Foster Further

 For continued disobedience yesterday Jane had to spend part of this afternoon in her room while the other two played. She cried bitterly. After she settled down I opened her door to talk.  She looked up at me, her face blotchy and tear-streaked, and it all came pouring out. Her articulation and phrasing and vocabulary were like talking to a 10 yr old, not a 5 yr old. This is the true Jane who I believe is her real, honest, authentic self. It is the Jane we so rarely see.  She said everything. Yes, she knows she's lying and she plans to do it because she likes to, "keep things inside myself". Yes, she knows she chose the negative consequence and she knew even before it happened that that's what she was going to choose because she doesn't want to "give in and do what you say, mama." She went on and on. Rehashing every single moment from yesterday and confessing that she knowingly created the situation. Confessing (in even more detail than Kate had shared ...

 I knew Theo and I had a meeting with the school principal after school today that would require the kids to go to the school's after care program. I knew for 3 days and I didn't prep them for the change in routine. I kinda kept forgetting but I also just didn't want to face the fallout ahead of time.  90% of the time I tell them about hard stuff before it happens. I'm really good about that because I know it's so critical in establishing trust. I know future disruptions will be easier of I do the current one correctly. I embrace the up-front chaos as a painful, but short-term, necessary evil for long-term pay off.  But today I didn't. A tiny part of me was curious. After all these months of stability, how much fall-out would there be? Well, this afternoon I found out.  Kate was sad. She cried over miniscule injustices every 15 minutes like clockwork. Each event sent her into my arms, saying, "I want you, mama." Inbetween each of these events she follo...

 I think this is our fourth week of school for the littles. It could be the third or fifth, I've lost all perspective. There were four different school start dates in our family and I can't keep track of anything anymore.  It's a good thing we're coming off a shut down, and many schools still aren't open in person, so I'm still super grateful my kids even get to go to school or else I'd be a little exasperated with the whole go-to-school thing. The germ factory already sent one cold through the family and I think the second wave may be starting. James has a meltdown every morning and now needs a bribe to go to school (I bought a pile of 99 cent boxes of crayons and we're in cahoots with his teacher to convince him it's vitally important he deliver a new box every day. He's the all important Speedy Delivery Man upon whom the society of Kindergarten depends. It's working...sorta. It gets him in the door but not without some tears.) Jane is yo-y...

 An incident just happened. Brief summary: yesterday Theo and I were talking. Jane brought us a game piece that was broken. I told her we were busy and to take it back downstairs.  This morning the piece was missing. Jane adamantly and repeatedly denied she had anything to do with the piece. Wouldn't even acknowledge she'd touched it yesterday. For about half an hour I said she had to look for it and couldn't play with other toys till she found it. She whined and moped and didn't really look. Eventually life moved on. This afternoon, while James and Kate were playing with the game, Jane got the piece from where she'd hidden it and made them happy by supplying the missing piece. Later I came in, saw it there, and began trying to unravel what happened.  At first Jane got panicky and started to try to lie (she's a terrible liar. She looks off into space for ages and says uhm, uhm, a dozen times while she's trying to think of a lie--which is always preposterous....

 First week--all three were fine. Remarkably, no tears at all. (I guess this is what 5 months of isolation gets you. They were positively desperate for anything outside the house.) Monday morning of the second week hit James hard. All of a sudden, just about to walk out the door, he realized he'd rather stay home. He was crying buckets, wailing, "But I like this house! I want to stay in this house!"  We were both flummoxed, and desperate to quiet him before he threw the girls into a tailspin. Theo got them out the door and I stayed to cope with James. Nothing was working. Then, Theo came back to pick up some extra things to take in to school that morning. He was struggling with the door and James said,  "I can help!" We enthused. Our praise switched his mood and carried him all the way out the door--Theo letting him open the gate and car door. Turns out this is his job at school. As the Caboose of the Line (or "picoose" as he told me the first day) h...