Foster Further

Last week I had to drop off some paperwork at the foster care agency's local office. We haven't been there since last February, when the girls had their last family visit in that office. If my memory serves, they were in that building exactly four times: twice to visit birth mother in December, twice to visit aunt and grandma in February. There were no visits in January. (After those initial visits I suggested we begin meeting off-site every two weeks with grandma and aunt and that's what we've done ever since.) The office is in a bland office park and the reception area literally has almost nothing in it but three chairs and one table. We walked in and Jane instantly said, "I've been here before!" There were two doors out of the room. She pointed to the correct one and said, "That's where Mama Leah is! There's a kitchen in there! Can we go play with it?" I was utterly astounded. That girls' memory is bizarrely accurate someti...

Today Theo and I went to the adoption agency to sign a bunch of paperwork, write some checks, and receive the super secret documentation about why the girls were removed from their birth home that we'd been asking to see for months but were told would only be made available to us at this stage in the adoption process. There was no new super secret information. We already knew it all. I guess our first foster care social worker was a total blabbermouth who told us stuff we weren't supposed to know. Plus, I'd sat in on the termination of parental rights hearing where, I recognized from the awkward legalese of the reports I read today, this stuff had all been read aloud by the judge to all assembled there in the courtroom. Let's think about that--I had access to deeply private stuff as a random member of the public that I, as a foster and potentially adoptive parent, did NOT have until a year after the girls were placed with us. Our system is seriously screwed up. I ...

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'...