Foster Further

 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 don't know if it's just plain raising daughters, or more specifically, raising daughters with a history of trauma, that has changed me but I am forever changed. I am more on guard when other adults are around my kids. I am more attuned to their demeanor during and after an encounter. And, I've become the letter writer.  Covid has led me to send more letters to businesses in the past few months than I have in my whole life before. Initially, I was sending letters praising stores that enforced health precautions. Now, I'm just a letter writing fool. Everyone likes to get mail, right? Last week Jane had her first ever eye exam. It all went well until the tech needed to put in the eye drops to dilate her eyes. Jane is an incredibly compliant little girl. She lives to please. The tech was exclaiming all over the place about how great Jane was doing for being only 4 yrs old. Then, she tells Jane to tip her head back and WHAM in goes a drop. Jane had absolutely no warning t...

Jane has lived here for 19 months. Just over a year and a half. She came at 3 yrs, 2 months. She is now 4 years 10 months. Soon she will celebrate her second birthday since coming here. I've bought all the clothes and shoes and coats and toys she owns. I decorated her bedroom. I choose what she eats and when. I give her baths and wash her hair and sometimes assist her in the bathroom. I can tell you the exact shape of her toes and how their shape differs from mine. I can predict how she'll react to most situations. She doesn't like ketchup or baked beans. When she is most anxious she needs the super bright night light. I know she's in a good place when she asks for the smaller night light. She picks on the cat when she's mad at me. Jane and I have spent enough time together and know enough about each other (I bet she knows all the same details about my likes and dislikes) to be bonded by now. But I don't think we are. And I don't know that we will ever be. T...

Two days after I got back from being gone for five days, Jane let all her insecurities loose. She baby talked all day. She pestered the other kids in every tiny way she could be. She forgot to do things immediately after I asked her to do it. She was just low-grade angry all day. Day One after my return was full of tentative love attempts--creeping up to me, staring at me hungrily like she'd forgotten what I looked like, drawing a thousand heart pictures and presenting each one like priceless treasure and then being hurt when I wasn't enthusing over the twentieth picture in ten minutes. Day Two was angry. And anger for her is extremely passive aggressive. Low-grade annoyances toward everyone without ever once looking or sounding angry. This all escalated throughout the day very gradually until at bedtime I was standing next to her while she was brushing her teeth and realized she reeked of urine. I asked her if she'd peed her pants and she began to cry this hysterical cry t...

Jane is sick today. The family had dodged the flu bullet so far this year and I thought we might get all the way through but maybe that was too optimistic. Even with me being the hand-washing Nazi it looks like some germs snuck through my defenses. She started getting sick yesterday but the girls had their visit scheduled with grandma and we don't like to cancel. We're down to once a month visits and she hadn't seen them since before Christmas. Also, aunt and her family were up visiting from KY and it's important to maintain that connection. So, the girls went to the bowling alley we'd chosen for this visit anyway. Jane was a complete mess on the way home. Sobbing inconsolably over a lost penny; fighting with her sister, etc. Put her right to bed at 5:30 with books and lots of water to drink and made her stay there. This morning there's no fever but still the runny nose and congestion. And THE ANGER! Wow, I've noticed before that when she's ill she...

Yesterday, Sunday, I was supposed to drive an hour to an indoor playplace to take the girls to see their grandma. It was our typical every-two-week visit. But ear/sinus infections were going through the house and I felt miserable. We were supposed to meet at 2:00 and by 10:00 I had Theo send Grandma a message that we couldn't come but she could come here and take the girls out. Of course he needed to try out some new Google number method and she never got the message. When I hadn't heard from her by 1:30 I texted her from my phone. Instant reply--she was already on her way there, starting from a town closer to ours, so, hence, driving an hour in the wrong direction. She finally got here. I'm awoken from sleep by Gus, equally sick and miserable, telling me she was knocking at the door. Theo was working outside all day yesterday on a yard project. Where was he? Oh, he'd gone to the store. WTF?!? So I try to use Gus to relay message to Seth to tell Grandma what car t...

A week ago Ken* invited us to come to a Thanksgiving dinner at his house, along with some of the girl's extended family, so the girls could see people they haven't seen in a long time. In discussing the guest list I reminded him that the girls' mother and half-brother were not to be invited. I just got this angry message from Mike, the girls' biological maternal grandfather. "I just talked to Ken he said he was working on letting the girls come down to the house so the family could see them. he informed me that you would not allow Cameron to be around the girls?????? What was the reason behind this?? Ever since those girls came into your possession we have been cut out of their lives. I don't know who makes these decisions you or did the judge you won't write me back to let me know what's going on with them I'm just going to have to go back up to the judge I guess to CPS won't get ahold of me either what a corrupt system" Here's t...

I just had the most amazing talk with Jane that I need to record here so I can remember all the details. This morning she seemed quite pissy. Tiny little refusals (e.g. it's raining and I tell the kids to hurry to the car but she dawdles so everyone has to wait in the rain before we can shut the gate). I am trying to be more cognizant of how I speak to her and what my attitude is when she makes requests of me. I feel we've been stuck in an antagonistic rut and I'm trying to break us out of it. By the time lunch rolled around I found myself snapping at her. After lunch I sent to the kids to separate rooms for quiet time, as usual, and then I grabbed a basket of the girls' unfolded laundry and took it to her room to fold and put away so we could talk. I began by flat out saying that she seemed angry today and reminded her that it's good to use words to tell how we feel instead of being naughty to show how we feel. She immediately got it and named things she'...

Yesterday was one of the worst days I've had since the girls came to us. For no apparent reason. Jane just decided to be really naughty all day long, about five minutes after she was released from each time out session. The past week we've been talking about anger, triggered by some incidents that occurred during her last therapy sessions. I had been telling her it's okay to show anger for a few days now. Well, she sure as hell took me up on the offer. Except not the way I meant it. I meant she should have a tantrum, yell, scream, even hit. Get it out! Express it! Be honest! Be real with me! Trust me enough to show a single authentic emotion already! Nope. She decided to do the most sneaky, underhanded, devious, manipulative, destructive things her little 4 year old brain could think of. I think she spent every minute of her time outs just planning what she'd do next. I was patient, calm, and creative in my consequences for the first two events. Then, she took Kat...

Two days ago the most potentially dangerous thing that's ever happened at our house occurred. Jane opened the gate to the goat pen and let them out so they had access to where the three little kids were playing unsupervised (I was inside making dinner). Couple facts...the two goats are Nigerian Dwarf and only 18 inches tall at the shoulder. Yet both are so strong and adept at head-butting that they've knocked me to the ground before (with a sneak attack at the back of the knees). A month ago Kate wasn't listening to me while I was walking the goats on leashes and she got too close--one of the goats hit her square in the belly and, literally, sent her flying through the air and knocked the wind out of her. If I hadn't had the goat on the leash her next move would've been to put her head into Kate's body and kneel her front legs while she ground Kate into the dirt with all the force of her rock-hard skull. It's a brutal move that can kill a small animal. Or ...

Jane does not stutter when she is angry.  I am so flummoxed by this I can't even process. Background: yesterday was a bad day. Just nonstop big and little things that ended in a return to time out almost as soon as she got out and an hour long phone call from me to her therapist. We rarely have days like this. Once every three months or so. Today she came awake still angry. Normally she bounces out of bed happy. This morning it was all dirty looks. She stayed angry all day. This was very new. Maybe the first time we've seen this and both Theo and I felt it was healthy as it was a normal reaction we'd expect after the consequences she received yesterday. I was mentally noting what it looks like when she's angry because I've never seen her stay angry more than a few minutes. And that's when it hit me---she had not stuttered once all day! Her stuttering had gotten really bad last week. Bad enough that I was considering asking for a re-eval by the speech...