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Trauma changes everything

Seth and I cleaned yesterday a bunch. He had the day off and though I was having a low energy day, it was a high motivation day and I powered through. We tackled the play room (my god what a mess!) and threw away broken toys and toys they’re misusing to beat on each other. We put the kitchen toys away in the play kitchen and the puzzle pieces back in their boxes and the dolls back in their bin. It was a monumental effort. Then we tackled the dining room and kitchen clutter counter. We vacuumed everything. I even dusted.

When Sunny came home from school she said “What happened to our house? All our stuff is gone!” At first I laughed, then I realized she was legitimately panicking and I sat her down and asked her what was going on. She told me that every time her house got clean it meant they were moving again. And because they couldn’t afford movers they would inevitably leave most of their belongings behind. She’s lost “her stuff” over and over and over again. She was terrified we had been kicked out of our house and had to move. I reassured her as best I could but internally I was just thinking “holy $hit. Talk about trauma.”

Kiddo had a similar experience when she was 3. Her family moved into an apartment and belatedly discovered it was infested with bedbugs. They left every stitch of clothing and every toy. They even left their dishes because Mom was so freaked out. I probably would have done something similar because omg. Bedbugs. But because they couldn’t get their deposit back right away without a fight with the landlord, they went without housing for a while. It was a mess. And Kiddo has turned into a bit of a hoarder I think because of that early experience.

Sometimes I’m just plain overwhelmed by the trauma these kids have experienced and how that shapes their day-to-day. The chaos they build around them mirrors their internal chaos, especially Kiddo. I think they like having everything they own strewn about so they can see it all. Their brains are chaotic from all the trauma and the damage it has done and they’re comfortable if their surroundings mirror their insides.

Similarly, when I’m fighting with the kids to get them to wear weather appropriate clothing, it’s not really about the clothes. It’s about the control. They feel like they have none in their lives, and therefore they fight to control what little they can. I try to cut them as much slack as I can but I refuse to send them to school on a forecasted 83° day with jeans and sweatshirts and no layered tee underneath for fear they’ll boil their brains later in the day and complain about having been too hot all evening. Or I likewise refuse to allow shorts and a tank top on a day with a predicted high of 60° and rain. I need to remind myself daily that the battle is not personal. It’s not about me or trying to defy me which is what it seems like. It’s all about control.

Food insecurity is another thing that has left an indelible mark on our kids. I swear when they go without consistent good nutrition when they’re little it seriously compromises their brain wiring for good. Sunny is trying to eat us out of house and home, and her weight is an issue. How do I parent this kid so she feels satisfied, safe, secure, full without her gaining weight that will harm her joints further, and without giving her a complex or eating disorder? I feel a wave of panic every time I think about it.

Unlimited snacks don’t work for this kid. I’ve tried putting a visible next snack out so she can see it while putting the rest of the snacky foods out of reach and out of sight, but the kid still gets panicky. Thank god for school days where I can pack a measured and nutritious lunch for her and she can’t snack the whole day. But weekends and days off frankly suck for me because of the constant stress of her eating way too much for her fragile joints.

Sometimes I am so overwhelmed by it all.

I feel like I can’t succeed in parenting Sunny well. Same with Kiddo sometimes. Younger kids are so much easier to take in. Toddlers and infants are so easy to control when it comes to food intake and clothing, and they’ve had less time to be damaged by trauma. They’re more malleable when it comes to the routine of the household and rules. Older kids are often more damaged. They come with baggage (usually only figurative) and every little routine decision or event is fraught. I’ve been parenting kids who have experienced trauma for almost 7 years now and I still have days when it’s just as daunting as it was on day 1.

But, there’s nothing to do but keep trucking on. Keep an open dialogue with the kids to try to understand what’s going on underneath defiance or compulsive eating. Be creative. Give options that make them feel empowered but allow me some small measure of control so they’re appropriately dressed and safe. Sigh a lot because it releases my stress without coming out in damaging words. And hope time and consistency will foster a little healing for them.

How our vacation ended

I wrote a couple of posts about our vacation, then just dove into the Sunny situation without explaining how we were home in time for Sunny to arrive on our doorstep. I’m going to try to write about it with restraint and an adult perspective.

Vacation kind of sucked.

Ok it really sucked.

I loved being back in Maine and in some of my favorite places in this world. And there were some good moments, like burying kids in sand at Roque’s Bluff, and the middle of our visit to my favorite place on earth, Quoddy Head. I did my best to focus on the good and wrote cheerful posts about the good bits. But there’s a big “but.”

The kids’ behavior was off the rails.

The car ride there was okish. They were bored for the entire drive and did not sleep like we expected them to, but they didn’t misbehave. They were excited enough when we got there to be ok for the first evening. But starting the following morning things started to erode.

Kiddo was the worst one really because she’s 10 and knows better. She sulked. She threw things. She did everything we asked her not to. She didn’t do the things we asked her to do. She whined and whined and whined.

Sprout threw some colossal temper tantrums, screaming and arching her back and kicking like a 2-year-old. She was ok between tantrums, but the tantrums were epic and over the top and utterly maddening. Sprout is pretty sensitive, and I think she was feeding off Kiddo’s dysregulation, as well as feeling her own sense of disorientation from experiencing new circumstances.

It was so frustrating that, combined with a few other factors (my ulcerative colitis flare, forgetting the screen house while living in mosquito heaven, and rain), we just started packing up spontaneously one evening and left at first light the next morning.

Kiddo, in a stroke of rare insight, quietly told me that last evening as Seth was packing, “maybe going places is a Seth and Holly thing, and not a me thing.”

I think she’s right. After a lifetime of instability except for our house, and trauma associated with moves and new surroundings, vacation was too much for her. Too much new with not enough distraction and fun stimulation to keep her going. She did great when I took her overnight to Legoland last year, but that was only one night. I asked her why she was ok with it and she said “It was so much fun and I knew I was seeing my Mom the next day so it was ok.”

While vacation itself was a bust, I’m thrilled that Kiddo is reaching a stage where she has some self insight. Beyond thrilled. I’m positively tickled. We have agreed that next time we go camping we’ll go without Kiddo and she’s fine with that. Sprout walked away with an overall positive impression of things – she is asking to go camping again soon. And Sunny is asking to go too. So perhaps next year we can try again.

That said, I’m too damn old and arthritic to be sleeping on the ground. Next time we will have a giant air mattress or a pop up trailer or a cot or something to prevent my kneecaps from feeling like they’re going to blow off when I’m trying to stand up. 😂

My question is this: can we safely take Kiddo on a Disney trip?

We have so many toys that we don’t need a damn thing. The kids can’t even think of things they want because they have so much great stuff. Or else the things they ask for are things I know from experience they won’t play with. I have some airline credits from our failed attempt at a trip to Ireland, and I have a little bit of money coming in November from my work as a Planning Board secretary. So Seth and I thought perhaps we should take a Christmas trip instead of having a traditional Christmas. A stocking each and a big 3-day Christmas Disney/Universal/Animal Kingdom trip.

My initial reaction after vacation was “Oh hell no. I’m not taking Kiddo.” But she was fine with Legoland because bright! Shiny! Rides! Toys! Perhaps a shorter trip with that kind of distraction would work out ok? I need to make up my mind and book soon if we are doing it. I keep going back and forth on it.

Anyway, perhaps things worked out for the best. Sunny was able to come straight to our house rather than some other foster home and I know that significantly reduced the trauma she experienced that awful day when she was removed. She got to snorgle with her sister that night and feel safe. So no regrets, overall.

Forecast: Sunny skies for now

So it’s been about a week and a half since Sunny, Sprout’s biological sister, joined us. When I first mentioned her in this blog I said:

On Tuesday, Sprout’s sister “Sunny” (8) joined us for… well, for now. It’s foster care so who the heck knows for how long? There are some relatives who may take her and her three other siblings (5), (12), and (13) soon. Or maybe it won’t work out. Maybe she’ll leave next week. Or maybe she’ll be here forever. Or something in between. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I look back on that paragraph and marvel at how accurately I captured how the last week and a half have been. The case worker, bless her, is overworked and drowning in files, and hasn’t been able to keep me updated on the many permutations behind the scenes so we’ve largely been left in the dark as to what’s going to happen.

When she first arrived, we took Sunny shopping with the County clothing voucher and then, given how uncertain her placement with us was, probably unwisely spent a bunch more to get her enough of the basics. A dear friend sent a ton of fantastic clothing too, and all told, this kid is set for warm weather and will soon be set for colder weather. (For a kid who has never had more than 2 outfits of homemade clothing at a time, she’s overwhelmed by all the new clothing. Overwhelmed in a good way.)

We also ordered Sunny a new bed, one that has drawers under it, because we are desperate for drawer space in that room. It hasn’t been assembled yet, but is sitting in our hallway in a box.

I took Sunny for a medical appointment and got referrals to a bunch of specialists. And I made an eye appointment with my eye doctor because I trust him to get her script right even though we’ll have to pay out of pocket for it.

All this was done while we didn’t know if Sunny was going to stay for a while, or go to a relative asap. At one point I swapped emails with the case worker about registering Sunny for school and she said to do so, which kind of indicated she’s staying for a while, but wasn’t clear.

This level of uncertainty is common in foster care. We once had a baby placed with us for a “long term placement” who went to an Aunt less than a week later. We had a 6 year old boy placed with us for “long term” who lasted 18 torturous days. We’ve had a sick baby placed with us with the admonition that we not get too attached because she was likely going home soon, who stayed for 18 months. That child we were told was going to adoption at one point while her case was pending, although she eventually went home to her parents.

My point is, foster care is, if nothing else, a tease. You just don’t know ever how long any child will stay with you. It’s a hard task to balance getting what you need for a child, versus protecting yourself against the child leaving before everything you’ve ordered for him/her arrives.

This time I got lucky. Behind the scenes at one point the County was going to send Sunny to a relative with her other 3 siblings, but some paperwork wasn’t completed as needed for that to happen and the siblings went to the relative but Sunny stayed here. The case worker and I talked this morning about Seth’s and my willingness to have Sunny long term (we’re happy to have her) and our ability to get her caught up medically and in school a bit before she goes anywhere. The relative has their hands FULL with the other three who need catching up, and their own kids, and it’s sooooo good for Sprout to spend this time with her sister. So we have a little time with Sunny.

How is it going, you might ask? About as well as it could be. It’s still the honeymoon period so I say this guardedly: Sunny seems to be a great fit for our home. We can handle the medical needs. We can handle the educational needs with our awesome school district and tutors and assistance at home. She and Sprout get along like sisters, which is to say usually very well but they have their moments of getting on each other’s nerves. They spend a lot of time giggling and hugging which makes my heart feel all funny and like it might explode.

Sunny is settling in as well as any kid could. Having her sister here is huge. Having unfettered access to her Mama via phone is huge, (especially now that Mama has stopped saying she’s going home tomorrow, which was happening for a while). Sunny’s been to the zoo for the first time thanks to a friend’s kind sponsorship of a zoo trip. She’s been painting a bunch and likes art. She’s made slime. She’s listened to dozens of books. She’s painted her nails with peel off nail polish roughly 25 times a day. Like her sister, she calls us Mom and Dad and is getting super attached to Seth. She loves having clothing, is getting used to the routine, insists on getting a kiss on top of her head from me at bedtime, and loves cooking Burmese food with me.

Mind you, the Kiddo factor gets introduced tonight for the first time. I’m nervous. She can be a bit of a bully, and will want to dominate Sunny. Sunny is pretty indomitable, so this will get interesting! I am taking Kiddo to the fair tomorrow for some one-on-one time and that will help ease tensions I think. But it’s going to be a bit tense I’m afraid. Oh well, eventually they’ll find their places in the pecking order and settle in, and there will be lots of supervision this weekend since Seth isn’t working.

So for now, it looks like Sunny weather for a little bit. How long is a mystery!

Food Fights

One of the many challenges of foster parenting revolves around food. It’s an exhausting problem because there’s no escaping it – we all need to eat multiple times a day.

When kids first come to us I make it clear they can ALWAYS have a snack from a particular tray in the pantry. It’s currently got granola bars, nutrigrain bars, peanut butter stuffed pretzels, and grape pull-aparts. I also always have apples available for snacks, and little containers of yogurt.

When I say they can always have snacks I mean always. I mean if we are having dinner in a half hour, in the middle of the night, right after dinner, etc., those snacks are fair game.

Why am I so liberal with the snacks? Because most, though not all, kids in foster care have experienced food insecurity at some point. That means they’ve gone to bed or to school hungry. That means they’ve looked in bare pantries. That means they’ve wondered what their next meal would be. And hunger is a primal urge that leaves an indelible mark on a child’s neural pathways.

What does that look like? It looks like a kid getting anxious if they’re forced to experience hunger for any period of time. It looks like tantrums sometimes, as they panic about being denied food when they’re hungry. (Both Sprout and Kiddo get hangry on an epic level). I want kids to be as relaxed as possible at my house so they can heal, and that means eliminating anxiety around hunger as much as possible.

I also allow a lot of junk food in the beginning of a placement because that’s probably familiar. Our country has created terrible inner city food deserts so families without transportation may be subsisting off snacks from a corner store. We have also made junk food cheaper than healthy food. Doritos or ramen noodles are a kid’s comfort food? Then at first they get them liberally. I then try to cut back in frequency after a child has settled in. So far that strategy has worked well.

Food is also something kids can control and if there’s one thing a foster child is lacking, it’s a sense of control about anything important in their life. They’ve been stripped from family, home, and often school. Everything smells different and routines are different. They’ve got no say in any of that. But they CAN control what they put in their bodies. So having fights with a foster child about food could turn into epic battles that don’t get either person any further ahead, and I want to avoid that at all costs.

That said, some battles are worth fighting. Craftily.

Sunny has come to us declaring that the only things she eats are chicken nuggets and French fries. Period. So for the first two days, she ate chicken nuggets and French fries and nothing else.

Then in desperation I did a thing. I got out my Burmese cookbooks, found a recipe for a beef and potato curry that looked good, shopped for the ingredients on Instacart, and spent an entire morning cooking it.

Part way through its cooking, Sunny declared the house suddenly smelled like her Mom’s house. I just said “Oh yeah? That must be nice.” I kept cooking. She declared repeatedly while I cooked that she doesn’t like anything except chicken nuggets and French fries.

Then I added the curry and garam masala for the last 20 minutes of cooking and she got quiet. As I finished the cooking, I offered her the opportunity to try it. She nodded. Then she sat down by her bowl and exclaimed, “My grandma makes this! It’s sooo good! It’s one of my favorites!” The child ate a shocking amount of beef curry and rice. I was silently delighted to be getting her to eat something else, and to be giving her a little dose of comfort food.

When she had finished she asked to call her Mama, and told her I’d made her Burmese food. Her Mama was speechless, then asked me please to cook some and bring it to her other children who are currently at another foster home. I assured her I would if the other foster mom agrees to it on Monday.

Today? Sunny has eaten an apple, a yogurt, a granola bar, and some grapes, and has declared she can’t wait for more of the beef curry at lunch. I think we broke through a little trust barrier by making a familiar comfort food.

Foster parenting requires crafty creativity sometimes. 🙂 I don’t think I’ve “won” any battles, but I did make a tiny bit of progress. Wish me luck on the next challenge!

Some Sunshine

On Tuesday, Sprout’s sister “Sunny” (8) joined us for… well, for now. It’s foster care so who the heck knows for how long? There are some relatives who may take her and her three other siblings (5), (12), and (13) soon. Or maybe it won’t work out. Maybe she’ll leave next week. Or maybe she’ll be here forever. Or something in between. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For now, Sprout is enjoying the heck out of having her sister’s company, and I’m so happy for her to have this opportunity to get to know her sister better. That’s the primary reason we agreed to have her come here – Sprout needs to know her family, her language, and her culture. And the poor kid needed somewhere good to go.

Of course there are three other siblings and we could not possibly put all of them anywhere. We’d need two more bedrooms, including one on the ground floor for the oldest because of mobility challenges. But we had just enough room in Sprout’s bedroom to squeeze in a second twin bed, so we took the only girl who could climb our stairs.

I am struggling with not being able to take all the kids. The other three are together but in a different foster home and I’m so so worried about them. It’s not a home we know and I don’t know that it’s a good one. There are so many terrible foster homes out there! And the oldest has major pressing medical needs and I don’t know if they’re getting met. It’s breaking my heart to separate the kids. Did we do the right thing by taking one of the siblings? I’m feeling like Judas. But feeling like Judas is part of the job. It’s not the first time I’ve felt this way about siblings being separated.

As is always the case, the first night is so hard for everyone. In the morning, we found Sunny sound asleep with Sprout in Sprout’s bed, and while that’s strictly prohibited in foster care for obvious reasons, I’m glad she had the spirit to seek out comfort and found it.

Sprout and Sunny get along like a house afire. When the case worker dropped Sunny off the girls ran toward each other and hugged and hugged and hugged. I thought my heart would burst. They spend most of their time being silly and giggling and laughing. There’s a wonderful camaraderie between the two. That said, they are indeed sisters.

“She’s a copier.”
“No I’m not!”
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not!”
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not!”
“Stop scratching me with your dragon claws!”
“I’m NOT!”

Ha! They have their moments. But a few minutes later their heads were bent together and they were giggling again, so they forgive each other readily.

Sunny is a big part of the reason the two get along so well. She merits her nickname. She’s just a happy, sweet, good-natured kid who humors her slightly spoiled baby sister endlessly. She’s talkative and bright. She’s trilingual – English is her third language and she’s doing incredibly well with speaking it. That said, there are significant academic challenges. I’m glad I feel like our school district is up to the task! If she’s even here when school starts. Who knows if she will be.

Kiddo has not been added to the mix yet and to be honest, I’m dreading that interaction. The kids are so very different. Kiddo is street smart and urban. She likes Cardi B explicit version, and knows what her Starbucks order is. Sunny has been somewhat isolated in her family’s culture. Tattoos, swearing, and showing your shoulders are prohibited.

Sunny has said some things about Black people that make me cringe down to my toenails – she’s been taught some things she’ll have to unlearn. She was shocked when I told her Kiddo is Black. Prejudices run deep and I pray her interactions with Kiddo can be positive and help reshape her perceptions. But Kiddo can also be a bit of a bully when she’s jealous or uncomfortable and will have to be watched like a hawk around Sunny. We are not inviting Kiddo here this weekend when Seth is working, and next weekend I’ll plan a special outing with just Kiddo and me so she knows she’s still special in our family. It’s the best plan I could come up with. Lots of time for Sunny to adjust before Kiddo gets here, and two parents to supervise interactions when it happens.

In most ways Sunny is an ordinary 8 year old. She likes making slime (we’ve made four big batches and she wants to make more still!), eating French fries, wearing new clothes, and painting her fingernails. She’s struggling mightily with missing her Mama and siblings but is putting on a brave face for everything. She’s facing lots of medical appointments (she is a Little Person like Sprout, and has complications that come with that), but is doing so stoically. She’s testing the waters to find out just how much she can get away with in this new environment and I take that as a good sign that she’s comfortable here already.

We are so lucky to be able to get to know her.

Vacation Part II

It was way colder than it appears in this photo. Ha! Swimming in Maine is not for the faint of heart.

We spent some time at Roque’s Bluff State Park on Friday. It was not a warm day on the coast – 66 degrees to be precise. And holy god the water temp was frigid. Our weird and wonderful 10 year old plowed into the water without hesitating. She’s insane. I’m mighty well insulated and would only go up to my ankles. She’s less well insulated and I’m shocked she didn’t turn entirely blue out there.
We hit a rough patch shortly after arrival at Roque’s Bluff. We couldn’t find the snorkels in our car, and the disappointment sent Kiddo into a massive tailspin. She wandered off down the beach and sat on some rocks and threw sand and rocks for a while in an impressive sulk. Seth eventually had to go get her to tell her not to throw things around people. Eventually we found the snorkels after a second look through the car and her high spirits returned but YEESH this child is intolerable when she encounters disappointment of any kind. I know it’s a trigger for her because of some things going on at home so I try to be patient. I haven’t shouted at or throttled her yet so I count that as a win, though she wound up with a VERY stern talking to by Seth later that day for her talking back to us. She can get away with that ish at home but cannot with us and apparently needed to be reminded of that. Firmly.
We DID have a lot of fun on the beach with the sand. Both kids got buried. Kiddo found a shark on the beach and was ecstatic. (Ok, so it was plastic and it squeaks when you squeeze it but still it was a fun find). We had to drag the children away while they were hungry and before they hit hangry, and I suspect we’ll wind up back at that beach again before we leave.
That night, while snuggled safe in our beds, a massive hissing, scrabbling, grunting, snarling raccoon fight took place about 20 feet from our tent. It scared the pants off Seth and me. The kids slept through it. I wish I could sleep like that!
Yesterday we went for a drive down the coast to the DownEast Institute, which is a hatchery for mussels and oysters, and does research on them. There was a cool touch pool in the entryway which the kids enjoyed. They were bored inside but Seth and I found it fascinating.
On our way to the Institute, we found a flea market in Machias where I got a gorgeous hand made fishing rope basket. The girls then announced that they needed to find a gift shop with something for them. So when we encountered a weird round hut painted like a blueberry with an overgrown mini golf course beside it, we stopped and meandered inside. It was… eclectic. There were blueberry soaps and candies and preserves and jellies and jams and honeys and stuffies and t-shirts and mugs. I didn’t know so much could be made blueberry themed. There was also a mini museum on blueberry harvesting and some fresh pints of the things. They each selected a cute Maine-themed stuffy (lobster and moose) and were instantly happy to have found “their” gift shop.
Last night it poured. I mean it torrential rained. This morning we strung up clotheslines to dry out… well, everything. Ah, tent camping.
Speaking of tent camping, I may be reaching the end of my tent camping days. Crawling on my arthritic knees over rocks and roots bites. Getting myself on my feet out the door of one is like being born again. And frankly, the tent thing is making camping less enjoyable. It may be time to either throw in the towel on camping, or get a little camper. Even a pop up would give me what I need I think.
Aaaaand speaking of crappy, my body decided this was the perfect timing for an ulcerative colitis flare. It’s adding to my tent dissatisfaction because I’m finding I have the need to navigate small sleeping bodies, exit the tent at high velocity, and hurtle myself down the very rough rooty path to the latrines at odd hours. Good times!
Today we explored my favorite place in this world: Quoddy Head State Park. It’s a gloriously mystical magical place, with hiking trails that weave in and out of the woods and along the coast. The woods are mossy and damp, with little alcoves under rotting moss-covered tree roots. Seth and I have always said Quoddy Head is the home of the fairies, and apparently other folks agree because this trip we found a bunch of fairy houses in the woods along one little section of trail. Kiddo explored her first tide pools and found out just how waterproof her new LL Bean shoes are… or aren’t. It was lovely to share the place with the kids.
We are currently questing for ice cream. Because it is vacation, after all.

My insane Kiddo in an ice bath. Voluntarily.

The fam checking out a stream in the woods

Vacation so far…

We have so far seen the following wildlife: a skunk in our own back yard while pulling out of the driveway at 4:00 am. Or 3:58 to be precise. It’s the first time we’ve ever left for a vacation on time.
The drive was fine. No major backups for accidents, congestion, or construction. The soft roof container stayed put and didn’t flap they way I feared it would. The children asked “are we there yet” roughly 1,173 times between home and the campground.
Spirits, so far, are high. So is the mosquito count.
There is cell signal at the campground now and there was none 7 years ago when we were last here. I’m both happy and sad about it.
One kid is on latrine strike, and the other, upon encountering an outhouse for the first time, commented “Daddy, I don’t like this bathroom. Daddy, it smells like cows in here!”
My kids are the loudest ones at the campground and I’m going to lose my voice telling them to lower their voices. Thankfully, mostly so far it’s joyful excited happy noise. I’m sure our neighbors still hate us right now.
The kids loved sleeping in a happy pile in the tent. I fell asleep on my back with Sprout holding my right hand and Kiddo snorgling my entire left arm. ❤️
I woke up to the sound of a nuthatch honking in the trees and a spectacular view of mossy woods. *happy sigh*
We forgot to bring a mug for me, so I drank lukewarm espresso-strength instant coffee out of a soup bowl this morning. I’ve joked about drinking my coffee out of a giant vat before but it’s harder than it sounds. I may or may not be wearing some.
Today we are headed to Roque’s Bluff, which is a state park that offers swimming in both ocean and lake on either side of a road. Children are ecstatic. Adults are going along with what the kids want because happy kids make for happy travels. Can I add that it’s misty raining and only 66 degrees so far and they want to swim NOW?

Overall? I’m thrilled about everything except the misty rain but even that is wonderfully atmospheric.

Kiddo, barefoot and in pajamas and sleep cap, cooking hot dogs like a pro who has been camping her whole life.

The Uncertainty is Killing Me

I can’t give any details because of privacy, but we might, maybe, possibly have Sprout’s 8-year-old sister joining us. But it’s foster care, so who the heck knows.

It’s complicated. The agency has put in a petition. The court date is while we are on vacation 10 1/2 hours away from home. The agency doesn’t really plan placements much in advance. So while we have asked for this sister to come to us, we have zero way of knowing if that will happen.

I’m feeling anxious and fidgety while packing for vacation. Will we come home early in a mad dash to return and pick her up? If so that will stink because while we have a trundle bed we can put her on temporarily we’ll need a new twin bed and dresser for her. I hate the thought of a kid coming into a space that feels “temporary.” And we are spending our cash on this vacay and finding the cash for the bed and dresser will be… interesting. But I don’t want to order them now because it may not happen at all.

I’ve been doing this for 6 1/2 years but this situation is making me feel like an inexperienced newbie for some reason. I’m all at sixes and sevens. And all we can do is wait and see what unfolds.

Missing my beloveds

I’ve written before about missing kids when they go home, and have said that it gets easier with time. While that’s true for the most part, I still have my moments missing two different kids in particular.

This popped up in my FB feed yesterday.

We had Gronckle with us for about 9 months. When he first came to us everyone represented to us that his case was likely to go to adoption because Mom was not working her plan and Dad was in prison for a long time to come and no other relatives were on the horizon. After about 8 months there was suddenly a new relative who popped up who wanted Gronckle, and the case worker determined the relative was “appropriate” to take him.

One thing you learn as a foster parent is that “appropriate” is a moving target, depending on who is doing the evaluating. And it’s a low bar always. A parent or relative just needs to have the ability to meet the child’s basic needs. I’ve seen kids returned to a homeless shelter; the county didn’t require the Mom to have housing. I’ve seen kids returned to squalid housing. I’ve seen kids returned to situations with adults who made me verrrry nervous for the child’s safety and well being. I’ve also seen situations where the case worker pushes the parents to achieve much more than those “minimums” I’ve just mentioned – requiring housing. Requiring it be appropriately clean. Requiring adults in the parent’s or relative’s life be checked out. So so so much depends on the case worker.

I’ll just put it this way: I worry like hell that I’ll see Gronckle’s name in the news one day.

Scaring us half to death

Gronckle was our first medical kid. He had MRSA, the worst eczema I’ve ever seen, food allergies, and asthma. We wrestled mightily with the doctors to get them to prescribe him the special formula he needed. We handled him with gloves and coated him in bandages when he had a MRSA outbreak. We used the best damn eczema soap ever on his skin (SallyeAnder’s oatmeal soap). We coated him and slathered him and ruined clothes with Aquaphor. Hot diggety, we got that eczema and MRSA completely under control and managed his food allergies perfectly.

The asthma, though, scared the pants off us. He had a nebulizer, which he needed to use on occasion. One night when he was about 10 months old he had gone to bed with a runny nose but no fever or other symptoms. Around 1:30 in the morning Seth and I both woke up and Seth shot out of bed. “Somethings wrong,” he said. And he bolted toward the baby’s room. Somehow our instincts woke us both.

Gronckle had stopped breathing.

Seth grabbed the kid and did a sternal rub on him to try to get him to wake up and breathe while I got the nebulizer ready. I called the ambulance and got the nebulizer on Gronckle at the same time. We convinced him to take a few raspy breaths. Then he would stop breathing again for a full minute. Then he’d take a couple of breaths again. It was agony.

The ambulance got to us so quickly it was incredible. The EMT took one look at Gronckle in his blue, barely-breathing state, grabbed him, and shot with him into the ambulance to put him on the nebulizer there. Seth rode along and said for the first half of the ride Gronckle continued to stop breathing with regularity, and the poor EMT was gray, shaky, and had a tightly clenched jaw by the time they got Gronckle to start breathing more regularly.

By the time I arrived at the hospital they had given Gronckle a different kind of breathing treatment and he was so much better. They determined he’d come down with croup, panicked that he couldn’t breathe, and the asthma kicked in to make matters worse.

Between the nebulizer and the other breathing treatment, Gronckle was bouncing off the walls. I’ve never seen such a hyper baby before. He was already walking and running at that young age and would try to slither out of our arms and take off at incredible speeds. It was all we could do to keep him on a hospital bed in our arms to try to keep him safe.

It was a hell of a night.

Anyway, Gronckle did fine after that breathing treatment though neither Seth nor I slept soundly for several days afterward.

Present day

When that Facebook memory popped up yesterday I was astonished to find myself in tears. Honestly I don’t think about Gronckle daily anymore. And when I do think of him I feel a gut punch of worry about how he’s doing, but no urge to cry usually. Then today I saw an ambulance tv show where they were giving a 6 month old a breathing treatment and I had such a strong flashback to that dreadful night that I felt shaky and teary remembering it. It’s been 4 1/2 years since Gronckle went home but I still love that little boy so damn much.

When people ask me, “How do you let them go?” I have to reply that, “You just do because you have to. But it tears you apart.” I’ll never be whole because I love the children who have lived with us body and soul, and will always always miss them.

Mouse is the other kid I miss so much. She lived with us for about 18 months. She was our second medically fragile kid, and became the reason Seth went to nursing school. Her I do think of daily still, even though it’s been about 3 years since she went home.

Maybe there’s something about being with a kid who has teetered on the edge between life and death, and you feel like you’ve had a hand in making them tip decidedly toward life. Mouse was desperately, dangerously ill when she came to us, yet went home a happy, thriving, healthy, sturdy little kid.

Sprout is the third child who has teetered on that brink between life and death while in our care. And god only knows what it would do to me to lose her now. Things still look like they’re headed toward adoption but I won’t breathe easily until that actually has happened. And even so, it’s a tragedy that she can’t go home so I’ll always feel that. Foster care is so unpredictable and damnit, it’s fucking hard. Heartbreak and heartache are at the heart of it if you’re doing it right.

Even so, I don’t regret a single minute of it. Not even a second of it. I’d do it the same all over again.

Summer Heat and Fun… with a Side of Fatigue

So far this summer I have taken one or both girls to:

A carnival with rides and fireworks
Swimming at a local lake
Swimming at the local pool
Wading in a stream at a nearby park looking for crayfish
On a boat ride along the Erie Canal
To the MOST (the local kids’ science museum) for a big screen show on dinosaurs
On a trolley ride up the side of Onondaga Lake and back
To the big playground at Onondaga Lake Park
For ice cream at various local venues
To Destiny USA for a trip through Wonder Works and some ropes course time for Kiddo
To Howe Caverns for a tour of a giant cave on a 90+ degree day because at least it was cool underground

Not bad for someone with a seriously weak sad ankle still! Uneven ground at the playground and local swimming hole nearly did me in, but I persist in going such places and it’s slowly getting easier.

My Physician Assistant commented yesterday that my strength and range of motion at this stage of my ankle recovery are remarkable, and I told him I’ve been doing my physical therapy stretches and exercises daily. He called me a “unicorn” because “no one ever does their PT exercises daily at home.” Ha! But the truth is, I think my stubbornness in persisting in walking on uneven surfaces and for longer and longer distances is making just as much of a difference for my recovery. Stubbornness FTW!

But I digress.

Toes in the sand at the local swimming hole

Sprout also spent last week loving Manlius Pebble Hill, the private school where I went to high school. They have a summer program for pre-k kids and she enjoyed the heck out of it. I loved that school body and soul, and am so excited to have Sprout able to attend it even if all we can afford is one week per year. Sprout’s public school is doing well by her, and my private school isn’t great for kids with IEPs – that’s just not what it specializes in – so even if we had the money Sprout likely could not attend it. But that she loves it even for a week in the summer makes me happy. Kiddo is begging to go there for a week next summer too, so perhaps both my girls will love it.

Up next? In a few weeks, camping in Maine! I’m so excited I’ve already started packing and accumulating the stuff we need. I’ve planned a couple of kid friendly day trips from our campground. We’ll spend a day at another state park where they have both fresh and saltwater (brr) swimming. We’ll also spend a day or two at my favorite place in the United States: Quoddy Head State Park, where there’s a lighthouse, tide pools, bogs with carnivorous plants, and misty green magical walkways that weave from sunny coast to deep woods. I picked up inexpensive digital cameras for the kids so we can do some photography trips along the coast too.

Seth is worried about our trip. He’s afraid Sprout will be whiny because she’s overtired, and Kiddo will be a sulky mess, which is how she often is around him. Ah, trauma behaviors. I think they’ll be fine but then, I’m an eternal optimist. I also have perfected the Mom evil eye, as well as the ability to let sulking roll off my back like water off a duck, so tend to get good behavior and/or be unfazed by the bad that Seth is worried about.

That said, I’m truthfully a little worried about the Maine trip too. We will HAVE to have the tent pitched in the shade because I always have to nap. Every day. I can’t get by without one. All those fun trips listed above? All were preceded or followed by a long nap in the middle of the day. I can’t take the kids for a traditional day at the beach with picnic lunches because my body gives out part way through the day.

I can’t adequately describe the way the fatigue hits me. See above for statement re: my stubbornness, which is how I get through the activities at all. But by the end of each couple-hour outing I’m toast. My eyes shut. My body aches for sleep. My brain gets fuzzy. There’s nothing I can do to avoid the need to collapse and sleep for a few hours. And I mean nothing. I’ve tried gallons of coffee, and long sleeps at night (I sleep 10 hours a night generally). I’ve even tried prescription stimulants, which help (thank god) but don’t cut out the crushing need to sleep. They just postpone it for long enough periods that we can squeeze in some fun, then come home and nap. Or nap, then wring a little fun out of the remaining afternoon.

My kids are soooo gracious about it. I do sometimes get complaints from one or both that they want to stay somewhere longer, but both have been understanding overall, and cooperative with my nap schedule. Sprout usually sleeps when I do, or else has quiet time playing in her bed. And Kiddo just plays on her phone or watches something on tv. Kiddo this past weekend wanted to go play laser tag at the end of a busy morning, and when I asked her how set her heart was on playing, she just said “You need to nap? That’s ok. We’ll come another time. You need your sleep.” I teared up. From a 10-year-old? That’s a lot of grace.