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The Power a Good Foster Parent Has

This week I shot an email to Sunny’s attorney and asked her to give me a call when she got the chance. She did so promptly, and I told her in no uncertain terms that Sunny is struggling emotionally here more and more as time passes, and that both her therapist and I think it’s time for her to go home where she so desperately wants to be. I suggested perhaps a return after the end of this school year would make sense.

The attorney – with whom we’ve worked for years now and for whom we have a lot of respect – asked about the older sister’s status and I explained how she’s doing medically. Then the attorney simply said “Okay. I’ll give the [agency] attorney a call about sending [Sunny] home to her [relative].”

Two days later the attorney called me back and said she’d talked with the agency’s attorney and case worker and they were on board with a return at the end of the school year. And she said she hopes that brings this poor kid some peace – just knowing she’ll be going home at a date certain.

As I was about to hang up, the attorney said, “I just want to tell you that you are the best foster parents there are. I wish they were all like you. Your advocacy for these kids has been exemplary and never ending and I appreciate it. Just let us know when you want another placement!”

I teared up, because god knows it’s been hard to decide what to do and how to advocate for the kids in this family. The agency has been incredibly hard to deal with at times in the nearly 4 years this family has had kids placed with us. Don’t get me wrong: we’ve had some incredibly wonderful case workers over that time – women I came to care about a great deal because of how they cared for the kids. We’ve also had some spectacularly bad case workers in that time. And agency higher ups who dislike us are always miserable for us to deal with.

I can’t tell if the current worker is just overwhelmed by the demands of the job, clueless, or uncaring. I suspect the former. But sometimes it comes across as one of the latter two and that just infuriates me because every single kid in foster care deserves to be treated with respect and care, and to have their best interests pushed for. Period. That hasn’t always happened for this family.

I mean, as a dumb but scary example, at the last visit the case worker took Sunny on she didn’t read the case file notes that Sunny requires a booster seat because of her dwarfism, and just plunked her in the back seat and put the seatbelt cross strap behind Sunny’s back. If they’d been in an accident on that snowy day, Sunny would very likely have been killed. I think my eyeballs nearly popped out of my head and I swallowed my tongue when Sunny told me it had happened. What would cause a case worker to be so careless about a child’s basic safety? Gah! You can bet I’ll be buckling Sunny into the car on her next visit myself!

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that Sunny is very likely going home at the end of the school year. The attorney had been pushing hard for her to stay with us permanently because from her perspective that was what was in Sunny’s best interest, and I get why. She gets the best medical care here, and the best education here. But all I had to do was say I felt going home was in her best interest and within a couple of days, that became the plan. Why? Because the attorney trusts me implicitly about all this because she’s seen what we are willing to do and put on the line in our advocacy for kids. She knew if I was saying Sunny needs to go home, there’s damn good reason for my saying it and that I’ve weighed the pros and cons thoroughly and made a measured decision.

We still have to get the judge on board at the Permanency Hearing coming up in April, but I don’t think it will be an issue. The judge, too, trusts me. She’s seen me advocate in her courtroom on this case and on others. If I explain that Sunny’s therapist and I both feel strongly that she needs to be with the rest of her family for good, that’s what will happen.

Speaking of Sunny’s therapist, we had a long talk about how Sunny is doing the other day. It was super productive and helpful and will shape her therapeutic treatment plan for the rest of the time Sunny is here. When Seth and I explained some of the behaviors that we are seeing suddenly appear, and others that are escalating, the therapist noted they sound like Reactive Attachment Disorder. Sunny is constantly testing how far she can push us and still be loved. It’s exhausting beyond words. Somehow hearing the therapist say that was an “a ha!” moment for me. It is like she’s developing RAD. And RAD has got to be one of the hardest disorders to parent, I swear.

So I’m not crazy in thinking this child is difficult to parent. I’m not crazy thinking this child is seriously struggling here. And I’m not crazy in thinking she needs to go home because her emotional well-being is more important than having the very best doctor or the very best school district. Emotional well-being underlies everything else. It’s the foundation. And if this young girl is never going to be okay not being with her family, then she needs to be with her family. Period.

I feel like I can breathe better these past two days, knowing we have a plan for her return home to her relative and her other three siblings. She’ll be with aunts and uncles and siblings daily, speaking Burmese, eating Burmese food, and living in her culture. She’ll just plain be home.

I am worried, of course, about Sprout and how she’s going to do without her sister here. Sigh. There’s never a good answer in foster care. It’s probably time to get Sprout on a wait list for a therapist so she’s got extra support when her sister leaves. But Sprout has a great support system here and is where she feels she belongs, and she’s a strong resilient kid. I think she’ll be okay.

And with luck, so will Sunny.

Struggling to Parent Sunny

I’ve written before about how Sunny is a difficult kid to parent. I’m not sure I’ve really emphasized that enough, though.

Folks, I’m struggling with parenting her fairly.

Sunny has learned, through no fault of her own, to be manipulative and pushy. Those were attributes that got her needs met when she was home with her Mama for 8 years.

She CAN be a super sweet kid. Briefly. At times. But more often than not she is a challenge for me.

One way she challenges me? Asking for things in ways that trigger me. For example, instead of asking “Mom, could I get piano lessons?” She says in a sulky voice: “How come you haven’t gotten me lessons so I can learn to play this thing?” Instead of saying “Mom, [Sprout] needs her nails cut, she’ll say “Why haven’t you cut [Sprout’s] claws yet?”

When I say this is how she phrases every question, I am not exaggerating one little iota. It’s always accusatory. Every time. And it pushes my buttons.

She’s also got a habit of dropping her garbage on my floors. Bits of play doh, straw wrappers (I had to ban juice boxes from my house), candy wrappers that she didn’t get permission to eat but magically found somehow, tiny scraps of paper that she’s cut up (I had to hide all the kids’ scissors), her probiotic bottles (she took to stuffing those into the couch rather than dropping them on the floor). It’s a habit she developed at home I think because her Mom picked up everything for her? I’m not really sure why the habit developed but having been to their old apartment buildings I know the ground outside the house and the stairwell inside were covered in litter, though inside the apartment itself was picked up.

Let me tell you, the garbage on the floor thing is slowly driving me ‘round the twist. We always make her pick it up herself, which she complains about and does as slowly as humanly possible. We’ve tried taking away privileges, assigning chores, and I’ve even resorted to yelling a couple of times when I just plain lost my cool about it. Nothing works. She doesn’t respect her space, or my space, enough to keep garbage off the surfaces. Or else she thinks it’s someone else’s job to clean up after her. Or else… I don’t know what else, it’s just exasperating in the extreme to come into a room that’s been coated liberally in trash by Sunny.

Sunny also is extremely manipulative with her little sister Sprout. The phrases “Do it or I won’t play with you any more,” and “Do you want me to tell Mom you did x? [Do what I want you to] or I will!” are uttered over and over again to get Sprout to play the way Sunny wants her to, and to get Sprout to be Sunny’s little servant, fetching things for her and picking up after her. I intervene when I hear the utterances, but I know I miss a ton of them.

Those are just a few examples of what frustrate me. There are more but you get the gist.

I have a hard time not feeling perpetual frustration with Sunny from all those little things that add up. And what happens is that I feel like I’m unfair to her. I don’t feel generous toward her and say “no” to her way too often. I know I should be creating opportunities to say yes to appropriate requests. I should also be building Sunny up as best I can. I should be having her rephrase things politely and then saying yes when it’s appropriate.

But sheesh. I am human, after all. And it all gets to me and makes me just want to say no to every single demand/request she utters. And it makes me want to YELL because of built up frustration.

Sunny doesn’t get spontaneous affection out of me the way Sprout does. Sprout is such a good kid. She’s genuinely affectionate and loving. When Sunny demands “I want a hug,” my visceral response is often that I don’t want to hug her because of built up frustrations over the course of the day, the week, the year. I try to make myself give her hugs but suck at doing it spontaneously.

I’m in therapy, and have an amazeballs therapist. We talk a lot about parenting Sunny. I’m also listening to podcasts on parenting difficult kids. I’ve read a lot of great parenting books over the years. But I cannot seem to break out of this current funk I have regarding parenting Sunny. Every time I make progress she utters a particularly egregious statement and I feel set back. Sunny is also in therapy and gives her therapist a great deal of shit too.

I understand a lot of how she got to where she is. I have seen how her Mama functions (or sometimes doesn’t). I’ve seen how her siblings interact. I get that Sunny developed habits to get her needs met and 8 years of fundamental development doesn’t disappear overnight. But despite knowing all that, my compassion fatigue is real right now, especially after a week off school when Sunny and I have been together 24/7 for eight days now.

Because I’m a foster parent to Sunny and because her status with us is in constant limbo, both my husband and I have found ourselves wishing the court and agency would finally do what has been threatened for ages, and send her to live with the relative who is caring for her brothers and sister. It is, after all, what Sunny wants to have happen. Is it what’s best for Sunny? Lord knows. There is no “best” answer for her. She’s getting a better education here in our tiny district that is pouring all the services it can into her than she would in a big impoverished city district where her relative lives. She’s getting the best medical care available in the world while she’s with us. She’s got more material things here than she’d have there, but I’m not convinced that matters. She’d have stricter discipline there – her relative takes no prisoners – and that might actually be better for her. My gentler parenting ain’t getting us anywhere.

At this point I’m fairly convinced that sending her to her relative is what’s best for her. I think frustration about her situation is not helping with any of her behaviors. She wants to be home with her siblings and relatives. Period. And I can’t say as I blame her.

What would the fallout be here if she goes home? It would, frankly, at this point be a lot of relief for my husband and me. Less stress, more energy to devote to Sprout and Kiddo. Sooo much less daily frustration.

But Sprout? Oh my god. She’d be devastated to lose her sister. They play together and giggle together a great deal, and I hate to think of Sprout growing up without any siblings in her life except for monthly or every other monthly visits to see her family.

Gah. There is no good solution here. I am still leaning toward Sunny going home as being what’s best but it’s a close call. It’s what’s best for me, but my needs are hardly what matter. It’s the kids’ needs that are so important.

Foster parenting kids who have experienced trauma and grown up in dysfunctional families is not for the faint of heart. And foster parent compassion fatigue is a real thing. I know, because I’m awash in it. Awash in compassion fatigue, and rude demands and bossiness and litter on my floors and counters and tables and couches…

Food Insecurity Fallout

Sunny has taken to complaining that we have too much food in the house. It’s making me think about childhood food insecurity and how much it messes with people.

Sunny grew up food insecure for her first 8 years. Her pantry was always absolutely bare except for bulk bags of rice. Everything else was purchased as needed and cooked and eaten right away. She did get some nutritious ethnic Burmese meals, but also, like most folks living in poverty, had a lot of nutrient-poor food because it was what was cheap and available at the corner stores near her Mama’s constantly changing apartments.

When she came to us, she instantly started hoarding food. I found food stuffed in pillow cases in her room, between her bed and the wall, and under her mattress. Sometimes when kids hoard food I’ve had to put baskets of wrapped snacks in their rooms so it’s less sticky and inviting to ants. But with Sunny I never had to do that. I just had to explain to her that the pantry was open to her and there was a kid-height shelf of snacks she could eat any time, and that the fruit on the counter or in the fridge was always always fair game. That was enough reassurance to stop her food hoarding. She still occasionally hoards candy in play backpacks, but I think that’s mostly just ordinary kid behavior – she’s trying to stash candy so she can sneak some when I’m not looking. Meh, not a big deal to me.

We are struggling mightily with her eating still. She eats and eats and eats. She’ll eat a snack and instantly want dinner right afterward, then want another snack again right after that. With her hip dysplasia and congenital knee deformations, her weight matters a great deal when it comes to her mobility and pain levels.

I’m fighting a terrible battle. I want her to lose weight for her joints and pain levels as recommended by her dwarfism-specialist orthopedic surgeon, but I don’t want to give her a complex about her weight. We live in a weight-conscious nightmare of a society when it comes to girls especially, and the last thing this kid needs is self-consciousness about her weight. She’s already terribly self conscious about her height. I want her to be able to eat when she’s hungry because a) that’s healthy, and b) we are still fighting the after-effects of food insecurity and hunger is a trauma trigger for her. But I don’t want her to overeat, which is absolutely her inclination.

I relate to her so hard. I am on weight loss medication because I overeat too. I overeat when I’m anxious or bored, and I see the exact same pattern in her.

All I can do is encourage healthier options for snacks, and limit sugary drinks and candy. I can cook healthy meals rather than letting her eat junk food, but the amount of cooking I can do at any time varies depending on my own health. If I’m unwell, I resort to quick easy air fryer options like chicken nuggets and French fries. Sigh. Less than ideal but it’s sometimes all fatigue levels will let me manage.

Back to complaining about too much food in the house, is she feeling too tempted to eat when there’s a lot of food? Is she feeling bad for folks who don’t have food and wishing we’d donate more of what we have? I really don’t know. I do donate a bunch to our local food pantry and some to our church’s outreach program that distributes food to those in need. I also donate to individuals who are in need of food pretty often, through a local Facebook site that helps those in need. Maybe I need to make Sunny aware of how much we give. Or maybe I need to make some foods inaccessible to her so she isn’t tempted. I don’t know. It’s a conundrum, and I think perhaps her therapist needs to get involved in her food dependence generally.

Note to self: text Sunny’s therapist.

Sunny isn’t the only food insecure kid we’ve had. Not by a long shot.

Food insecurity is also what landed Sprout with us. The poor kid was less than 2 years old and was still being breast fed, but Mom wasn’t producing enough or supplementing it enough with other foods. She came to us with failure to thrive so severe she was anorexic, which can happen in babies who aren’t getting the nutrients and calories they need. She just had stopped eating, stopped wanting to live. My husband and I were astute enough and stubborn enough to get her eating tiny sips of pediasure by injecting it into her mouth with a medicine syringe every 20-30 minutes around the clock, and thus managed to avoid a feeding tube and hospitalization. But those first few days with a listless baby who didn’t want to eat or drink or interact were heartbreaking and terrifying. She turned the corner and never looked back, and now eats a healthy amount and variety of foods for her size, but man were the early days hard and scary.

The 2-year-old twins we had were food insecure too. They gained about 2 lbs each in the first week they were with us. They ate us out of house and home. Their eating and weight stabilized just fine, but they went from super skinny, to properly chunky toddlers in just a couple of weeks. It was incredible to watch and heartbreaking to think of the family’s food struggles.

Food insecurity alone can lead to removal of kids from families. If CPS gets a call about hungry kids and the pantries and fridge are bare and the parents can’t get food in fast enough, kids – especially children of color – can get removed from their parents very quickly. It’s why we give to our Food Bank. It’s why my Facebook birthday fundraiser was for its benefit. It’s why we give to the outreach program at our church and support it in a variety of energy-consuming ways. It’s why I always participate in the post office food pantry drive, and the kids’ schools’ food pantry drives. It’s why I sometimes provide food for folks in need through the Facebook site set up for that purpose. Hunger sucks. It should not happen to people. And worse, the consequences of food insecurity can be life long, through child removal and eating disorders.

If you have a few bucks to spare, you can help with hunger and food insecurity in the area where my former foster kids and future foster kids live here. ❤️

Dealing with Uncertainty

Foster care is nothing if not filled with uncertainty.

We have 10-year-old Sunny with us still. She’s been here 519 days counting today.

She says she still wants to go home, but my suspicion is that she would have a very hard time transitioning back to her old style of family life. Her family is very, very loving – never doubt that. But they live with very little because of both poverty and culture. I haven’t been to her relative’s house where she would likely go if she left, but I have been to her Mom’s and Auntie’s apartments and they are very spare. They have almost no furniture, just a few rugs for sitting and eating on, and a single small couch at her Auntie’s. I haven’t been in the bedrooms but know that her Mom’s house used to have bed rolls rather than beds for the family. They have very little clothing, though it is often peppered with a brand name t-shirt or nice Nike sneakers. But the number of articles of clothing is small, and reworn often. And those nice Nikes get worn every single day.

Sunny is now used to being a bit spoiled. She has a fully furnished house with wifi, an iPad to call her own, and a television in the play room. She has Disney+, Netflix, and Prime video (all with age appropriate limits in place). She has 3 pairs of Nikes and a pair of nice winter boots and a pair of Hey Dudes that she lives in. She’s got a big bureau that is absolutely full of stylish and name brand clothing, carefully tailored to fit her with her dwarfism. She goes to school and comes home to play time on her iPad, with her voluminous art and craft supplies, with her Reborn Baby, with Lite Brite, with bow and arrows, etc. She has toys GALORE. She doesn’t have Arabic School after regular school every day. She has her own carpeted bedroom fully furnished with bed and dresser and a lovely little desk. She’s used to space, alone time when she wants it, and stuff.

She is also extremely attached to her little sister Sprout. It used to be that the two of them butted heads and fought nonstop. Both wanted to be top dog in the relationship, and despite Sunny’s 5 years on her, Sprout was having none of that. But over time and with lots of rules in place about conduct, they’ve learned to work out a lot of their differences. In a perfect example of “be careful what you wish for,” they drive me crazy now when they play together because they are wild. They positively shriek with laughter through tickle fights, through kitchen play, through epic sword fights, through games of mom and daughter, etc. Honestly, it’s a joy to have them get along, but I miss being able to hear myself think!

Both girls would be absolutely devastated by a separation. But would Sunny ever truly be okay if she stays here? The situation reminds me of Kiddo when she was with us. As tumultuous as her home life still is, Kiddo needed to be home with her Mom. She was never going to be okay staying with us forever. I don’t know about Sunny, but the longer she stays here, the harder a transition home would be. I also know she will likely always fantasize about being “home” without really comprehending all she’d lose if she transitioned back, with daily play with Sprout being the biggest loss.

There’s also her schooling at issue. Sunny has had one and a half years of formal education because her attendance was so poor that she learned nothing during her years before coming to us. Add to the poor attendance that she is borderline for an intellectual disability, and that her former city school districts had her in “life skills” classes because they’d written her off as ever being able to learn. In short: she didn’t know the alphabet, much less to read, when she came to us at age 8 1/2. Now she is in a stellar district giving her tons of 1:1 help, in a tiny class of only 8 kids, with push in services of PT, OT, and speech therapy every week. She’s reading a bit and loves math. She’s improved physically tremendously with the regular gym and PT work, and her pain levels are down because her muscle strength is up. And her orthopedic surgeon is down in Delaware, where her family won’t be able to take her.

Sunny now also may need a couple of knee surgeries. That’s up in the air as to whether the agency will let us proceed with those. And again, her family won’t be able to juggle those medical needs very well because of language barrier, poverty, and lack of understanding about the medical system.

The other question looming over us is regarding the girls’ big sister. We were supposed to have court on the 12th but it got cancelled and turned into a motion deadline. I don’t know if it got cancelled because the attorney for the kids is satisfied with what’s happening regarding her medical care? Or if it was turned into a motion deadline because she’s filing a motion for the big sister to come to us, like the attorney has talked about in the past? Our current case worker doesn’t like us, ignores almost all contact from me, doesn’t give us any information about what’s going on, and doesn’t even do monthly home visits during which we could ask questions. We’ve got nothing to work with.

So not only do we not know how long Sunny might stay, we don’t know whether we might have a 14-year-old sibling placed with us. 🤷🏼

The uncertainty used to just kill me. I’d be frantic with worry, and the discomfort that comes from not knowing how many or which kids might be in our home from day-to-day. I’ve gotten slowly better at the not knowing over time, and this case is curing me of impatience altogether.

It’s taken 8+ years, but uncertainty no longer throws me for a loop.

I worry about Sunny if she goes home to her relative. But I’ll work through it if it happens, help her family navigate medical issues as best I can, and get a damn good therapist for Sprout on board to help her cope with the devastating loss of her sister.

I worry if Sunny stays here she will be discontent and will flee back to her family the day she turns age 18. To be clear, it’s not the fleeing back that worries me. It’s the damage all the longing for home will cause her.

But, life goes on. And while I wonder about the future (will we have 2 1/2 kids forever like we have now? Or go to 1 1/2? Or 3 1/2 and have to buy a mini van?), it doesn’t make me feel faint with frantic anxiety like it used to.

Today, Sprout and hubby are down in Delaware with that amazing pediatric dwarfism specialist as she prepares for her own knee surgery tomorrow. I’ve got enough to focus on other than the worry. It’s just that cursed 3 am time that still gets me on occasion.

Christmas and other good things

I haven’t posted in a while so it feels like time for a general update since I am not feeling inspired with brilliant topics for posts.

We are lucky in this fostering house that we currently have a foster kid who doesn’t have a lot of trauma associated with Christmas. Being Muslim, Sunny never really celebrated Christmas before she came here.

When Sprout first came to us we asked her Mom permission to celebrate Christmas, and she was fine with it. So we just carried on when Sprout’s sister Sunny joined us too. It’s now been two Christmases here for Sunny, and both have gone well.

That hasn’t always been the case. Kiddo struggled mightily with Christmas when she was younger. She was only 4 when she came to us, but presumably had experienced some trauma around the holiday given how she reacted to it. This is super common among foster kids. New foster parents will often be super excited to give a kid a first “real” Christmas, only to be disappointed by a ton of acting out, overwhelm, disappointment, etc.

If you think about it, it makes sense. A lot of troubled families struggle with togetherness around the holiday. Folks with alcohol abuse issues find the holiday an excuse to indulge, which can spark fights. Fights can erupt over finances since Christmas is a financial strain for a lot of families. Extended families visit, which can cause disagreements. Families with little money can find themselves unable to provide gifts for children which can leave kids disappointed and feeling like they’ve done something bad if Santa didn’t come for them. There are lots and lots of ways Christmas can go badly awry.

Memories of those traumatic events can trigger behaviors in kids – outbursts, teariness, withdrawal – any kind of response to a traumatic memory you can think of.

Kiddo used to get soooo excited to open her gifts. Then she’d get overwhelmed quickly afterward, and be a bundle of oversensitive nerves the rest of the day. It would be super easy to trip her into what looked like a tantrum, but was likely flashback triggered. Christmas did not used to be fun for our first few years as foster parents!

Thankfully, Kiddo has had more good Christmases than bad in her life now. She’s a joy to shop for because she’s appreciative and fun about her gifts. She just opened her presents yesterday and I enjoyed the hell out of it. She loved the Tommy Hilfiger clothing (hell, the kid has a whole Hilfiger wardrobe from me at this point), the tiny Tabasco sauce keychain, the baby doll with hair like hers that she can practice on, the scented hair edge tamers, the fold up soccer goal, the squishmallow, and the shark slides tremendously.

Shark slides, in case you were wondering what on earth they were, as I was when she first told me she wanted “shark slides” for Christmas.

Christmas with Sunny and Sprout went remarkably well too. I was worried there’d be tons of jealously but it worked out ok. We celebrated it on Christmas Eve because my husband had to work Christmas Day, and thank heavens for that because I could not take another question of “is it Christmas yet???” Ha!

The girls got dolls (Reborn for Sunny, and American Girl for Sprout – one that looks a bit like her because she’s Indian), lots of accessories for their dolls, stuffies, the new Disney movie Wish toys (we went to see it just before Christmas and they’re addicted to the soundtrack), jump ropes, yo-yos, fake poop toys (they might have been the biggest hit 🙄), a magnetic dart board for Sunny, arts and crafts kits, a magic potion making kit for Sprout, and a kids’ microscope for Sprout. Did I over buy? Probably. But they enjoyed the hell out of it so that’s good.

On Christmas Eve we also went to church, and the girls were angels in the Christmas pageant. I love the Christmas pageant and the candlelight singing of Silent Night at the end. My family loves it less. But I insist on going each year because it doesn’t seem like Christmas without it.

On Christmas Day, I took the girls to see Migration in the theater, which was cute. It was a great way to stave off the boredom that comes after Christmas gift opening is over, and seeing a movie on Christmas just might become a new family tradition. The weather that day was spectacular – 55° and sunny – so we spent the rest of the day playing outside without coats.

After it was all over, it took me DAYS to find homes for all the new toys, put away the boxes and gift bags, dispose of all the cardboard, and ultimately yesterday we took down Christmas decor and put it away in the attic. Why so early? Because tomorrow is Sunny’s 10th birthday, and I wanted to make the house totally birthday rather than a mix of birthday and Christmas. As a Christmas baby myself (December 21st), I know the pain of a childhood of birthdays mixed with Christmas, so wanted to avoid that for Sunny.

Mind you, in her culture birthdays aren’t celebrated, so this is only the 2nd birthday she’ll ever celebrate. We wanted to be sure she got one great birthday with a party for friends, and this year is it, in case she goes home to her relative before we get another chance. Last year we went out to dinner at her request and got birthday dessert there, so she’s never had a birthday cake with her name on it, so I ordered one for the party. The house will be decorated with balloons (we even have helium) and banners, she’ll open her gifts here (a cake pop maker and a fancy apron), then she’ll go to our local salon for a girly salon birthday party. The favor bags are full of salon girly fun (lip gloss, sun glasses, nail stickers, glow in the dark tattoos). Two of her best buds from school are coming to it, so it should be a fun time.

Anyway, that’s our news! We still haven’t had our Christmas OR Thanksgiving dinners with my Dad, because he was sick for Thanksgiving, and Sprout was sick for Christmas with a nasty cold that’s lingering. I suspect it may even be RSV given the cough she’s got. So we have plans on the 14th of January, which, absurdly, is the next afternoon we can all get together given my schedule, the girls’ schedules, and Seth’s work schedule. Yikes. I guess we should enjoy this weird between-Christmas-and-New-Years down time while we’ve got it!

Acting up in public

Last weekend my husband was working, but I fearlessly plowed ahead and took Sunny and Sprout to the Finger Lakes Chapter of Little People of America’s holiday party.

Let me start this by praising this organization. I’ve written about them before regarding a baseball game we took the girls to during the summer. Being surrounded by a crowd that includes a lot of little people, including kids, is so crucial for my two kids who are themselves little people. I watched Sunny’s confidence grow in that setting, and as she utilizes the step stool they’d thoughtfully put in the restrooms, she proudly observed, “even grownups sometimes have to use a step stool.” Normalizing size differences is just huge for a kid with dwarfism!

Mind you, I also discovered she’s squeamish about the word “dwarfism,” and that’s something my husband and I need to work on, clearly. Sunny said at one point “I’m taller than some of the grownups here!” And I said “Yep! That’s partly because there are different forms of dwarfism.” She flashed embarrassment at me and hissed, “Don’t say that word!” I replied, “What, ‘dwarfism’? There’s nothing wrong with that word!” She angrily replied, “Yes! THAT word.”

So we still clearly have a long way to go to achieve acceptance and comfort with her condition.

Anywho, the party was lovely. They did a nice job for the kids especially. The food was kid friendly (chicken strips were among the other amazing Italian options), they had gift bags for each kid, and kid-friendly gift cards as prizes for Bingo (though Sprout chose a Starbucks card over a Build-a-Bear card, to the amusement of all), and crafts. They even had the Benedict Cumberbatch version of the Grinch playing in one of the rooms.

Sunny chose that day to be, erm, challenging. This is not an infrequent occurrence. When she gets anxious, she gets obnoxious. It happens at doctor appointments, with big changes in her schedule, and at public events. It sometimes happens with her therapist when she knows she needs to tell her therapist something big that’s going on for her. It’s her default when her anxiety is up.

I can speculate as to why it happens. For the first eight years of her life, Sunny relied on attitude, pushiness, loudness, and sulking to get her needs met in a chaotic household with a Mama who was often distracted by other things and struggling to navigate our society. To a large degree she was raised by her big sister, who being only a few years older, and not having a good parenting role model, just caved to Sunny’s behavior. So, when Sunny’s anxiety goes up, she reverts back to her old behaviors that got her needs met through her early life.

But attitude, pushiness, loudness, and sulking are a challenge to deal with at all, much less in a public setting.

She knows it, too, and sometimes I swear pulls out the ‘tude in public because she thinks I am less inclined to crack down on the behavior when there’s an audience. This is hardly something unique to Sunny. Lots of kids try that trick. But dang is it frustrating.

I need to do a few things. First, I need to adjust my expectations. I am an eternal optimist and always assume every event will be super fun. I need to go into kid events knowing Sunny could get anxious and act out. I need to remember that, and still take them to stuff anyway. That’s a challenge for me because I get discouraged, but I can’t stop giving the kids life experiences just because I might be embarrassed.

And on the subject of that embarrassment…

As a society, we automatically assume that every child’s misbehavior is a sign of the present parent’s incompetence at parenting. And I hate that. I hate it for the parents and for the kids. Sometimes it’s the case, sure, but a hell of a lot of other factors are at play too.

I prefer going to events with other foster kids because there the parents are more inclined to get it and be unfazed by my kid’s sauciness. “Misbehavior” is often a symptom of trauma, as is Sunny’s case. But Sunday, it was all families with bio kids in tow, and dang it, every single one of them was well behaved.

When I’d ask Sunny to do something like, for example, throwing away her plate and napkin after she ate, she gave me a quick loud response of “No.” It was automatic. It wasn’t something she was thinking about before delivering it. Sunny was just sitting there feeling uncomfortable and defiance was her default to being asked to do something. It makes sense as her Mama used to ask the kids to do almost everything for her in public because she doesn’t speak English and isn’t comfortable with our culture. Sunny resented it. I think all the kids did on some level.

Anyway, I then gave Sunny a withering look she refers to as my “evil eye,” and she loudly and stubbornly whined “I don’t want to.” The evilness of the evil eye intensified and I gave her a warning “[name], now, please,” in a low fierce voice. At that point she caved and did as I’d asked originally, but her volume was loud enough that the whole table heard the dispute before she finally got up and threw away her plate. We got surreptitious looks, or else I imagined them. Either is possible.

The folks there don’t know Sunny is in foster care. I assume they think she’s adopted since she doesn’t exactly resemble Seth and me? I find people don’t assume foster care for Sunny and Sprout because they’re Asian. When we get asked questions about our family the standard question is “are they adopted?”Please note the uncomfortable fact that when we had Black kids, folks would ask if they were in foster care all the time. That’s a topic for a whole other blog post!

Anyway, much of our day was tense exchanges between Sunny and me, or her asking for impossible things that she knew were impossible just so she could sulk when I said “no.” She whined through Bingo. She sassed back at every opportunity. She pretended she was about to swear loudly by starting to say the word but petering out while looking at me for my reaction. It was just A DAY.

When we got back to the car we discussed her behavior. I told her I got that she was anxious in there, which she admitted, but that her behavior was, on the whole, unacceptable. She didn’t get her iPad on the way home or music. The hour ride was passed in cranky silence, peppered by cheery random observations from Sprout, followed by sour snaps from Sunny.

It was an invaluable experience because being with little people is crucial for the kids. But it wasn’t a fun day.

As is so often the case, I’ll work with my own therapist and Sunny’s to see if there are better ways for me to respond to her behavior when she’s acting out because her anxiety is up. I could always do better. I’ll work with my therapist, too, on the mortification I feel when Sunny acts out publicly because I feel a lot of folks are giving me shade because of it, thinking I’m just a shitty parent if she acts that way.

I’ve got lots of work to do. I hate having to do it. When it comes to Sunny’s behavior generally, I’m just tired. I even have found myself wishing she would get sent to live with her relative (which the county and the lawyers and the judge are considering) just so the daily grind of coping with her attitude would relent. But that’s not likely to happen soon, isn’t fair to anyone, and won’t be the basis for any decision-making regarding her future.

I guess I’m just human, and sometimes want a breather. When raising a challenging kid, breathers usually seem gloriously unattainable.

Life Carries On

It’s funny. I’d been longing to adopt Sprout for so long, and so worried it would not happen, that when it did actually happen I was a bit gobsmacked for a day or two. Could it really have taken place?! Finally?!

But then, life just carried on, as it has a way of doing!

Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. But mostly nothing.

We still get up in the morning and send her to school. She still goes to Girl Scouts when schedules and health allow (which – sheesh – is proving a challenge!) She still loves all things dark and creepy. She still fights with her sister and with Kiddo when she’s here. She’s still a fashionista with a personality far too big for her tiny frame – it oozes out at every opportunity. She still calls us Mommy and Daddy. We still go on visits to see her first Mom and siblings once a month.

The house dressed up for the holiday, with a new addition this year – a tiny rocking chair has been added to represent Sprout’s officially joining the family. ❤️

What has changed is the ability to make medical decisions for her, and that is proving to be a joy in and of itself! For a kid with major medical issues, having control of the helm is a relief. We found her a new pediatrician – a family friend – and I filled out reams of paperwork to get alllllll her medical records transferred there. I now have access to her patient portal for Nemours. She’s on our medical insurance, and we don’t have quite as many ludicrous hoops to jump through for it as we did with Medicaid (though it isn’t exactly hoop-less).

I realized the full joy of the situation last week when Kiddo was sick. Kiddo wound up with us with what sure looked to me like strep throat. She spiked a fever of 105.7 and had a sore swollen throat with white spots. I needed to get her to a pediatrician or urgent care, and the former is the cheaper route to go so that’s what her Mom wanted to try first. Well holy bejeebers. What a task. Her Mom called her pediatrician’s office – one of the major organizations in the city that takes mostly Medicaid patients and will accept any of the forms of Medicaid for kids. And she called. And she called. And she tried their portal.

It took 3 hours on a Wednesday morning to get the response from them that they could get kiddo in in several days – late Friday afternoon. A kid with a fever of 105.7 and likely strep – which becomes, you know, scarlet fever. You have got to be kidding me.

We eventually got her into an urgent care and got her antibiotics that evening, but really?! Three hours to tell us offhandedly they couldn’t see her for basically three days?! I almost signed Sprout up for that office too, because it was recommended by her old pediatrician, but oh hell no. Not today Satan. I want a pediatrician’s office that isn’t so overbooked that it no longer cares about the kids! And I have the luxury of having found one.

It makes me incensed that this is the care that children with Medicaid get. Most offices don’t take Medicaid managed care plans, or if they do, they aren’t accepting new patients. And don’t even try to get children dental care with Medicaid – we’ve been paying out of pocket for our foster kids to get regular cleanings for a while now because the options are either nonexistent (Sunny’s old dentist quit, and the practice called to tell us they weren’t going to be able to reschedule her because they weren’t even sure if they were going to hire a new dentist) or have an absolutely abysmal reputation. And I mean abysmal. God bless our dentist who cleans their teeth and does their x-rays and doesn’t charge us for the x-rays because he knows they’re foster kids and we are paying out of pocket because the options out there suck. And thank heavens Sprout now has our dental insurance that covers cleanings and x-rays!

What else has changed? Everything and nothing, everything and nothing.

I’ve been pretty miserable physically. I’ve been off my immunosuppressants for a while (like basically a month and a half) because I keep getting colds/sinus infections that take forever to recover 100% from, or I’m trying to avoid getting things like strep throat. That has led to a massive flare up of ulcerative colitis, so bad I’m counting down to when I can next take Tylenol and am on heavy doses of steroids to try to control it. Steroids themselves are fun. Who needs sleep, after all?! I started writing this at 3:30 a.m. out of boredom from my insomnia. Whee!

Also, my antidepressant called it quits about 2 months ago too. That happens like frigging clockwork every year and a half. I now have three SNRIs that I cycle through so it’s not like I have to face a total mystery of what drug to try next, thankfully. But titrating off one med and onto the next takes a full month, and then it takes a little more time for it to fully kick in. And every time this happens – and I mean every time – I stubbornly deny it’s happening for a solid month before I give up and text my psychiatrist that it’s happening again and I need to change meds, and could she call in something please? She’s beyond fabulous – always calls me back the same day to discuss it (even from glorious vacation spots, bless her) so I have no delay there. But man, it’s a gloomy miserable time for a few months before I start feeling better.

It doesn’t help that November was horribly gray. And it’s cold again. So seasonal affective disorder plays a role too.

I’m curious if adoption will feel different once I start to feel better? I think I’m starting to turn the mental health corner. I’m just waiting for the physical one to shift, which will help with the mental health issues too. Will adoption sink in in some other new way? Maybe! Or maybe not.

Either way I’m good with it. Because I’m officially this kid’s Mom now, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

National Adoption Day

The Event

On Friday, November 17, 2023, we adopted our little Sprout at the County’s National Adoption Day event!

HOORAY!!!

The event was… chaotic. I know we should appreciate everything that happened and was given to Sprout in the course of the day, but in some ways I wish we’d had an adoption in the judge’s chambers rather than at the event. It was held in a big ball room type venue, with tables around the edges of the room for each judge. The room was packed full of families and so busy. It felt a little bit impersonal… until the very end which worked out to be rather magical.

First, there was an hour long ceremony with various speakers, through which 40+ soon-to-be-adopted kids twitched and fidgeted and ate all the candies on the tables. There were balloon animals and hats and swords for them which was fun, as well as teddy bears, but by the end of the hour the wiggle factor was high.

Then it was up to us to find our attorney and our judge’s table and get them both together at the same time. We were assigned times for adoptions, but it was still abject chaos around each judge’s table. It wasn’t clear if we needed to sign in first, or just show up at our time, or what.

Because we had our friend S with us, who can legitimately entertain children endlessly, we were fine. Our Little Wiggle played with S and with balloons while we grownups milled about and talked with her old case workers and her attorney and our attorney and her current case worker and waited for the crowd around the judge’s table to diminish.

We waited so long we wound up being our judge’s last adoption, which was a blessing. We did the adoption, which was her asking us a few questions and signing some papers, and then her ringing a big bell while Sprout got to ring her very own little bell. Hooray! It was over so quickly I barely remember the actual adoption!

But what happened afterward rocked. Our judge – whom we adore – took off her robes, and then talked to and played with Sprout for ages. Sprout’s primary memory of the event is of the judge spending that time with her, and she clearly treasures it.

Speaking of treasures…

We received a LOT of stuff. I think some of it came from the judge? Or maybe the county? It’s hard to say, but there was a bag of toys and books for Sprout with a bunch of gems in it, from silly glasses to LOL dolls to lovely books regarding adoption.

We ALSO got a backpack of stuff from the Jockey Being Family Foundation. They take the prize for best Adoption Day gifts:

Monogrammed backpack – a really nice one. It’s as big as Sprout, but never mind. Some day she’ll be able to use it!
Fuzzy fuzzy fuzzy blue blanket that she’s been wrapped up in since she got it.
Fuzzy fuzzy fuzzy cute teddy bear.

And for the parents:

An adoption card game meant to facilitate meaningful family discussion and activities about adoption.
A book about how teens who are adopted feel about it.
A workbook for parents to go through with kids to help kids talk about their complex feelings around adoption.

Dude. I just bought myself some Jockey products. They’re doing things right when it comes to supporting adoptive families and not sugar coating everything! And why? Prolly because it’s run by an adoptee. ❤️ Check out the org here.

The Aftermath

We went out to lunch afterward to celebrate. Sprout received a kids’ mix board from S, which she hasn’t stopped playing with, much to the pain of my ears. She’s a natural with the thing, and somehow already knew how to scratch a record before she’d even gotten the box open.

After lunch we rounded up Sunny, who had been cared for during the ceremony by a good friend, P. Sunny had decided she didn’t want to go to the adoption, which was just fine. P took her to run some errands, then to the Dollar Store, and out for a good Burmese lunch. She generally got a good spoiling, for which I am grateful.

But as I could have predicted, the second we got Sunny back, the bickering started between the girls. Then we added Kiddo to the mix as it was a Friday. Sunny and Kiddo ganged up on Sprout instantly and tried to take all their jealousy out on her.

It was a rough evening.

The thing is, I totally understand why the girls had a hard time with Sprout being adopted. For one thing, Sprout scored the mother load of stuff at the event. And while P and S bought stuff for Sunny too, Sprout had the biggest haul from the day. But more importantly, Sunny and Kiddo both somehow get that adoption is a Big Deal, and that it means Sprout is officially ours in a way Kiddo won’t ever be, and Sunny is unlikely to be and isn’t sure she even really wants to be. It is a confused muddle of Great Big Giant Feelings.

I tried to reassure Sunny and Kiddo that nothing has changed for them. They’re still “our” girls. Kiddo finally relaxed a bit when, at bedtime, I gave her a hug and whispered “Please don’t worry. You’ll always be our ‘firstborn’ kid!” Seth then had a long conversation with her when he tucked her in, too.

Saturday went way better than Friday evening, but no matter how you look at it, there’s going to be jealousy for quite some time. Perhaps for good.

As for my own feelings? I wound up getting up at midnight when the house was finally quiet just so I could feel for a few minutes. Here are some of my thoughts:

I’m elated that Sprout is “ours” and the agency can’t remove her from our care on a whim. This relief is still my primary emotion.
It’s still sinking in that I have a daughter! I’ve had kids for 8 years now, including Kiddo for a literal 8 years, knowing she’ll likely be in our lives forever. But having a daughter I don’t use any qualifiers for is different. She’s not my “former foster kiddo who still spends weekends with us,” and she’s not my “foster” daughter. She’s just my daughter. My brain isn’t as elastic as it once was and is still stretching to encompass this concept.
My Dad is having his own brain stretched. He noted that it’s really weird to refer to “granddaughters,” plural!
I’m so lucky that my family treasures Sprout and recognizes her as “theirs” – their niece, their granddaughter, their cousin. That’s not always the case, and in fact on Seth’s side of the family, I’d venture to say that Sprout won’t ever be as much a grandkid as the bio ones. She’s a proper niece for some of Seth’s siblings but it doesn’t seem like all. It makes me sad and angry, but it is what it is. We’ll just put our time and energy into the family who will treat Sprout like she belongs.
We are extremely lucky when it comes to friends! Our church as a whole is elated for us all and is welcoming their little Muslim Sprout with open arms. S (who came to the adoption and once got fired for protecting Sprout – long story) of course adores Sprout, and is an adoptee and an adoptive Mom from foster care, so gets the complexity of things. P (who took care of Sunny on Friday) and her wife J are adoptive Moms out of foster care too, with 5 adopted boys. They get it. My friend M cried when she did our wills for us, so happy that we’re finally here after 3 1/2 years with Sprout. My Messenger “family” (three dear friends from college) have followed along and supported us from the get go. One made Sprout the cutest t-shirt with her new initials on it. Seth’s co-worker T sent Sprout a lovely adoption day card. I could go on and on. It’s just so beautiful to be able to sit back and recognize how loved this kid is, and how much support we have. I can’t say enough good about our friends/chosen family.

On the whole? I’m enjoying letting my emotions unfold. Life is really damn good. ❤️

It’s almost here!

Adoption Day for our little Sprout is the 17th of November – just 4 days away!

I’m starting (a little bit) to get excited. I’ve been holding back because I couldn’t believe it would ever actually happen. I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop – for the agency to say “nope” and swoop in and remove the kids including Sprout. ANYTHING can happen in foster care, and I know someone that happened to. Some false allegations were made against her and she lost all 5 of the kids she was set to adopt soon. So all I’ve been able to do is hold on tooth and nail, and hope and pray.

But now that it’s almost actually here it’s time to make the plans!

We have left most of the planning up to the kids. Examples:

We let Sprout decide what she wanted her name to be after adoption. She wanted to keep her first name, move her last name to her middle name (she didn’t have a middle name before), and add our last name. She is absolutely firm about this plan and as certain as I’ve ever seen her be. I’m so honored that she wants to take our last name! She’s pretty attached to her name so wanting to change it at all is a big deal. I never counted on it, and told her she could do whatever she wanted and we’d be happy.

On the urging of a smart friend who is a child therapist, we let Sunny decide if she wanted to be at adoption day for the ceremony. Just as Sprout was sure about her name change, Sunny was sure about not being there. I’m not entirely sure what that’s about but I can guess. I think she’s mourning the fact that her family will never be “whole” again even if she goes home. Her littlest sister will be staying here. So she’s got the day off from school, but a good friend is going to babysit her for us. I’m so happy that friend is able to babysit – Sunny’s happy to be going there that day.

We let Sprout decide who she wanted at the ceremony itself. She chose my Dad (who she has started calling “Pop Pop” lately – we’ll see if that sticks), and the good friend who recommended we let Sunny decide to decline attendance. I think the combo is absolutely perfect. The friend lost her job over Sprout’s staying with us in a throw-down with the agency a few years ago. She stood up for Sprout and for us, and thank heavens it worked out that Sprout could stay. It’s poetic that she’d be there for adoption day. And the fact that Sprout wants her new Grandfather to be there means she feels like a part of the family. She’d have loved to have my sister and niece there too, but they live overseas now and can’t make it. But perhaps a FaceTime will make her day complete.

I decided on the clothing for Sprout, and thank heavens she agreed to it. At least so far. I’ll have her in a traditional Burmese style Longyi with a pretty cream blouse, and Indian gold earrings with tiny (fake) rubies in them. I wanted a nod to her ethnicity on her adoption day, just to signify that we honor it. I think it would make her family happy too. Of course, the best laid plans… we’ll see if my goth child will decide it’s not enough black for her on the day of. Ha!

We’ve been engaging in preparations for the day for a while. We realized we needed a will, to direct where Sprout would go if something happens to my husband and me after adoption and to set up a trust for her. We also made some provisions for her siblings. We’ll go execute the wills today, just in the nick of time. Bless the friend at my old firm who prepared them for us!

I’ve also found a pediatrician for Sprout for after adoption, because the clinic she goes to now is only for foster kids. We selected a friend from church and are excited to work with her.

As soooooooon as we get that adoption certificate in hand, we need to:

Take it to her medical clinic to release records to the new pediatrician
Send it to her school so they know we are now authorized to sign everything for her and that her name has changed
Send it to my husband’s work to add Sprout to his medical insurance
Submit the info for a new social security card/number for her. This is important because sometimes there’s fraud involving a child’s social security number. We don’t want families of origin to be able to use it still. We are lucky that Sprout’s never would, but it happens often enough that new numbers after adoption are a thing
Submit it to get a new birth certificate for her, which irks me no end. Her birth parents seem like they should be on her birth certificate, but no, our names get added to it instead of her birth parents. It’s just weird. I’ve got a secret copy of her original birth certificate stashed away so she can always see what it originally looked like
Submit it to change her name on her passport
And probably a plethora of other things I’m not thinking of!

It should be a sign of how I’m feeling that I cannot wait to be wading through all that bureaucratic nonsense. It will mean it’s actually happened!

I’m deeply curious to know how Sprout will do/feel on adoption day itself. She’s being adopted on the day of the county’s celebration of National Adoption Day. That means dozens of kids will be getting adopted that day, to a great deal of fanfare. We had to sign a release for photos because the press will be there. There will be balloons and ceremony and who knows what.

We had wanted a small private adoption ceremony for her in case she has some sad feelings about it because it means, in a way, losing her family for good, at least legally. She says she’s excited to join our family for good but I’m leaving room for sadness or grief or anger too, just in case. We’ll always leave room for those things.

Thankfully, after 3 1/2 years in foster care, we are the only family she remembers living with, and she’s longing to be ours for good. I’m so glad. I can’t imagine adopting a child who didn’t want to be adopted. It happens. I know Sprout’s feelings may ebb and flow and change over time, but right now this feels right.

I’m just sad it’s so hard for Sunny.

Adoption. It’s complicated for everyone involved.

Fireworks in Court

We’ve been in contentious foster care related court hearings before when Gronckle was returned home. In that instance, the child’s attorney disagreed vehemently with the agency and judge, but the appearance was brief and everyone managed to avoid taking things personally. I left and cried, but the attorneys shook hands afterward and all was ok between them and the judge. It helped me keep from taking things personally, too.

Honestly, that’s my experience with practicing law for 17 years. Even when attorneys argue bitterly in court, they’re just advocating for their clients zealously, and walk away and shake hands and share a joke between themselves and sometimes with the judge who has just ruled against them. Sometimes it surprised me that attorneys could do that after what seemed like terrible arguments in court, but I adjusted to that culture and have come to appreciate it.

Today’s appearance was very contentious and sadly not friendly at all. The agency and the children’s attorney and the Mama’s attorney are not in agreement, to say the least. The disagreements carried on long and hard and the poor interpreter struggled to keep up. My husband and I sat on the sidelines and tried to keep our expressions neutral and prayed no one would drag us into things.

As for our part, we’d made our peace with any of the potential outcomes. We knew it was possible Sunny would go home right away. We knew it was possible she would go home and her older sister would come to us. We knew it was possible we’d walk away with three kids placed with us. There are costs and benefits to each of those outcomes and if ever there was a case where there are no easy answers, this is it.

We were not going to fight the agency on their plan to return Sunny. We were worried about her and the new school district’s ability to implement her IEP and her relative’s ability to navigate that, and we were worried about the relative being overwhelmed with so many kids, but there are downsides to Sunny staying with us too and we recognize them.

What I wanted through the whole court appearance was someone to say “there aren’t easy answers in this case so let’s see if we can figure out what’s best for the kids.” The only one who said anything like that was the judge. Thank heavens she’s thinking that way. I think she gets the complexity of this case and that there aren’t easy answers but believes that there are some easy answers and we need to do those things first then assess where we stand. I think she gets that. I hope so.

Regardless, it was gut wringing and adrenaline filling to sit there in that court room for so long listening to the heated arguments that definitely felt like they were being taken personally at times. At the end, the attorneys left the room without shaking hands or acknowledging each other.

The upshot is there are no changes in placement at this time. Sunny is staying with us for now. For how long? No clue. Just, for now.

No matter what happens in court, or through the agency’s decision-making, my husband and I love these kids and this family very much, including the kids’ Mama and the relative who has the siblings. We will do our best to support them through any twists and turns, to the extent they want our support. It’s hard with the distance and the language barrier, but we’ll see them at least monthly for visits and will do what we can. And we will love on and do our absolute best by any of the kids who are placed with us.

It’s all we can do and it’s all anyone can ask of us.

While we are refusing to take sides in this matter because we see the pluses and minuses to all the various permutations, we are afraid the agency is going to resent us tremendously because they didn’t “win” this round in court and Sunny is staying here for a little bit. We are afraid of retaliation even though we weren’t participating. I’ve heard enough horror stories from other foster parents to know it’s always possible. Heaven forbid.

Regardless, if you’re the praying sort, say a prayer for these kids and this family, torn apart and trying so hard to hang onto each other and do well by each other. Say a prayer for all the players involved seeing clearly and putting the kids first. And if you’re not a pray-er, that’s ok too. Send some good vibes into the universe for them.