My Whiny Return

My head hurts and my lungs hurt and I’m tired and I want to take Niquil.  That may seem like an odd way to start back at a blog I seemed to abandon millennia ago.  Every other time I have tried to write though, it came out pretty angry.  I don’t mean angry like just a little snarky.  I mean my mom would blush and then call to give me a talking to.  It’s not that I’m not still angry.  It’s just that I’m too tired to care tonight and whiny is probably less upsetting to the people that I probably shouldn’t care about any more anyway than a rant would be.

So here’s the thing, I’m sick.  I have been for a few days.  I want nothing more than to take some Niquil and sleep.  I can’t do that though.  I have a special needs kid.  At every moment, I have to be alert enough to hear that terrifying scream that says a seizure has started.  There’s a monster under my little girl’s bed waiting to destroy her little brain.  No matter how calm things are, I’m not allowed to breathe because we could lose every gain she’s made in therapy if she goes status epilepticus and I don’t get her to the hospital in time.  Don’t even get me started on living in the shadow of SUDEP. 

So that’s my life.  I can’t breathe or relax or sleep. I can’t take Niquil when I’m sick. This isn’t the asterisk that I wanted.

 

The Little Blue Cot

   It has occurred to me today that God is in control.  Someone that I greatly admire and care deeply for received a difficult diagnosis recently.  In the Facebook post where she shared her condition, she made the statement that even though she was surprised, God wasn’t.  That’s been rumbling around in my head ever since. 

   This morning I was thinking about the little blue cot in my dining room.  We got it for Christmas.  The Little People were still in foster care then so they received a bunch of donated gifts from our agency.  When our caseworker brought them, she brought us this little, blue, child-sized cot.  Hubby and I thanked her for everything and exchanged odd glances.  What were we going to do with the cot? Apparently, when she was picking up the kids’ bags, she saw that laying out and felt like we needed it.  I stuck it off to the side of my room because I didn’t see the need.  We talked that night about what kind of person would even donate such a random gift.  It’s not exactly at the top of most children’s gift lists.

   In January, Little Miss got sick and I pulled the little blue cot out and set her up next to my bed so I would hear her if she started to have a seizure.  The seizures kept coming and the cot stayed out.  Usually if she has one, she sleeps for about 30 minutes afterwards.  On days that she has clusters of seizures (thankfully those are becoming fewer) she may have 10 – 15 in a day.  She may spend the majority of the day incapacitated so I bring the cot into whatever room that I am working in.  I can cook dinner or do schoolwork or help Captain color and still be close by if she needs me.  That little blue cot has made a big difference in our acclimation to this new world with epilepsy.  It is one of those little things that you suddenly become really grateful for when you are forced to start counting the blessings that you do still have. 

   I have struggled lately with some of the limits we have come to realize recently but this morning I was amazed at the providence displayed by that gift.  Back in December when I still though temper tantrums were our biggest issue, he was already putting things into place for this fight.  The God that cares about the sparrows and the flowers knew before I did that we would have days where my little princess was unconscious for 8 hours straight.  He knew that while I was working on my semester projects, her brain would be misfiring.  He knew that her brothers needed me to not be stuck in her bedroom waiting for the next episode while they tried to tend to themselves.  He knew that in the chaos and the pain and the overwhelming distress, we would need a little blue cot for her to lay on with her blanket and her bear.  As much as this has shaken me, I find it comforting to know that God is still on His throne.  He was not surprised.  He knew this was coming and He was prepared to supply all our needs before we even knew that they existed.  If you are in crisis today, take a look around.  You may just see evidence of the creator who knew what was coming and is with you through it all.  You might even see your own example of a little blue cot.

Praying for Poop

   I have this cross hanging in the nursery that has part of a verse from 1 Samuel on it.  It quotes Hannah, a woman who had been barren as she dedicates her son to the Lord and praises God saying “for this child I have prayed.”  I hung it there when that was still the spare room and my children still lived only in my prayers.  We ended up putting the changing table against that wall so I have had this running joke in my head for about a year that I prayed for poop.  I was changing a particularly disgusting diaper one day when I had this epiphany that babies come with poop, lots of poop.  See when we pray for children, we tend to have this picture in our head of bedtime cuddles, frilly dresses and toothless smiles.  I don’t know about other women but I know I never sat and prayed for dirty diapers.  If you want the baby though, you have to take the poop along with it.  On rough days I remind myself that all of it is an answer to prayer.  The blessings that I call my children are worth the messes. 

   We have had a lot of poop lately.  When they brought Little Miss to us, they told us that she had seizures when she was a baby.  They said that she still took a little medicine just to be safe but that she had grown out of it.  For a long time that was true.  We had a little scare on Christmas of 2011 but then they disappeared again and they decided that was just the result of more stress than her little brain could handle.  Then this January she had a seizure, and then another and another.  Then all of the sudden it got really, really bad and soon I was following an ambulance to the children’s hospital and calling the church so that they would pray that my little girl would just wake up.  Nothing has been the same since that day.  We have bounced from specialists to emergency rooms to more and more tests.  Some days she would wake up and between the seizures and medications, she wouldn’t know who I was anymore.  She would just stare at you and smile with a blank look in her eyes.  I had to quit the job that I loved because of her constant medical appointments and not being able to find childcare that wasn’t afraid of her.  I almost had to quit school but managed to hang on by a thread and finish the semester by living off 3 to 4 hours a sleep each night for a few months.  Things have eased up some but our whole world still revolves around this monster they call epilepsy.  Even the little things that I never would have thought about are a big deal now.  Like, when we go to a restaurant, I have her sit in a highchair so that if she has a seizure and falls, the sides will catch her before she hits her head on the floor.  And, I sit in the new mothers’ section at church now because it is right by her Sunday school room and they need to be able to get me, just in case.  And we have to be extra careful because little things that used to be normal are dangerous now, like swinging or swimming or riding horses or… It has been exhausting and devastating.  There have been days when I felt like I was breaking and I just wasn’t sure how much more of this “poop” I could handle. 

   We were blessed with two wonderful CASA workers (Court Appointed Special Advocates) that have been with the little people since day one.  One of them is a nurse and a few months ago, she came with my to a neurologist’s appointment so that CPS could better understand what was going on.  After that, the department came to me and asked if we still wanted to proceed with the adoption.  They said that they understood if we didn’t.  We hadn’t signed up for a kid with special needs.   What they didn’t understand, is that we believe she is an answer to prayer and we weren’t willing to throw out the baby just because of the poop.  I couldn’t turn my back on the child who had called me Mom for a year and half just because she got sick any more than I would have abandoned my biological son if he needed me.  I know in my heart that Little Miss and Little Man were both given to me by God.  Last week, when they finalized their adoption, I had total peace knowing that He is going to get us through whatever trials lie ahead.  It’s not because there is anything special about us because honestly we still aren’t real sure what we’re doing here.  We just keep putting on foot in front of the other and believing He will direct our path.  Along the way, we just keep thanking God for entrusting us with all those dirty diapers and the beautiful little people that accompany them.

Mother's* Day

I saw a post on Facebook recently about Caregiver’s Day.  It was a more inclusive version of Mother’s Day that incorporated all types of relationships that “have made a significant impact in our life.”  They talked about the many people that don’t get a day because society doesn’t call them fathers or mothers and suggested that you  “hug your caretaker whether they’re your mother, father, siblings, aunt/uncle, cousin, grandparent, foster parent, mentor or friend and tell them thank you for valuing you as a person and taking the time to show they care.”  Now, I’m all for showing appreciation but this really irritates me.  I guess it irritates me a lot if I’m postponing the blog I have in my head that breaks my multi-month silence to vent about it.  It’s about more than just the rebranding of a hallmark holiday though.

In foster care, there is a push right now to re-label me as a foster carers.  In fact, a few states have already legislated the change because, I guess, there was nothing else important going on in the government that day.  Apparently that is more PC and it doesn’t hurt the birth parents feelings as much as hearing us called foster moms and dads.  Now, personally I don’t think that should really matter.  If your child is in foster care than 99% of the time it is because you royally screwed up.  You need to be uncomfortable because maybe that will motivate you to step up and be the parent your children desperately need you to be.  More importantly though, I’m not a carer.  I’m a parent.  There is a BIG difference.

My kids go to a sitter after school who cares for them.  She feeds them snacks and plays with playdough and sends them home.  If they are sick or cranky or mean to the other toddlers, she calls me and I have to go get them.  I sincerely hope that she cares ABOUT my kiddos (and I feel like she does) but her job as a caregiver is really only to care FOR them and their basic needs while I am away.  That’s not the job that the state wants me to do with foster kids.  I am supposed to spend the night on the floor in their bedroom when they can’t sleep because they are afraid of their abuser coming back.  I am supposed to love them enough that they can learn to attach even though it means my own heart gets broken.  I have been hit and kicked and bit and spit in the face and called every name under the sun and I am supposed to just take it because I understand where that came from.  A carer doesn’t stick around for that.  When Little Miss came to me, she would scream at the top of her lungs for hours at a time and flip off strangers and get violent in a way that I would not have believed a child so young could.  A simple caregiver calls someone to pick up a child like that; a parent loves the broken baby who doesn’t have words to say how bad she hurts and celebrates as the fits eventually get shorter and fewer because it means she is healing.

I am a foster parent.  I do everything that a parent does, only I do so with kids from hard places who might stay forever or leave tomorrow and take a piece of my heart with them.  I think it is insulting to rebrand my position to appease child abusers who don’t want to be reminded that their baby needs a mom and right now, because of their mistakes, that’s me.  It seems to me that instead of changing my title to further emphasize my status as a less-than-real-mother, we should expand the definition of mom.  As a society, we should recognize that there is more to parenting than blood and there are many paths to motherhood.  Women who adopt or foster or raise step children or take in kinship placements or fill the role some other way are mothers.  We do them, and their children, a great disservice when we ignore that.  So, I’m eschewing Caregiver’s Day.  Instead I want to wish a happy Mother’s day to all the moms and all the moms*, no matter what your asterisk represents.  

And the winner of the kids is...

Let me start this by saying that we are foster/adopt.  Our goal is, and always has been, to grow our family through adoption.  Having said that, I have heard some foster parents bashing the system and birth parents involved lately.  They don’t understand why the parents are getting second (or fifth or sixth) chances.  They want to skip the court and the visits and the appointments and go straight to adoption by the foster parent.  I understand the love we feel for the kids in our care and how frustrating it all is but it really bothers me when I hear foster parents who feel like they are entitled to the children in their care.   

The grown ups in our cases have all screwed up.  They did things that we can’t comprehend and it’s easy to make it some kind of competition between us and them.  But, children are not some prize to be handed out to the winner of a parenting contest.  They don’t go to the one with the nicest house, the mom who volunteers the most hours at their school or the dad who coaches the most teams.  In case your fuzzy on my stance, let me make it clear. My family makes significantly more than our Little People’s birthparents.  That doesn’t matter.  We go on trips that they can’t.  That doesn’t matter.  My kids go to private school and wear nice clothes.  That doesn’t matter.  I love them to the moon and back.  Even that doesn’t matter.  Because, none of that is a reason for another mother to lose her children.  It isn’t a competition of whether we or the bios are better for the kids.  It is about whether they can do what the state expects them too in the time allowed.

 If you cannot understand that, then you need to be straight adoption because until the ink dries on the adoption decree they are not fully our children.  As long as TPR hasn’t happened, the birth parents have a chance.  We understood that when we got into this.  So it is one thing to advocate for our kids but it is another to try to push for us to keep them.   It is our moral and ethical duty to push for what is best for the children and most of the time that means reunification.  I don’t even let people pray that I get to adopt my little people because doing so is praying that another family will fall apart.  Adoption is a beautiful, wonderful thing that is also extremely painful for kids and adults.   It’s not ever the best case scenario.  Someday when my kids are older and they start asking questions, I want to be able to look them in the eye and tell them that I did not steal them.  I did everything in my power to help them stay in their birth parents.

Part of doing everything means doing visits.  Yeah they suck but we knew that when we signed up.  Our job is to help our kids handle them and do what we can to make them successful.  That means we support the bios.  We send notes or pictures.  We stay up late those nights and rock our crying children while they try to process a world that doesn’t make sense.  We work towards reunification as long as that is an option even if we cannot stand what they did to the children we love. 

Fostering is hard.  This is a slow and hard process and there are no guarantees.  We all have tough moments but our general attitude has to be that we want what is best for the kids even if that hurts us.  I believe with all my heart that every child deserves to have someone that will be devastated to see them go.  If you can be that person who opens your heart knowing it will be broken, then maybe fostering is for you.  But if you can’t, then you should look for another way to help kids or grow your family.

Mom on the Run

I ran away from home the other day.  I did it in flip flops, with no money and on a 4 wheeler.  I know that’s not really something that 29 year old moms are supposed to do but before you recommend me for commitment, let me explain.

I’ve had a rough couple of weeks.  Things have been crazy hectic.  My neighbor killed my dog.  Then, my dad got hurt really bad.  And, on top of everything Little Miss has been extremely difficult and Hubby has been working nights so it’s been me against the masses.  So, all of that led up to Monday and a very frazzled mommy.  Little Miss woke up in a bad mood and she doesn’t believe in being miserable alone.  She screamed constantly.  She broke things.  She hurt her brothers.  She hurt herself.  She was rough. 

                That evening I tried to get the kids together to take Captain to karate class but Little Miss dislikes karate since it’s the one time each week that the world revolves around someone other than her.  That’s a big deal to me.  I am in a constant state of guilt and worry that Captain is suffering because of our choice to foster.  I really think he has benefited from it overall but he doesn’t get near the amount of attention as he did as an only child.  It’s important to me that he feels like a little star at something. Little Miss has all of this figured out so any time we go to karate she has meltdown either on the way or as soon as we get inside.  This means that I have to be one of THOSE moms that sit in the car waiting for their kid to come out of class instead of the cheerleader that I desperately want to be.   I feel like I’m letting him down when I miss out on watching him fall down three times while they are running laps and his uncoordinated attempts at round houses. 

                Back to Monday.  I was insisting that we really were going to karate and getting Captain dressed and finding shoes for the baby when Little Miss got mad and let our new dog out the front door.  So, I’m running around outside frantically trying to catch the dog before the neighbor shoots her too but apparently in corgi-world it is hysterical to run right up to your owner and then bolt just before she can reach you.  She kept running in the road so I was going that direction when I looked back and saw the baby walking barefoot through the yard.  I ran back for him and the dog chose this moment to disappear.  So, then I loaded up the kids and we drove up and down the road looking for the dog, who you wouldn’t think would be that hard to spot in a hot pink dress.  After several minutes I went to Hubby’s mom’s house up the road and woke him up to make him help (he sleeps there when he’s on nights cause our house is so loud during the day that a deaf man couldn’t get any rest).   We drove and drove till we finally caught Princess Minnie Mouse Firedog and brought her to safety.  At this point, karate was over and we had missed it. 

                Hubby knew that my nerves were frayed to when we went back to his mom’s to get the 4 wheeler he had driven over there, we agreed that I would drive it back while he followed in the car with the kids.  That was the plan.  I intended to follow that plan, I really did.  But then I got to our house and I just couldn’t make myself turn into the driveway.  Instead I just pushed the throttle in and kept right on going.  I had this moment of exhilarating freedom.  It was awesome.  And then it back fired, the 4 wheeler I mean.  And then it backfired again.  Within just half of a mile, I was stuck on the side of the road with an ATV completely out of gas.  Let me tell you that it was awkward calling my husband to explain that I had attempted to run away from home but ran out of gas and now needed to be rescued.  Luckily, he’s a good guy so he came right on down.  Unluckily, we had no gas at the house.    But we stood in a driveway with the dead 4 wheeler while the kids sat in the car and talked for a few uninterrupted minutes which was actually pretty nice.  We were just about to start pushing it to a safer spot when one of my neighbors drove by.  She’s another oilfield wife so she understands having the occasional break down.  She didn’t judge at all.  She just got me some gas from her house and invited me to bring the kids over for pizza next time hubby is on nights for a hitch.  When we finally made it home, Hubby thought it would be a good idea to let me ride while he took the kids for burgers.  I raced around our pasture till my thumb hurt and the world made more sense.  Then I sent an email to our foster adopt specialist and reminded her that we had to get respite this weekend.   

                Fostering isn’t easy.  It is rewarding and I usually think it’s worth it but it is not easy.  Foster parents need help and we need breaks.  When we don’t get that, we sometimes throw 2 year old style temper tantrums.  I’ve seen a lot of debate recently on whether it’s ok to send foster kids on respite.  Some people think it just isn’t fair to these kids.  I’ll write more on that some other time but let me just say that I think my kids will benefit more from me spending the weekend with hubby and some really good friends than they would from me tolerating them without any rest.  If nothing else, it has to be better to plan a short getaway than to randomly have a mini nervous breakdown and run away from home in flip flops, with no money and on a 4 wheeler with no gas.

Paid to Love

I write a lot of blogs in my head.  I have addressed all sorts of issues, berated many frustrating individuals and solved most of the world’s problems through my blogs over the last few months.  Unfortunately, by the time the kids are in bed and the laundry is going and my homework is done and Facebook is checked, it seems like my fingers are just too tired to tap the keyboard.  So, most of my rants haven’t made it to the here.  Come to think of it, that may be a good thing.  Anyway, here’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a few weeks now and actually managed to get typed.  I would like to say that there is more on the way but I hate to get you all excited and then leave you hanging for another 3 months.  So, without further ado, here is my humble opinion on a common foster care myth.

When I was a kid, I spent hundreds of hours watching The 3 Stooges with my dad and brothers.  So, I was excited about the movie and went to see it with them, Hubby and Captain (our bio 6 year old son) a few weeks ago.    The movie was full of cheesy, slapstick comedy but I think the funniest thing was watching Captain doubled over, laughing in his seat at Larry and Curly getting poked in the eyes.  Anyway, I’m not here to do movie reviews, there is a point.  I promise.  The movie is set in a children’s home and has a lot of negative comments about foster care and adoption.   I’m not the type to crusade against every movie that gets their facts wrong but there’s one comment that just stuck with me.  A little girl was told that she would be going from the group home to a foster family and yelled the she refused to go to a home where they were paid to love her.

Here’s the thing, foster parents DO NOT get paid to love our kids.  We get paid to feed them and clothe them and be a stable force in their unstable lives.  And, when I say we get paid I don’t mean that we make money.  In some states, foster parents get as little as $300 a month to care for our charges.  (Luckily Texas is higher because I spend more than that on gas in a month going to visits.)  We’re asked to do a lot for those few dollars but we are never asked to love these children and really, if we were smart, we wouldn’t.  Opening up your heart and loving one of these kids means that it just might get ripped out when someone who doesn’t seem to care shows up for two visits and an overworked caseworker decides they can have our baby.   Loving one of these children means taking off your rose colored glasses and getting down on their level and seeing the world in a way that will change your forever.   It means holding them while they hit, kick and bite you because you know that they need to know you aren’t going to leave when they implode. 

It is not easy or comfortable or required that we love our foster kids.  But, a lot of us tend to think that these kids deserve someone who is willing to cry with them and for them.  I believe with all my heart that my babies should have at least one person in their life that would miss them if they left.  In the ideal world, that would have been their parents and they wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.  That world doesn’t exist for these guys though so foster parents are the next best thing.  It’s not that we have this amazing superpower to unconditionally love every child that comes through our doors.  Some are easier than others and some don’t stay long enough for us to really develop any true bond with.  In spite of that, regular people from all over America get up every day and open our hearts to children who desperately need a mommy or daddy’s love.  That isn’t because that is what we are paid to do.  It is because that's what we are called do.  There’s a big difference there.