Kiddo

I hardly know where to begin with a blog about Kiddo, so I guess I will begin at the beginning. 

I will warn you now this is likely to be a long blog post because there are five years of history and they’ve been jam packed with drama. But I think it’s crucial that I tell this story for readers to understand the type of foster parents we are. There won’t be a ton of humor in it because it’s not a story that lends itself to comedy. It’s tragedy at the start, and raging success at the end. 

I want people to know there CAN be raging successes in foster care.

Kiddo is our first foster kid. She is the apple of my eye, my “first born” so to speak, the center of my universe. I love that kid beyond what I thought was humanly possible. 

Kiddo came to us when she had just turned four, together with her brother who was six. 

Brother‘s story is one for another blog, or perhaps is one that I shouldn’t tell at all because it’s his story. Suffice it to say that Brother was too mentally ill to stay with us for very long because we could not keep him safe, or his sister safe with him there. The county removed him from our care at our request after 18 long, exhausting, soul shattering days, because he needed institutional level care for a while. 

Remember, he was just Six. Years. Old. With big gorgeous liquid brown eyes and curly brown hair, a sweet warm smile, and a hug that could break your heart. But we couldn’t keep him safe, and no one else was safe with him here either. 

I later found out that an outside agency had evaluated Kiddo and Brother to determine if they should go to the therapeutic level homes that agency has, and the woman who evaluated the kids determined that they were too difficult for her agency’s therapeutic level homes. Since the county legit didn’t know what to do with the kids, they sent them to brand new unsuspecting foster parents. Us! 

ZOMG. We got broken in fast. 

Once Brother left we were able to shift our attention to Kiddo, who had been largely silent when Brother was with us. She has even bigger liquid hazel eyes than her brother, and curly brown hair, but we didn’t see a real smile out of her for quite some time. 

After a hell of a lot of work at being goofy, over a number of weeks, Seth finally started to worm a genuine smile and laugh out of Kiddo. But she was a massive handful: defiant at times, at other times sobbing inconsolably for hours at a time while hiding under a piece of furniture, and manipulative in ways I didn’t know kids could learn. 

We had to fight to get the child therapy, which she so desperately needed. And beyond that Kiddo needed time. She needed to learn what safety felt like, she needed to learn what a consistent place to sleep felt like. She needed to experience bedtime stories and hugs and having her own safe bedroom space. She needed to catch up on years of inadequate sleep, and to experience having “stuff” of her own. She needed consistency, structure, consequences, rewards, and mostly just a hell of a lot of love and attention. 

We eventually got past the phase where she cried for hours under a table or behind a couch. We got past the phase where she would smash and destroy things out of anger she didn’t know what to do with. We got past her fear and into a zone where she could learn and catch up developmentally, all of which happened in the course of a year. 

Kiddo lived with us for a year and a half. At about the one year mark her father started to step up and agreed to have her come live with him. We graaaaaaaadually transitioned Kiddo to his home but honestly, it was doomed from the start. We all tried So Hard to get Dad ready to take her. The county made him take parenting classes and we helped coach him through Kiddo’s behaviors. Seth even at one point spent several hours repairing his car before a court date because he was required to have a working vehicle in order to have Kiddo come home. 

But her Dad wasn’t really prepared for the lifestyle changes being a full time parent required, and he wasn’t prepared to parent a difficult kid who could spot an opportunity to manipulate a mile away. 

During all of this, Kiddo’s Mom was working really freaking hard. I won’t tell too much of her story but she learned some really hard lessons the hard way, and came out the other side. At one point she realized she needed truly to commit to doing a tremendous amount of work in order to get her kids back, and commit she did. She took advantage of absolutely every class, every therapy session, every resource that could be made available to her. She requested extra services and completed them. She drove all over kingdom come to get to every appointment and meeting and service. She worked her ass off.

And it paid off. Eventually Mom was able to get Brother out of the institution that he was in, and start parenting him in a home environment. I don’t know how she does it but she has a gift with him and is doing an amazing job raising an insanely difficult child with a lot of very serious mental health issues. And after she had had Brother home for a while, she brought Kiddo home, too. 

Mom and Dad both recognized that kiddo was very genuinely and very significantly attached to Seth and me, and God bless them, they wanted us to stay in Kiddo’s life for the long haul. It’s been 3 1/2 years since Kiddo went to live with her dad, and throughout all of that time we have had her with us for at least one weekend a month, and currently she spends every other weekend with us. She still has her own room here in our house. This is HER house as much as it is ours. Last weekend she told me that we are not allowed to ever sell this house unless it’s to her when she’s a grown-up. This place, this little family, has become her rock.

Her Mom is absolutely thriving and I am overjoyed to say she has become a very good friend. She is now working full-time and in school full-time (making the Dean’s list!), while parenting the kids beautifully. She has learned how to ask for help when she needs it, and is there for me whenever I need a listening ear. We talk about what to do with the kids when they act out, coordinate holidays together, and Mom knows we have her back no matter what happens. 

Kiddo is thriving. She’s doing well in school and growing like a little weed. She’s still a handful, don’t get me wrong. But she knows how loved she is, and that is something every child should know.

This blog will be peppered with stories about Kiddo because she is genuinely funny as hell. The stuff she says and does makes us laugh a great deal, sometimes with her, sometimes at her. 

I can’t wait for my next Kiddo fix.