT when it comes to Choo Choo it makes it very hard.  He eats anything he wants, walks around with it, and also whenever he wants.  Like I mentioned yesterday he ate TWO lunches with them.  WHAT?  So when he returns and I serve normal portions (especially for a 2 yr old) of healthy food he THROWS A FIT!  Breakfast was tough this morning, but he finally realized that was all  he was going to get...we don't serve cereal or processed foods for breakfast.  Again, no judgement if that is what you do...it's just not what we choose to serve.

There are so many angles, challenges, and situations that we as foster parents encounter....this is just another one.  Below is the article I wrote last year....

Nutrition and fostering

My husband Matt and I are the proud adoptive parents to 3 wonderful and energetic boys!  One adopted domestically at birth, one adopted from S. Korea when he was 1 yr old and one adopted this past March after arriving as our first foster placement at 5 months old.  Additionally we have another foster child whom we have had since 3 days old, currently 15 months.  When Matt and I first got married 10+ years ago we were not pictures of health.  We ate out a lot, ate a lot of processed foods and pop! 

When we first became parents in 2004 things didn’t change much, in fact it wasn’t until we started to see troubling behaviors around the age of 3 that we started to make changes.  They were small at first.  We tried to not eat out as much and Matt and I cut back on pop.  However, our boys continued to grow and we continued to see more behaviors…impulsiveness, wildness, physically aggressive, etc. 

In 2008 I decided that more was needed!  We decided to cut out as many processed foods as possible, we eat out only once a month or so, I try to make as many things at home out of natural ingredients.  We try to use either gluten free or 100% whole wheat in baking, etc.   One of the most significant changes came when we cut out food dyes, artificial colors and preservatives!  Do you know what many of these things are made from?  Petroleum!   Yep…the same thing that runs our cars is in our food; some of it is even marketed as healthy!  The changes were remarkable!  The children were able to focus and attend (we homeschool) to school work and things were just more calm.  Well...they are still boys, so there is still a noise/activity factor, but we could really tell the difference J 

So what does this have to do with fostering??  It has a couple of things.  First, our foster children come to us with a lot of “baggage” and any kind of trauma that they have experience takes hold in their brains.  Good nutrition (We use supplements as well such as multivitamins, fish oil, vit. D etc and I highly recommend them!) gives the brain the nutrients and fatty acids that it needs to function optimally.  It also affects energy, mood, motivation, memory, stress, and concentration. 

Secondly, nutrition is difficult when fostering because the biological families (and some workers) that we have had contact with do not share anywhere near what we believe to be good nutrition.  It’s difficult for me to see my foster baby come back from a visit with bright green juice or pop in his cup (he’s 15 mos old).  Guess who gets to deal with the hyped up baby loaded with sugar!?  A 12 oz can of Coke has 10 tsp of sugar!!!  Don’t get me wrong, we do have alternatives to sugar and allow our children non-nutritious things occasionally, but we do see a dramatic difference in their behavior when we do so. 

I believe that clean eating is the start to healing and with foster children it’s all about healing!  

Link...

Ok...I just went for it :)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fostering-Love/160761884079174?ref=hl

Facebook

Hmmm...I know several of my online foster momma friends have FB pages for the daily stuff that maybe isn't a whole blog post.  I'm considering it but just wondering if there is any interest?????  Would you read it (like it?) or is the blog here enough? :)  What's your 2 cents? :)

Why

It's been over a year now that our lives have been changed with the introduction of aunt/uncle.  Have you ever wondered WHY someone was brought into your life?  Why God has let someone remain in your life?  I am trying to go back to "Embrace the Journey" and thinking about WHAT God could be trying to teach me through this?    Obviously I must need some serious lesson in something!  Patience with others?  Staying "shiny" for Him through a difficult situation?  Loving the "difficult" people in this world?  Praying for those against us?  Probably all of those are valid answers!

Both my husband and the CM asked me yesterday about how I felt about visits with them SHOULD we get to adopt Choo Choo.   I said that I totally agree with keeping in touch with his bio-family, but it isn't going to look like it looks right now.  I would definitely stop overnight visits and while I'd be happy to get together with them  (I use that word happy loosely) at a park or kid-friendly place I don't feel like leaving my child with them unsupervised would be a good idea at this point....especially with his bio-parents being so unstable (and hating my guts).  Of course they (bio mom/dad) could join our big gathering.

After a second text he finally messaged that he'll meet this afternoon at 1:45.  Ok :-)  I am fine with that.  I like what someone said in the comments about being a doormat.  I've been way too accommodating and he's running all over me.  Boundaries have been set and I intend to hold fast to them.  I will be flexible when given PLENTY of notice ;)  I'm interested to see if he still wants me to bring Choo Choo to the party next week.  He ended his last text with the same phrase "Living Life with a 2nd Chance" (title of the party) I guess this is his new catch phrase.  Hmmmm......

And so it continues...

Here we go....Uncle/Aunt are supposed to have a visit this weekend so I went ahead and made plans for the other boys and I to do activities that are just easier done without a 2 yr old.  The older boys are really excited.

I didn't hear from Uncle all day yesterday to confirm, so I texted him at 7pm.  I didn't get a response until after 10pm asking me to change his visit from this weekend to next weekend so he can be there for some "2nd chance at life" party" they are having for his sister.  I am assuming it's her adoption day party or something similar because she's never had any other issues.  I digress....

At first I was thinking how I now have to disappoint my boys and reschedule everything.  I literally lost sleep over this garbage!  I am tired of jumping when he says jump though, so I texted him back this morning and simply said that this is very last minute and unfortunately I can't change the visit because I already have plans.  I also mentioned that I would be willing to bring Choo Choo to the party next weekend if they would like that.  Compromise?

No response as of yet...I probably won't hear anything for awhile.  What would you have done?  I am so tired of my life being ruled by foster care.  Yes, we are foster parents and we have a "job" to do, but when we schedule everything (court, staffings, visits, etc) around it already I feel like I have to say STOP at some point.  As a side note....after the CM's visit yesterday between March 13 and May 6th we have FIVE court hearings and a staffing!!!!!!!  All those babysitters, disrupted schedules, etc!  Yep....however this goes at the end of it we see a NICE LONG BREAK from foster care.  We need to remember what (sort of) normal looks like :)