So, at a visit, the social worker casually mentioned Thing 1 by a nickname that we weren't using for him. Its a child's version of a male name, like Robby for Robert. Well, we'd been calling him by the shortened version (Rob in this example) or the full name. Our Foster Family agency, when we met the kids, called him the full name. We occasionally shortened it to the very abbreviated version, never being corrected by either the social workers we met with or by Thing 1 himself. They were with us for better than 6 weeks by the time we heard this...
You know, if a person has a preferred name, shouldn't that be one of the first things you learn about them?
Friday, February 28, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Hosting a party.
We hosted a birthday party for a friend. Between wrestling Thing 2 off of the various items of furniture and answering the same question for the thousandth time Thing 1 asked, we were cleaning up, making food, and greeting people arriving at the house. By the time people arrived, I was exhausted.
We had adopted a fairly strict household in order to keep them safe. We also had sort of rigidly scheduled the mealtimes, not offering too many snacks. We had noted pretty early on that they were accustomed to eating mostly crackers, chips, fruit, granola bars, etc. They only wanted to drink soda or juice and refused (vehemently) to drink water. We had to eliminate snacks almost completely to get them to eat real meals. They were kind of obsessed with food actually. If any was out (bowl of popcorn, tray of cheese and crackers) they would devour it. They knew virtually all of the fast food places by name but were aghast when I made pizza at home. Any time they saw food, food was mentioned or they were bored or unsure, they wanted to eat.
So for the party I was doling out the snack food and party foods slowly and carefully. That is pretty hard to do when friends with similar age children allow their kids to eat snacks freely. If Thing 1 and Thing 2 didn't want to eat dinner, they would be offered something else at the table of nutritional value, but no snacks or desserts later. Friends kids would refuse to eat, and complain they were hungry later to be given chips and cookies and soda. We basically seemed like jerks because we refused to do that. I was judged pretty harshly that night by the wife of a friend, so much so that I wound up in the bedroom crying.
It is pretty tough having to be the hard-ass parent in a sea of mellow parents. During the first few months of our having the boys, it was very much like I was being judged for every move I made, having my decisions circumvented at every turn by our friends (oh, here have some of this before your mom comes back. no, its okay, you can go ahead and jump on this item of furniture). No matter how many times we explained our kids and their need for structure after a lifetime of none, our friends just assumed we were being assholes. It got to a point where I would rather James left me home alone with the kids, as hard as that was, to go hang out with his friends at their homes. It was hard, I hated it, but at least I didn't feel judged.
But alas, damned if you do and damned if you don't--once I started staying home, people decided that I hated them or that I was being unfriendly. But taking the boys to other people's houses wasn't an option either--they would destroy the place, find the hazards I didn't even think to bar them from, take out every toy they could find and generally get frantic and crazy. And it wasn't like they enjoyed playing with the other kids--the same wife of a friend had everyone over, including our boys. Now in truth, our kids are sort of weirdos. They don't really know how to play with other kids and they are generally hard to play with. But I had to respond to I don't know how many yells of "stop it, go away Thing 1" or "give it back, Thing 2" until at one point I went looking for all of the kids and found that her kids and another friends' kids had barricaded themselves in one of the bedrooms while our boys were left on their own in the other bedroom to play alone. I asked the kids what had happened and the other kids said "we don't want to play with THEM." We went home pretty quickly after that.
It was lonely. Our friends thought we were making up or exaggerating the issues we were having; "that's just kids," "that's what you'd expect from foster kids," "oh, they'll grow out of it." I hated having more people over than the myriad of foster-related visitors we already got, so James and I had our fair share of fights because he felt that I was preventing him from being with his friends. I was destroyed for a while. I came to dread weekends. I mean, I wasn't happy at my job at the time either, and besides trying to work, I was the contact person for all of the medical people, agency people, social workers, and therapists. I was also on call for the crazy stuff that popped up at home, splitting my lunches to take Thing 1 to school and home again...but still work was a relief from the abject terror that was my home life, feeling like I was always doing everything wrong and hating myself.
We had adopted a fairly strict household in order to keep them safe. We also had sort of rigidly scheduled the mealtimes, not offering too many snacks. We had noted pretty early on that they were accustomed to eating mostly crackers, chips, fruit, granola bars, etc. They only wanted to drink soda or juice and refused (vehemently) to drink water. We had to eliminate snacks almost completely to get them to eat real meals. They were kind of obsessed with food actually. If any was out (bowl of popcorn, tray of cheese and crackers) they would devour it. They knew virtually all of the fast food places by name but were aghast when I made pizza at home. Any time they saw food, food was mentioned or they were bored or unsure, they wanted to eat.
So for the party I was doling out the snack food and party foods slowly and carefully. That is pretty hard to do when friends with similar age children allow their kids to eat snacks freely. If Thing 1 and Thing 2 didn't want to eat dinner, they would be offered something else at the table of nutritional value, but no snacks or desserts later. Friends kids would refuse to eat, and complain they were hungry later to be given chips and cookies and soda. We basically seemed like jerks because we refused to do that. I was judged pretty harshly that night by the wife of a friend, so much so that I wound up in the bedroom crying.
It is pretty tough having to be the hard-ass parent in a sea of mellow parents. During the first few months of our having the boys, it was very much like I was being judged for every move I made, having my decisions circumvented at every turn by our friends (oh, here have some of this before your mom comes back. no, its okay, you can go ahead and jump on this item of furniture). No matter how many times we explained our kids and their need for structure after a lifetime of none, our friends just assumed we were being assholes. It got to a point where I would rather James left me home alone with the kids, as hard as that was, to go hang out with his friends at their homes. It was hard, I hated it, but at least I didn't feel judged.
But alas, damned if you do and damned if you don't--once I started staying home, people decided that I hated them or that I was being unfriendly. But taking the boys to other people's houses wasn't an option either--they would destroy the place, find the hazards I didn't even think to bar them from, take out every toy they could find and generally get frantic and crazy. And it wasn't like they enjoyed playing with the other kids--the same wife of a friend had everyone over, including our boys. Now in truth, our kids are sort of weirdos. They don't really know how to play with other kids and they are generally hard to play with. But I had to respond to I don't know how many yells of "stop it, go away Thing 1" or "give it back, Thing 2" until at one point I went looking for all of the kids and found that her kids and another friends' kids had barricaded themselves in one of the bedrooms while our boys were left on their own in the other bedroom to play alone. I asked the kids what had happened and the other kids said "we don't want to play with THEM." We went home pretty quickly after that.
It was lonely. Our friends thought we were making up or exaggerating the issues we were having; "that's just kids," "that's what you'd expect from foster kids," "oh, they'll grow out of it." I hated having more people over than the myriad of foster-related visitors we already got, so James and I had our fair share of fights because he felt that I was preventing him from being with his friends. I was destroyed for a while. I came to dread weekends. I mean, I wasn't happy at my job at the time either, and besides trying to work, I was the contact person for all of the medical people, agency people, social workers, and therapists. I was also on call for the crazy stuff that popped up at home, splitting my lunches to take Thing 1 to school and home again...but still work was a relief from the abject terror that was my home life, feeling like I was always doing everything wrong and hating myself.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Haircuts...finally!
So, one of the most ridiculous things about foster parenting...I can authorize medical treatment for them. If they need surgery, I can sign off on that. But without either a signature from their birth parent or a judge (or social worker? We aren't sure) we couldn't get their hair cut. And they needed it. They were crazy shaggy.
At their visit with birth mom, the visit monitor was supposed to get her to sign the haircut waiver. She didn't. We talked to our agency social worker. She didn't know but gave the "helpful" suggestion to call the county social worker (um, I'm sorry, but isn't it your job to get questions answered for us. and further, isn't it your job to know answers to, what seems to be, a fairly common question?). County social worker said that they might have to get the judge to sign it if mom hadn't. Mom doesn't live nearby for them to just drop by and get it signed.
They're not American Indian, with strong cultural ties to long hair. They didn't have cool haircuts, and we weren't trying to shave their heads or give them mohawks. Good grief.
Finally, someone called birth mom and got her verbal okay to cut their hair (no buzz cuts!) How lame is that?
At their visit with birth mom, the visit monitor was supposed to get her to sign the haircut waiver. She didn't. We talked to our agency social worker. She didn't know but gave the "helpful" suggestion to call the county social worker (um, I'm sorry, but isn't it your job to get questions answered for us. and further, isn't it your job to know answers to, what seems to be, a fairly common question?). County social worker said that they might have to get the judge to sign it if mom hadn't. Mom doesn't live nearby for them to just drop by and get it signed.
They're not American Indian, with strong cultural ties to long hair. They didn't have cool haircuts, and we weren't trying to shave their heads or give them mohawks. Good grief.
Finally, someone called birth mom and got her verbal okay to cut their hair (no buzz cuts!) How lame is that?
Friday, February 14, 2014
Meeting the Oregon Family
We made plans to meet with their Oregon family members on Friday Feb. 14th. We would meet with them at 11am since Thing 1 had school at 12:30.
They woke up feeling sick. We had to call him in sick, but it was too late to cancel, since the family was driving from Oregon. We got to the McDonalds a little early and ordered food.We saw them come in, a nice looking couple. The adoption social worker came in right after. We all sat down to talk and let them meet the boys. They were excited and happy since so many people were paying attention to them. They had children of their own, the youngest was 10. They are licensed for childcare so getting a foster license would be no problem.
I sat and talked to the adoption social worker for a while, and told her some of the difficulties we were having, and got some information about what was going on with their case. She said that this was good, having the Oregon family as an option but it would be difficult since they would have to get all sorts of out-of-state waivers. I said we would really like for any transfer to happen after school lets out since his education had been so disrupted to begin with. She also said that, as their guardians, we actually had far more claim on permanency than these family members, since the boys don't know them and we have been caring for them. I mentioned that we were having trouble getting a waiver to get their hair cut.
Our visit ended with the boys getting gifts from their new friends--stuffed doggies.
They woke up feeling sick. We had to call him in sick, but it was too late to cancel, since the family was driving from Oregon. We got to the McDonalds a little early and ordered food.We saw them come in, a nice looking couple. The adoption social worker came in right after. We all sat down to talk and let them meet the boys. They were excited and happy since so many people were paying attention to them. They had children of their own, the youngest was 10. They are licensed for childcare so getting a foster license would be no problem.
I sat and talked to the adoption social worker for a while, and told her some of the difficulties we were having, and got some information about what was going on with their case. She said that this was good, having the Oregon family as an option but it would be difficult since they would have to get all sorts of out-of-state waivers. I said we would really like for any transfer to happen after school lets out since his education had been so disrupted to begin with. She also said that, as their guardians, we actually had far more claim on permanency than these family members, since the boys don't know them and we have been caring for them. I mentioned that we were having trouble getting a waiver to get their hair cut.
Our visit ended with the boys getting gifts from their new friends--stuffed doggies.
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