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Confession: I hate pretend play

I’ve got a three year old and a 1 year old in the house on the daily, and a 9 year old on weekends. That’s a lot of kid time.

I think of myself as a good parent. My kids’ physical needs are always met, and met well. When kids come to us they’re often kind of gray around the edges, underweight, and needy. Within a short period of time we watch them grow rosy and fill out, and they start sleeping and eating and playing better because their stress levels have gone down. Our kids get lots of affection, a strict predictable schedule, good food, safe toys to play with, and firm boundaries of behavior that give them comfort and predictability.

We’ve seen time and again that kids thrive in our care. Even little Dude, who has only been with us for three weeks, has noticeably changed. He’s rosy cheeked and chubbier and gigglier and more confident. He’s lost the circles under his eyes and is no longer hoarse from being allowed to cry for long periods. He’s sleeping soundly through the night.

Seth is without question the fun parent. He loves to get down on the floor and play with the kids. He’s the parent who plays hide and seek, who gets climbed on, who tickles, who swings kids upside down, who is silly and goofy and gets rich belly laughs from the kids. He pretends to be a monster or a villain and stomps after them to delighted shrieks. He reads them books using goofy voices, and is just generally silly with them. Play comes naturally to him and he loves it and the kids love it too. He’s the rough houser, and the pretend play-er.

I, on the other hand, like play not at all. I DO get ridden like a pony and tickle and get into nerf gun fights. I will pretend to eat play food my kids have made me when they hand it to me. But for the most part I don’t initiate imaginative play with the kids and internally groan through it waiting for it to be over soon. I tend to play in 5 minute bursts then go back to adulting because 5 minutes at a time is about all I can take.

Imaginative play is the worst. Pretending a toy superhero is saving the day? Gah. Pretending to have a tea party? Double gah. Sword fight pretending I’m a pirate? Holy god, how long do I have to do it for?

Imaginative play isn’t in my nature.

That said, I do other things with the kids. I take them to Starbucks for creme Frappuccinos and we sing like maniacs in the car on the way there. I read them lots of books. I color with them. I take them to Legoland. I make slime with them, much to Seth’s dismay. I tend to do activities, not imaginative play. The 9 year old says I’m “the fun parent,” which thrills me no end considering how much I hate imaginative play with the kids.

For a long time I thought I was the bad parent because I hate imaginative play. I’d make myself do it for long periods of time and hate every minute. Then I’d make excuses not to do it for days at a time. And all the while I’d feel like a bad parent for not wanting to play with my kids.

I’ve come to realize that’s bullshit. Lots of parents hate imaginative play. And that’s totally ok and it does not make us bad parents.

You know what the CDC recommends? That you play with your kids in a kid-focused way 10 minutes a day.

For real.

I’m out ahead of that even on my least play-ey days.

So Moms and Dads who hate to engage in imaginative play? I see you. And you’re doing just fine. Make yourself do it for 11 minutes a day to beat that CDC recommendation and call it good. Or go do some activities with the kids that don’t make your soul shrivel. Read them a book, snuggle with them on the couch while watching a Pixar movie, talk to them about their day. It all counts. Let them help around the house as you do chores – they like feeling important. There are lots of ways to bond with kids and meet their needs for your attention without making yourself feel crazy. And no, there’s nothing wrong with you for feeing like playing with your kids imaginatively will break your brain.

A day in the life of a foster parent

5:30 am, Tiny toddles into our bedroom and asks for a hug. Seth and I peel our eyes open.

6:00 am, Dude man starts fussing in his crib. Baths, getting kids dressed, breakfast follow.

7:30 am, Seth takes the kids to daycare. Forgets Tiny’s glasses and mask.

8:30 am, our amazing daycare provider calls to let us know we forgot glasses for Tiny. I try to get work done.

9:50 am, I drive to daycare to get Dude and take him downtown (1/2 hour drive each way) for a visit with his Mommy and then a visit with his Daddy. His caseworker tells me she wishes all foster parents were so accommodating about transporting kids for visits. We chat about how Dude is doing.

10:20 am, Seth drives Tiny’s glasses to the school.

11:00 am, I get home from dropping Dude off. I do some work.

12:30 pm Dude gets dropped back off by the county transporter at home. I take him back to daycare.

1:30 pm Seth picks Tiny up at school.

2:00 pm County transporter picks up Tiny to take her an hour west for her visit with her Mommy.

3:00 pm I have virtual court for one of my cases.

3:35 pm Tiny’s caseworker calls to tell us Tiny’s Mommy was an hour and a half late for the visit and the transporter is not happy. Oh boy. This doesn’t bode well for getting the County to drive Tiny to future visits.

4:00 pm we rush to daycare to get Dude, then drive an hour west to get Tiny.

5:15 pm grab Tiny and chat with her Mommy, then stop for fast food dinner

5:40 pm start driving an hour and a half east to get Kiddo at her house

7:00 pm start playing soothing sleep music in the car in hopes it knocks overtired Dude out.

7:40 pm finally get Kiddo in the car

8:15 pm hopefully we’ll be home and putting kids in beds.

And today was a luxurious Friday because Seth happened to have the day off, and so we could spend some time together we both went for the long drive this evening. Every other Friday when Tiny has a visit I typically get to do the circuit by myself.

I’m ready to drop. And don’t want to see the inside of my car again for a week.

Bonding

I have a confession to make: I’ve had a hard time bonding with Little Dude so far. This is not uncommon, and is a fact of life for foster parents. Sometimes it takes a month or two for me to really develop a bond with a child and that month or two is hard.

Why am I having a harder time bonding with him? I don’t really know. What I’ve observed is that the kids I have a harder time bonding with initially are typically suuuuper active kids, not overly affectionate, and hard to keep up with. They’re the kids who are a lot of hard work to care for. I find this is a trait often found in boys though we’ve had one girl who was that way too.

Dude Man is a high energy kid. Our house is not really baby proof because we have toys for 9 and 3 year olds, so when Dude is down and roaming around he has to be watched constantly. And he’s soooo active! He’s walking like a little bow-legged champ, toddling about the whole house, blowing raspberries on toys and reaching for everything and putting things in his mouth and babbling loudly. By the end of an evening I can’t wait to get him in bed so I can SIT DOWN and hear myself think. He’s hard to feed – Mr Independent sucks at eating off a spoon! It’s slow and painful and frustrating unless it’s finger foods he can feed himself. In short, he’s requiring more energy than some of our other kids and I don’t have vast reserves of energy because of my health issues.

Thankfully the kid is growing on me in a way that tells me I’ll love him like my other kids – heart and soul – with a little more time. This morning when he woke up he was in a super snuggly mood, out of the blue, and that helps tremendously with bonding. Hugs and a kid nuzzling into my neck has an amazingly heart warming effect. And he’s got a wicked little grin that, when I see it, makes me feel warm and fuzzy and amused.

I had said previously that we would be taking girls rather than boys, and that’s for a whole variety of reasons. We have more girl clothing, if we need to swap bedrooms around we can, and because Seth and I both bond faster with girls usually. It doesn’t really make sense, but it’s a fact we’ve observed over time. When we got the call for Dude Man, the head of Homefinding is the person who called and she just asked if we wanted “babies.” We said yes, and then she said “he” and I realized we’d just said yes to a boy rather than a girl. In the grand scheme of things it’s fine – we’ll love Dude like we love all our kids – but it does make for a slightly harder start.

I’ve wrestled with this fact about myself – that I have trouble bonding with some of our kids. What does it mean about me? Does it mean I don’t love kids like I think I do? Does it make me a bad mom? But over time I’ve come to accept it as a fact of foster care. I think it’s a fact of mothering in general – I have friends who had a harder time bonding with one of their bio kids than another. Some kids are the right “fit” from the start, and others just take a bit more time and work. Love for different kids can feel different, and that’s ok, so long as they’re being treated with equity and kindness and patience even if those sentiments are a little harder to muster.

Perhaps this weekend I’ll take Dude Man somewhere alone. That helps with bonding too – focusing solely on one kid’s experiences interacting with the world. Maybe the zoo, or maybe a playground. I’ll come up with something. I’ll keep working on the bonding thing until it comes naturally. And I’ll be relieved and happy when I finally feel full heathy attachment to our little Dude Man.

A Diagnosis?

I wrote a little while ago about my ongoing health issues, and wanted to do a brief follow up report on where things stand.

I got a colonoscopy and endoscopy done in the end of August. Lots of odds and ends issues were found, including a polyp in my stomach that would have turned into stomach cancer had we not caught it and removed it. So, get your routine screenings done!!! My polyp friend was found during the endoscopy which is unusual – usually they’re found during colonoscopies. Colon cancer and of course stomach cancer are killers. If you’re over the recommended age, get your colonoscopy done. Just… do it. Poop yourself inside out for a Good Cause. It makes for a really crappy day of prep (see what I did there?) but it’s totally worth it.

After 7 biopsies, only one came back with anything truly substantial, and it said I have proctitis. Rectal inflammation. I had petechiae in my colon too, indicating something in my immune system is attacking my intestines. That is what we had suspected for a long long time, but this confirmed it.

I also waited 4 months from referral to get into a rheumatology practice, which is apparently a miraculously short waiting period around here. There’s a massive shortage of rheumatologists. And that’s where the pieces are starting to come together.

The woman I saw at the rheumatologist is great. She did a thorough physical exam, asked me tons of weird questions, and came to two conclusions: 1) I have fibromyalgia, which my husband and I have suspected for years, and 2) I have psoriatic arthritis, which is attacking my intestines, my eyes, and my joints. X-rays confirmed her suspicions enough to move forward with treatment.

Will that diagnosis hold? I don’t honestly know. Autoimmune diseases are notoriously difficult to diagnose and treat. But for now that’s what it looks like and we are moving forward with treatment.

Interestingly, one of the front line treatments for psoriatic arthritis is the medication my old GP put me on 12 or so years ago, which worked great for ages until supply problems cut me off. The really wonderful news is that the rheumatologist is a part of Upstate Medical University, which as a massive research facility is big enough and has enough clout to get its hands on sulfasalazine, which is the medication I’ve been unable to get from smaller pharmacies. So in a small dose of irony, I’m just back on my old medication after a whole lot of testing and enough x-rays to glow in the dark, but with some more information backing the prescription.

Will I also need a biological like Humira added to my regimen? Probably. But first we are going to see what happens to all my inflammation and pain and fatigue once I’m back on the working dose of sulfasalazine for a while. It’s tricky in that some of my pain and fatigue are actually the fibromyalgia. But the inflammation – markers for which are sky high at the moment – is the critical marker for monitoring how the psoriatic arthritis responds to the sulfasalazine. If my x-rays show improvement, and my WBC and ESR and calprotectin go back down with just sulfasalazine, that would be wonderful.

The upshot of all of this? I’m feeling decent right now just out of sheer coincidence. Flare ups happen and suck, but I appear to be on the back side of one fatigue-wise at the moment. And I’m feeling hopeful that maybe we’ve figured out what’s been going on for the last 14 years. And I’m feeling hopeful that I’ve got a team who will figure out good treatment options. AND I feel like my team will adapt and follow the evidence if it turns out psoriatic arthritis isn’t the right diagnosis and we need to do more digging.

What’s it like to have a diagnosis after FOURTEEN DAMN YEARS?!? I feel seen and heard and believed. It’s the last one that is so important. I’ve been dismissed as crazy or hysterical or hypochondriac for so long, that to have an actual team of not one but THREE doctors (GP, gastroenterologist, and rheumatologist) believe me is… making me feel sane. It gets to you, the disbelief. Despite my knowing my symptoms were real, I spent 14 years second guessing myself. I feel like I can breathe a little easier and trust myself a little more now.

And I’m so hopeful that I’ll start feeling better. There isn’t really treatment for fibromyalgia, just management. But if my intestines get better and my joints get better and my fatigue gets better, then dude. I can handle the lingering symptoms of fibromyalgia. I’ve been through worse.

School District Love

I love our school district. I don’t feel like many people feel that way especially during Covid.

Let’s talk about Covid first. My school district stayed open for in person learning all last year. Some kids elected to do remote learning, and the school buildings are large enough, that they cancelled the three-year-old program to open up some classroom space in the elementary school, and otherwise remained open. They closed for two weeks before Christmas so that no one would have to be quarantined over Christmas but that was it.

Masks were mandated early and enforced thoroughly. Social distancing was enforced. The school asked parents to self transport whenever possible so that they would have enough space on buses to social distance. The district encouraged teachers to get Covid shots ASAP when they first became available and we had one of the highest rates of teacher vaccination in the area for a long time – maybe still do. They worked with the next county over to hold shot clinics for kids old enough to get vaccinated right at the schools. And now the school district got its hands on a bunch of rapid tests so if kids get sent to the nurse, with parent permission, they can be tested immediately. That way cases can be isolated fast, and kids who don’t have Covid don’t have to miss days of school while they wait for less quick test results.

Mind you, this district is not without its challenges for our kids. It’s a Very White district and that presents problems for our kids of color, big time. But I can say that the administration and staff and school board have been nothing but excellent to us so far.

I’ll start with Tiny. Tiny’s teacher is On Top of her services, and super accommodating, and Tiny loves her. The school Principal knows Tiny. The office staff know Tiny. Mind you, Tiny is so tiny and adorable that she stands out from a crowd, but still. I love that I call the office about picking Tiny up early from school and the office staff rave about how cute and sweet my kid is and don’t have to ask what class she’s in because they know all the kids.

The district rocked with regard to Miss Kicks, too. When Miss Kicks went missing, the high school principal called me concerned. He offered to help in any way he could, and called a couple more times over the summer, worrying about her.

Miss Kick’s English teacher went waaaaay out of her way to help develop a summer curriculum for Miss Kicks. Too bad it was wasted effort, but I appreciated the hell out of it and got some good reading material for myself out of it at least. She totally got that Miss Kicks was one Black kid in a sea of white, adapted her summer curriculum for Miss Kicks to include mostly books by and about Black folks, and quietly cheered Miss Kicks when she wore her Black Lives Matter sweatshirt to school. Her teacher and I had a great conversation about race, Black Lives Matter, Miss Kicks’s experiences there as a Black kid, and the English literature canon’s whiteness. So even if it’s a white district, at least some teachers get it, as much as any white person can.

There’s a LOT to be said for kids seeing themselves in the students they are surrounded by, and the whiteness of our district is going to be hard on our kids of color who attend it. But at least we’re surrounded by smart, science-respecting, kind, caring teachers and administrators who – so far anyway – are doing right by our kids.

I think there’s a lot to be said for small schools. I attended a high school – Manlius Pebble Hill – where my graduating class had 48 students in it. I attended Colby College in Maine, which had only about 1800 students when I was there. And I attended a small law school at Cornell. Give me the choice between a big district and a small one, and I’d choose our small district every time.

How it’s going 🥴

Some good news about our new addition? he sleeps through the night! 6:30 pm to 7 am. Not a peep.

Some bad news? Little Dude does not nap worth spit. He’s a 20 minute power napper once around 11:30 each day. In fact, he passed out in my arms like Boo in Monsters Inc. today, laughing one second, unconscious and falling off my lap the next. But 20 minutes later he was raring to go again!

I’ve been home with him today because we won’t have paperwork for daycare until this evening. Curses on HIPAA, the doctor’s office can’t email us the forms we need and we have to get them by fax (I don’t have a fax number) or pick them up in person, so I sent Seth to get them after work.

I pray the daycare papers are all in order because this day has been… nightmarish. I had to do an emergency Order to Show Cause for two of my little clients this morning because they are in danger, and I’m stressing about them Big Time right now. That involved numerous phone calls and printing and scanning, and the downstairs scanner wouldn’t work so I had to carry 25 lbs of baby up to my attic to scan, twice, while he scattered papers around my office.

And then I had 5 virtual court appearances. Thank goddess the Judge had a sense of humor about my “assistant” because Little Dude insisted on sitting on my lap during each and every appearance, and chatted away amiably the whole time I was talking. My right arm aches from holding/containing Little Dude, and my head aches a bit from stress. But we got through, and now I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off to entertain him.

Little Dude is currently laughing hysterically while whacking himself repeatedly in the head with some toy rings. He’s in his baby containment unit. It’s the only way to survive this tot. Otherwise he leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, and tries to eat the cat food.

I’m noticing a trend among our kids that I think is fascinating: our boys have all been super sensitive and super needy. Tell Little Dude “no” and he falls to pieces. Walk out of the room for 1/15th of a second and he cries. Our girls have all been more independent and mostly more chill. I wonder if there’s a larger trend that way or if it’s just coincidence among our kids? We’ve had only 5 boys with us so I don’t exactly have robust statistics, but it’s interesting. My husband, who is a labor and delivery nurse, says it’s always the boys who are the “drama queens” in utero, crashing suddenly at the slightest medical issue. If you parent both boys and girls, comment with your observations below!

Regarding Little Dude’s Blog moniker, it was essentially given to him by his “big” sister Tiny. During a brief car trip last night, Litte Dude was losing his mind for no apparent reason. He was fed, he was dry, he was just being fussy. Nothing I could do about it until we got home.
After enduring a few minutes of bellowing, I heard a piping Tiny voice from the back seat:
“Dude. Give it a rest.”

Seth and I just burst out laughing. The unexpected humor is the best part of parenting! And our new babe shall henceforth and forever be known as “Dude.”

Baby, Take 2

I got the call from the head of the Homefinding unit on Friday at 11:20 am. Could we take two babies?? One 4 weeks old and the other just about to turn 1.

I called Seth who was working but thankfully between c-sections at that moment and he picked up. I begged for both. He (wisely) said no. I made him call the head of Homefinding back and she informed him she’d called the ENTIRE LIST of foster parents and no one could take both, and she’d have to split the babies, and would we take just one?

I’m so sad that we can’t keep the siblings together. I HATE being a part of splitting siblings. Thank god the baby is so little that the doesn’t know much about what’s going on. It’s still absolutely heartbreaking.

I called our amazing daycare provider and asked her which kid she could take, and she said the 1 year old – she could not take the 4 week old once he turned 6 weeks. So that settled it. We were going to take an almost 1 year old baby boy and there was truly no way we could take both kids. I could finagle 2 weeks of baby holding at home, but need daycare after that.

It turns out our new little dude was already in a foster home and had been for almost 2 weeks. He was supposed to stay there for only Labor Day weekend but the County couldn’t find another place for the kids so they got left there for a couple of weeks. The sweet foster mom was going out of her ever loving mind with two teen kids, three-year-old twins, a 1-year-old, and a 4-week-old. My god. I would have been losing my mind too!

Our little guy cried and cried when I took him from his foster mom. He’d already bonded with her and felt safe with her and who the heck is this strange white lady taking him away?? God I hate that part of foster care. Being a part of breaking kids’ hearts and bonds is brutally hard. He eventually fell asleep in my car and when he woke up he was much more chill, and Tiny was there to comfort him too.

I’m hoping? The kids will be placed together somewhere soon? I hate the idea of their staying separated. But there’s no way we can take the sibling without daycare. Gah.

Plus I’m honestly not sure I could juggle that many kids. We’d need a new car STAT. And I might need to quit my job. It would be a huge stretch for me. Just with Tiny and our new little guy I struggled Friday evening because little man can’t be out of eye shot of me or he freaks out, the house isn’t baby proof yet, and the bottles I needed and the diapers I needed were all the way in the attic. How the heck to get there without leaving the kids alone for a few minutes was an impossibility. I called Seth and begged him to hurry home, and he and Kiddo made fun of me for saying I could take both siblings when I could not handle the 3-year-old and 1-year-old together for a few hours. I protested that if we had already gotten the playpen out and the diapers and the bottles out I’d have been fine, but I get their point!

Here’s what scares me terribly about this whole situation. Foster homes in my county are FULL. And there’s always a rush of CPS calls and removals in late September as kids get back to school and teachers and psychologists realize there are serious problems at home for some of the kids. Where on god’s green earth are THOSE poor kids going to go if no one has beds available now? It’s a scary prospect.

For now, our beds are full too. More critically, our car is full. No room for more kids. Possibly no sanity left for more kids.

But I’m happy as a clam wallowing in kid chaos with a fat baby to love on and my toddler to love on and my 9-year-old to love on on weekends.

Misalignment

One of the biggest challenges Seth and I have with fostering is that we are not always on the same page. We are always great teammates when it comes to fostering the kids who are in our care. But where we disagree is regarding what – or who – will come next.

I want all the kidzzzzzz. Every call we get for a girl age 11 or under? I want to take.

Seth wants none of the kids. He’s super hesitant every time (except once – keep reading). In fact, it’s a pattern for Seth in general – he always and immediately thinks of all the bad things that could go wrong – not just about fostering but about life in general – to the point where his therapist has called him on it, but the behavior persists. And it’s led to some of our biggest relationship crises.

We recently got a call for a tween girl with spina bifida. She’s quite disabled. But she’s the same ethnicity as Tiny and she’s freed for adoption and I thought she’d be an important addition to our family for Tiny’s sake and her sake.

I thought through the need for modifications to our home and talked with the case worker about funding for them. I thought through the vehicle we’d need. And I thought through after school and summer care. You name it, I thought of it, and had worked out a plan.

Seth dug in his heels with a hard no. I’m still not entirely sure why but he did. He was afraid it would be too much for him to take on, even though I’m the primary caregiver and medical appointment and transportation person. To be fair, this gal would need a lot of work. I was ready for it. He was not.

We discussed and discussed and discussed. In a fit of pique with me, he announced he was fine with the 1 1/2 kids we’ve got and doesn’t feel the need for another kid at all. Aaaaaand that dumped me into a bit of a tail spin. Because all along I’ve wanted one more kid and he’s said he was down for that.

We slept on it. Or rather he slept on it and I mulled everything over ad nauseum all night.

Come morning he admitted he felt he was being selfish and was ok with another kid. He realized that fostering kids is my greatest source of joy, and he has other sources of joy that I don’t share (rock climbing and cycling and friendships) and he was really alright with another kid so he needed to support me in that. Bless him. A child is no small undertaking and I’m so glad he’s willing to take on another for me.

But not the child with spina bifida. He was immovable on that subject.

Fair enough. I’ll probably always be sad about her and wonder “what ifs” but relationships are about compromise and he was compromising so I needed to do so too.

I made him email the case worker with our regrets and apologies though. I was too chicken to do it.

This evening we talked about who he WILL take and he decided on… (drumroll please)…

A baby. ?!?!?

This baffles me a little because babies? They are A LOT OF WORK. I’m willing of course but hot diggety, a colicky baby ain’t much less work than a child with spina bifida. I guess they grow up and outgrow some of the needs but dang, sleepless nights are the pits!

He feels a baby would be the best fit for the kids we’ve got and I concede he has a point based on the fact that the wee one we had for a week was adored and doted on and fought over by the girls.

Present crisis averted. It won’t be the last. It wasn’t the first.

After Gronckle was sent to live with a relative in seriously shitty circumstances, Seth wanted to “take a break.” I thought at first I wanted a break too but after about a week I couldn’t take it and wanted to open back up. After discussing it, I told Seth he could have a month off but I needed to take in kids again after that.

By the time the month was up, he broke the deal and said he “still wasn’t ready” and was still enjoying the break. I was going out of my ever loving mind with grief for Gronckle and needed a distraction and a new person to love on. We fought pretty bitterly that time too.

A few days later he returned one of the county’s placement calls and said yes, much to my bemusement. His explanation? His gut told him it was the right call to say yes to. That call was for Mouse, who changed his entire career path, so I have to concede he was dead nuts on. She WAS the right call to say yes to!

Anyone who says relationships aren’t hard work is crazy. I unquestionably have “one of the good ones” and yet it still takes lots of discussion, and therapy (separately and sometimes together), and more discussion, and a lot of compromise, and a lot of trusting the other person’s instincts. Seth and I are a work in progress still, 21 years in. Hopefully many still to go.

And then she was gone

Sweet babykins spent a week with us.

On Tuesday I called the triage caseworker to ask about forms for daycare (a triage worker is someone who helps with initial placement of kids until a more permanent caseworker can get assigned). Before I could ask my question, she let me know that baby had a relative who was “checking out,” which is county speak for passing a background check and having a suitable home. She was kind and sympathetic. And I was sad.

On Wednesday around 1:30 she called and told me custody had officially transferred to the relative the day before, and we needed to get the baby to her family ASAP, and could I bring her and her things downtown to the county office?

So I packed up the few spare items baby came with, some extra onesies, a bunch of formula, the open container of oatmeal cereal. I dug a pair of cute Nike sneakers out of the attic to send her off in. She left with two bags when she had arrived with one.

Then I popped over to daycare where our beloved daycare provider looked bereft as she handed me the babe, and baby and I went downtown. I left baby with meager instructions about what she likes with the triage worker, kissed baby goodbye, and that was that.

Tiny is taking it well so far but I think there will be tears in the morning when she goes to wake “her” baby and remembers she isn’t there. I just told Tiny baby went to live with her family and she seemed to accept that explanation. It has got to be so strange to be Tiny who is always here, watching kids come and go. We have had other short term placements since Tiny has been here and she just takes it in stride, but it has to be hard on her.

Kiddo will be a tearful mess when I tell her baby has moved on. Ugh. I’m dreading that. She is old enough to understand a great deal more than Tiny. And I’m sure Kiddo remembers her less-than-successful return to her father when she was 5, and she worries about the kids who leave us.

Tiny and I are eating Cheez-Its and drinking juice, and commiserating by watching Super Hero Girls Teen Power, which is her current fav tv show. It’s awful. So I’m blogging so my brain doesn’t explode in response to the squealing teen girl sounds emanating from my television.

Tomorrow I’ll pick up the baby’s room, put up the awesome posters my friend C sent for decorating that room, work, play with Tiny, and go on with life.

I’ve already started wondering who the next kid who joins us will be, and how long they’ll stay.

The Sprinkles

I am supposed to be reading 1100 pages of medical records for a work case right now, but most sincerely do NOT WANT TO READ 1100 PAGES OF MEDICAL RECORDS RIGHT NOW. Thus, I blog!

I’ve never really introduced some of our family members, and it’s always fun to talk about one’s pets, so here are some of the many sprinkles on our chaos cupcake:

Sneakers. The matriarch. The mouth of the family. Alerts us loudly when there’s no water in the water bowl or when she can see the bottom of her food dish between the remaining bits of kibble. Snuggly. Snotty because she seems to be allergic to everything. Will happily be a sleep cap on Seth’s head at night until she gets kicked off for sneezing snot all over his face. Known by the judges I appear virtually before and the professors who taught Seth in nursing school because she never shuts up.

Wednesday. A.K.A. “the evil void.” Will happily smack you in the back of the head as you walk down the stairs. Pees on everything in the house, so often gets exiled to the (finished) attic that is my office where many of the litter boxes live. Lucky me. Hates Le Shittén with an abiding passion. Hates Sneakers a little less than Le Shittén but still a lot. Hates most things. Likes to use my boobs as a shelf. Vomits up a furball a day, usually on a rug in a place where it’s sure to be discovered by my bare feet.

Rocky. Sweetest cat ever to have lived. A former rolling stone, he became semi tamed when we neutered him and ended his roving lifestyle. Adopted us when he got injured badly in a fight and showed up on the doorstep all bloody. A peacekeeper in the family, who reluctantly protects Le Shittén from herself when she starts fights with other neighborhood cats by the simple expedient of sitting between the hissing morons. Still a little wild at heart.

Pippin aka “Fluffernutter” or “Flubkins”

Pippin. A gigantic fluffy bowling ball of a cat. Sweet, good natured, and easy going. Gets along with absolutely everyone and tolerates being pounced and gnawed on by Le Shittén. Happily eats at every single neighbor’s house. Loves little kids despite their manhandling. Will intentionally come inside around noon on weekends hoping to get to nap snorgled up with the toddler.

The cat, the myth, the legend, Le Shittén. Real name is Astrid. Responds to various swear words and thinks they’re her name. Irritates all the other cats in the house endlessly. Stalks the guinea pigs. Claws the woodwork. Gets on the forbidden counters and table. Trips people throughout the whole house. Pees on clean laundry. Snags people’s clothes by climbing them. Starts spats with neighborhood cats 3x her size. Drags the toddler’s toys down the stairs (thump, thump, thump, thump) and kicks the living ish out of them for no reason, sometimes gutting a favorite stuffy. Climbs on people’s laps just to give them the Eye of Sauron to the face. Is a secret love muffin with a massive crush on Seth. Tolerates being dressed up and carried around by the kids.

Bacon. A scaredy cat piggy with luxurious locks and an abiding love for Kiddo. Spent her time hiding and shaking until we got…

Waffles. A baby piggy with a lot of spastic energy, a squeal that will set off the baby monitor down the hall and around the corner, and a massive appetite for hay.

So there you have it, our fur-bearing lunatics in all their glory! Photo gallery below: