Foster Further

Jane is stuck in the tongue-thrust stage of development. It took me over a year but I finally figured it out. You know that stage in an infant's development when you first start feeding them solid foods? They're about 4 months old and so tiny you have to strap them in tight in the high chair so they don't flop over and bang their head on the tray. You've just bought new baby feeding spoons and someone has a camera ready as you open the baby food jar. You make faces at your baby and they are delighted and laugh their toothless grin back at you. Right when their mouth is open you slip that first spoonful in and immediately, reflexively, they thrust it right back out with an emphatic tongue thrust as their expression turns from confusion to horror. We capture the moment on camera and put it into their baby books and laugh about it later. That reflexive tongue thrust pushing the food back out of the mouth is so cute at 4 months old. It's positively gross at 4 years old....

These two disorders together look like a girl wearing pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a winter coat with the hood up, standing outside in the sun in 80 degree heat. This is what I saw yesterday while outside watering my garden. It's about 11am and I'm in shorts and a tank top and a huge sun hat, sweating away under the hot sun, wishing I could be in the shade. I look up and here comes Jane dressed for winter. This is at least the fifth time this summer she's come outside dressed like this. Why? Because she can't find her sun hat. I have an inviolate rule that the children must wear sandals and a sun hat when playing outside. No more splinters and sun burns since the rule went into effect!! Once Kate, age 3, couldn't find her sun hat so she scrounged around among the winter things and found a knit cap and was running around in that. I explained the purpose of the sun hat and Kate now wears the right hat every time. Jane is a year and a half older than Kate but she c...

...an organized mind. Planning, finding patterns, predicting outcomes, maintaining focus long enough to follow through creatively--I am suddenly seeing mental skills I've never observed in Jane before. This week Jane began lining up her dolls when playing with them. She played school with them for the very first time in her life, ever.  In the sandbox area Jane has begun putting on tea parties. Each container (all identically holding mud, but some decorated with leaves while others have stones or twigs) is a different food. There are even condiments such as salt and paper and sprinkles. She does an elaborate explanation for me while inviting me to sit down and partake. It's so earnest and intentional and creative and REAL to her. She's enthralled. She began writing "storybooks" which consist of multiple pages with pictures and scribbled lines that she tells me are the words of her story. She tells me what she plans to write before she makes a book. Her stories hav...

This morning was the last day of a full week at home with sick kids. Everyone is feeling just well enough to be bored but not snot-free and fatigue-free enough to go to town. Yesterday we killed time making Valentines (the kids swirled glue and glitter and stickers all over construction paper hearts--Pinterest-worthy we are not but they were happy nonetheless). Today I decided to do a mini spa day with the girls. After breakfast I got them dressed and took a picture that was a re-posing of a similar picture I took about a year ago. I showed them last year's picture and then did their hair the same--great fun getting ready for it. We were back in their room getting ready to paint nails when suddenly I realized that their bedroom window was open. I can't even describe the horror that rolled through my body when I saw the window open about 3 inches from the bottom. It was like watching your kid just barely miss getting hit by a car. Their bedroom is on the second floor. Th...

So I've been working with Jane, and the other two kids somewhat, on being mindful of where they play with toys. If they scatter and hide things, oh look, pick up is difficult. Same lesson--several times a day. Yesterday, after several good days of pickup being easier, I got lax. Here's all the reasons why dealing with this girl with her FAS lack of reasoning, history of trauma leading to overly-emotional responses, and personality that leads to self-victimization is just so damn hard. 1. Yesterday I got down a tub of toys. James got the item (a school bus) that Jane wanted. Jane got the baggie of people. I told them both to play awhile and then switch--standard response I always give when two kids want the same toy. I watched her face and knew she was pissed. I knew I should monitor that baggie of toy people but I got distracted and didn't. There was no toy pickup last night so we had to do it this morning. Over breakfast I told the kids that I had a special surprise ...

Long story, short, the lesson of the day is: I will not wedge my head into a space so small that I am then trapped and panic and begin flailing about nearly breaking my neck until I can be found (under the furniture) and rescued. This is the lesson Jane, the girl with no spatial perception, logic, or impulse control, learned today. Remember that character from Family Ties who kept getting his head trapped between the banister railings and it was a joke that he did it over and over again? I always thought that was a ridiculous plot line that had no basis in reality. I was wrong.

It's summer; we live next to a farm; there are flies. By this time of year I'm well into the habit of tossing a towel or cloth napkin over any food sitting out for more than a second or two. Today everyone ate dinner at a different time--just one of those days. I called Jane into the house last, told her to wash her hands, and then said, "Your food is on the table. Go eat when you're done washing your hands." Five minutes later I'm walking through with a laundry basket of clothes to fold and there she is, in her usual spot at the table, looking lost and hungry. Sitting directly in front of her where her plate and drink always go, is a plate and drink...but covered with a cloth napkin. Same old cloth napkins we always use and that she's seen tossed over other food dishes. There is not one other thing on the table top. It is otherwise 100% empty. Her food is 2 inches from her hands. She can't find it. I kinda lose it. There's something about ...

Our house is getting painted so the kids can't play outside due to the ladders. Yesterday we went to the zoo and today we went to a local pool and splash pad. (And now there's the extra challenge of keeping them just busy enough that they're content to rest when home but not so busy that Jane gets overly tired because now I know that can bring on a yet-to-be-officially-diagnosed neurological episode.) So I know Jane can develop tummy issues when she's stressed but she seemed to be okay after we returned from our mini-vacation last week. I guess not. Today at the pool she pooped herself. It's been months since she's done that. I chalk it up to constipation plus swimming? Who needs prunes when you've got a giant bath of warm salt-system water? Whatever works. Luckily I'd packed extra clothes, even including an extra swimsuit, so I helped her get cleaned up and changed and we resumed play, but not before she and I had a talk about her being too old (t...