Foster Further

We are approaching the end of the hardest year our family has endured since, well, it's very first one. (In our first year of marriage Theo and I coped with the death of his mother a week before our wedding; an unplanned, high-risk pregnancy; two moves; and struggling to live on one salary that didn't cover both rent and groceries. Besides being newly married and having no clue how to actually live together. Really nothing we'll ever face will be harder than that year. Honestly.) But, back to present day. Things are winding down. 1) The house painters are gone. Eight days of "final touch-ups that will just take a few hours". Eight days of watching them patch a spot sloppily with putty so the putty got on the green trim. Then repainting the green trim to cover the putty. Then repainting the yellow house paint where they slopped the green trim paint. True story. Now multiply by every inch of a two-story house with a porch, chimney, and 19 windows and three ext...

After our bonding session at the cottage a few weeks ago I gave Grandma our last name and address. Seven months of getting to know her. Building trust. Her convincing us she came unattached, without her son's presence in the girls' lives. It, truly, felt like jumping off a cliff. Knowledge given can not be taken away. But Theo convinced me that it was in the girls' best interest to make Grandma a true member of the family. And obviously she has to be able to come to our house in order to be that. I'm a multi-tasker. I figured out that if she came over Labor Day weekend, when we do our annual scramble to finish up yard and house jobs that'd been neglected all summer, then she could take the girls to the park to get them out of our hair while we worked. And she'd get her very first alone time with them. Win-win. But, ugh, so much trust. I keep failing to anticipate how much emotional work will have to go into every event. I waited to tell the girls till ...

Today was better. Kids felt calmer. I think being at the cottage with Grandma for 3 days really disturbed Jane's equilibrium...but I also think that she has resettled quicker than she once would've been able to. One small, but HUGE thing happened this morning. Jane rode all the way to church and back, 20 min drive each way, without any singing. I know I sound like a curmudgeon but I have to clarify that it isn't really singing. It's toneless, mindless, repetitious droning of the same few syllables for miles and miles and miles. Even the therapist said it'd drive her batty when I demonstrated it for her once. I'm guessing that Jane rode in cars where the radio was blasting all the time. I'm guessing that no one ever spoke with her as she rode. I'm guessing that, in her need to orally process every single thing, and witnessing that she talks to herself endlessly while playing, the lull of the moving car reduced her to one sing-song phrase as she tried ...

The girls cry when I say 'bedtime'. It's automatic. Even for all possible synonyms and euphanisms. Happy kids.  +  "Bedtime"  =  Wailing kids. After months of trying a bazillion strategies I finally landed on a possible solution: removing sleep from the equation. A few nights ago I was emotionally exhausted to the point where I knew that all of my children needed to go far, far away from me for everyone's health and well-being. But it was a half hour before bedtime. And the light outside was going to be full, glorious summer sunshine for another two hours. So, I rushed through their bedtime routine but said, "And now you get to STAY AWAKE and play with toys and read books in your beds! Oh boy! What fun!" They trotted off to their beds, smiley-faced, and I never heard from them again. It was so bright outside that I left their light off but their curtain open and that was enough light to play by so I guess as it got dark outside they just cu...