(no title)

Racism 101 in my Household

Sunny learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in school. On the Monday holiday honoring him, she got up bright and early and asked me enthusiastically, “Are we going to go see Dr. King Jr. today?”

My heart thumped extra hard. I explained to her that he is dead now, and that he’d been shot to death. She sagely asked me “Was the shooter Black or white?” I answered “white.” She just nodded, like she had already known the answer in her heart.

Because of her enthusiasm about him, I got Sunny a book about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Seth read it to her last night, and she learned from it that Black and white people could not marry each other not that long ago. She was horrified, and told me about it in great detail this morning.

The next book I got her is my favorite book I’ve ever found on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It’s stunning. Kadir Nelson is a brilliant artist, and I have a print of one of his paintings in our dining room:

The book that Kadir Nelson illustrated comes with a CD containing his entire “I Have a Dream” speech.

I showed her the book this morning (it arrived late last night) and she hugged it. I offered to play the CD on the computer, and she enthusiastically said “yes!” Both of the big kids (Kiddo is here) listened intently to the speech, nodding along.

Then we talked about what he’d said, and the fact that he was right about a lot of things. We talked about how people will perceive Sunny and Sprout as “brown” because they are Burmese and have a darker skin tone. We talked about Kiddo being biracial but how that means she’s perceived by the world as being Black. We talked about Black Lives Matter.

It was the most intense and wonderful conversation I’ve ever had with children. At ages 9 and 11 they understand a hell of a lot about the world they’re navigating and how it treats people who look like them. It breaks my heart but tells me Seth and I are doing something right if they can be so articulate about it all, and so comfortable having hard conversations.

I am going to continue Sunny’s education about racism. She says she wants to be like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and she’s clearly passionate about the subject. I have another book up my sleeve that I found at a bookstore yesterday:

This is a brilliant book, making the story age appropriate but still raw. It’s the treatment the history deserves.

I predict she’ll be transfixed and appalled, but wise about it.

A little bit later we were talking about getting Jibbitz for our Crocs (yes, I have the embarrassing things!). When I was scrolling through images of the little charms, we saw a Black Lives Matter Jibbitz. I said what it was out loud, and Kiddo and Sunny got into an immediate argument about which of them was going to get it for their Crocs.

I ordered three of them. One for each of them and one for me.

Lessons here: do not underestimate what kids are capable of understanding, especially kids who have already likely experienced racism themselves. I did. I didn’t get how mature a 9 and an 11 year old could be on the subject. If you have trouble starting the conversation, find a children’s book about the subject and use it to help facilitate the discussion. Be frank. Be honest. Talk about privilege and racism, slavery and historic struggles to bring about equality in the law. It’s important, and kids have a right to know and understand. They also have a right to have a soft place to discuss such things. Be their soft place.

This is another book I can recommend wholeheartedly. Its a good place to start. It’s about slavery and the incredible spirit that kept enslaved people going through all they lived through. It’s one of Kiddo’s favorite books, and she and I always cry when we read it. I’m going to be introducing Sunny to it too. I can’t wait.

I also picked up two wonderful kids’ books about immigrants, and the struggles they left behind and the ones they took on in coming here. Sunny and Sprout’s family came here from Burma (Myanmar). I want her to understand those struggles too. And anti-Asian racism too. We’ll get there. She’s the world’s best and most enthusiastic student on such subjects.

Family Expansion

We just had a visit with Sprout and Sunny’s family. It’s a two hour drive to Mama’s house, which the girls complain is the most boring thing ever, but when we get there it’s all worth it.

Today, not only was their Mama there and their other three siblings, but also an uncle and two aunts and all their kids. The cousins all had raucous fun playing zombies and hide and seek and a made up game called “the grinch” which involved people getting put on the naughty list and set in time out. They romped, they tussled, they shrieked with delighted laughter. They played with nerf guns, and a giant cardboard box became a sailing ship and a bus and a caboose in turns.

It was an absolute, heart wrenching joy to watch.

The kids are all good kids. The big kids were kind to the little ones and careful with them. No one was excluded. Everyone participated. And it was pure childhood delight echoing off the walls.

It was also lovely to get to know Mama’s siblings better. We’d met them before, but this was the most we’d talked with them. There’s a language barrier – only one sibling speaks English so he and the kids had to translate, but we muddled through and understood each other in the end.

At one point, I was sitting there on the floor with a belly full of delicious spicy Burmese food and more around me. Mama was wearing western clothing today, but the aunts were wearing hijabs in deep tones of gold. I heard rapid Burmese translating something we’d just said. My legs were falling asleep sitting on the floor. The kids were laughing, the adults were smiling and laughing, and I almost had a bit of an out of body experience. I could see myself sitting there on the pretty braided mat on the floor, gold and red, and surrounded by welcoming people who have every right to resent us for having their daughters in our home. What an incredible thing to be honored with: a true glimpse into another culture, another family.

I feel like these monthly visits that involve long days of driving are not going to feel like a burden. After all, we’ve likely got to do them for the next 14 years while Sprout grows up. They’re going to consume a day out of each month in its entirety. But you know what? They’re an honor. Truly. To be trusted, and let in, and allowed to love two of their little girls? To be treated with graciousness and respect when we’re a part of their hearts being broken with longing for their absent family members? That’s an incredible and generous thing, and it’s something I don’t have words for.

I’m absolutely thrilled my “family” is growing to include the rest of our kids’ first family. It is a privilege I won’t take for granted.

Structure, Consequences, and Rewards: What Works?

Let me start this post by emphasizing every kid is different.

Of the three kids in our house, different things work for each one of them. With Sprout, she’s been with us since she was less than 2, in a stable, structured, safe environment where her needs are always met. She views Seth and me as her family because she’s been with us longer than she was with her Mama and siblings. While she misses her Mama, they don’t even speak the same language now, and their bond was a bit insecure to begin with, so it seems like she feels safe and loved where she is. She is used to our rules, generally follows them, and tries hard. What more could we ask for?

Sprout is the easiest of our three to raise by far, despite being a sprightly, mischievous, sassy little stinker at times. She responds to our expressing disappointment and seldom needs any consequences of any kind. Her behavior is – for a 4-year-old who spent her first two years steeped in trauma – excellent. Hell, she’s good compared with a lot of kids. I suspect she maaaaybe has ADHD (her teachers have raised the specter) because she cannot sit still for 2 seconds together. But she might just be a high energy, super social kid like my niece, too. Time will tell. Either way is fine. Hell, I have ADHD. I have no problem with my kids having it other than that it makes their lives a little harder.

A lot of kids in foster care are misdiagnosed with ADHD, though, and that’s problematic. A big part of the reason it’s so commonly diagnosed is that trauma can cause behaviors that look a lot like ADHD. So a child who has been in care for a while and is still exhibiting symptoms can try a stimulant to see if it helps but this should be done very carefully, and if the stimulant isn’t working, the child should not remain on it. Unfortunately, foster parents just wanting their kids to be easier to handle and control is a part of this picture too. “Give him a pill please so I don’t have to work so hard.” Sigh. So we are… appropriately skeptical when someone says Sprout has ADHD. It’s just not possible to tell yet. And if we do test down the road and it comes back with that diagnosis, we’ll try meds very very very carefully.

Speaking of ADHD, I stroooongly suspect Kiddo has it. Her Mom was just diagnosed with it and her brother has it (there’s a strong genetic component to it) and my god. She’s a cyclone just like I am. Impulse control issues and trouble sitting still and forgetfulness mark her every movement. I can roll with her crazy energy because it feels so familiar to me but it makes my husband nutty. One sock on the floor by the back door, one shoe in the kitchen, another sock stuffed into the playroom couch, and the other shoe god knows where? Kiddo is here!

I have a great relationship with Kiddo at the moment and with her, consequences are seldom required, too. She doesn’t respond particularly well to consequences. She gets grumpy and lashes out a bunch. She also doesn’t respond particularly well to long-term goal setting and rewards. The turnaround time has to be short for Kiddo to respond well. “Clean up the play room and the dining room and set the table and you get a dollar” works like a blessed charm for the kid. She’s money hungry and therefore money motivated. But if she’s done something she should not have, a stern talking to and gentle conveyance of disappointment and knowledge she can do better work incredibly well.

Then there’s Sunny. We are still trying to figure her out. She and I have been in a tailspin lately, with my trying consequences like losing the iPad privilege because she sneaked her way into adult YouTube when she knows she’s not allowed to. (Parental controls and ingenuity around blocking content have been increased since, to try to set her up for success. I’d like to see her try to get on YouTube on that iPad! Good luck!)

But consequences didn’t do much. When asked if it was worth it – a half hour of adult YouTube before I caught her, versus being without the iPad, she grinned and replied that she’d do it again. Sigh. Ok. So consequences aren’t working well with her.

I try the disappointed Mom thing with her that works brilliantly with Sprout and Kiddo, but it doesn’t go anywhere, and that’s no surprise. She and I have only been bonding for 4 1/2 months. That’s it. It feels like a lot longer but it hasn’t been. So our bond is still shaky, and her primary bond is to her Mama even if it was/is a bit insecure, and she doesn’t care that much what I think of her. It makes sense.

One of the big challenges we have with Sunny is that she is flat out rude and can be mean when she’s mad. Verbally mean. She knows just how to spit out a cutting comment for greatest effect. Feeling fat one day? She somehow knows it and will make a comment about my belly when she gets mad at me. Feeling guilty for sitting with a cup of tea for a minute or two? She will comment that Daddy does more housework than I do. Whang, right in my pride. Her sister irritated her? She comments Sprout is “too little” to do things, and Sprout is very sensitive about her size. In short, Sunny has a knack for finding the most nasty comment any 9-year-old could come up with at any particular moment and delivering it to great effect.

When I commented recently that a statement she made to her sister was “rude and inappropriate,” her response was “I’m just a rude kid.” She said it not with pride, but with a sort of tired resignation. It dawned on me that she was feeling really down about herself, and that while she found some satisfaction in delivering nasty comments when in a fit of pique, she was also internalizing the responses everyone had to her comments.

Not good. And not productive.

So what to do? My brilliant friend gave me the tip that may save us. She said she used to create charts of rewards for her daughter, like if her daughter did x, y, and z for a week, she’d earn Starbucks. I decided to give it a try this week.

I told Sunny if she could be nice to everybody for the next three days, and not say anything mean to anyone during that time, she could get a Starbucks drink on the 4th day. And wouldn’t you know? She jumped up and down and said “Yes! Yes! I can do this!” And she did! She spent three days being kind and helpful, and on the 4th day, announced quite rightly that she had earned that Starbucks drink, and could she please try my dragonfruit thing. She got a grande drink and plenty of praise. She’s glowing still and that drink was hours ago. I think we may have found the right path to this kid’s heart – treats and praise.

I’ve struck a deal with her that it is a weekly thing. Each week she has the chance to earn the caffeine-free Starbucks drink of her choice if she refrains from making nasty digs at her family. She says she’s on board, and is excited about it. Praying it lasts. Now I need to work on teaching her healthier ways of expressing her anger or frustration with us. I think if there’s Starbucks being dangled before her, she’ll try new methods. Fingers crossed.

I have read a lot of parenting books, particularly ones for kids who have experienced trauma, and while many have healthy tidbits in them, none are a one-size-fits-all. I believe firmly in what I call structure – i.e. setting kids up for success by setting appropriate rules and expectations and expressing them in ways kids can understand. But beyond that? Every single kid we have had has been different. So I take bits from different books and try them and see how they work. I clearly take advice from friends. It’s all trial and error. But I know a method is working when I see good behavior coupled with growing self esteem – that tells me I’m on the right track.

It’s a Birthday. Brace for Impact.

Birthdays for foster kids can be unexpectedly full of strange emotions and events.

It’s Sunny’s 9th birthday today, and she’s suuuuper excited. For one thing, her family didn’t really celebrate birthdays so this is an exciting new “English” (non-Muslim) tradition for her. For another, like all kids, she wants to be the center of attention and get to do what she wants for a day. She’s a typical now-9-year-old in many respects.

But in some respects? She’s different. And she just gave me a harsh reminder of that. A friend sent a FB link to a traditional Karen birthday song on YouTube. (The Karen are an ethnolinguistic group prevalent in Myanmar). I started playing it, and Sunny exclaimed: “This is my Daddy’s song!” I started to feel excited for her to be hearing it, then she followed it up with “He used to sing this when he was drunk!” Heh, oops. Not exactly the memory I was trying to elicit!

This is not the first time Sunny has blurted out traumatic memories nonchalantly. She’s come out with other stories – some pretty horrifying – casually at the dinner table. But there’s something about “events” days like Christmas and birthdays that can trigger memories that are less than stellar. Overlooked birthdays, family fights on a day that was supposed to be special, Daddies being drunk… lots of terrible things can happen on big days. These memories can come out as a statement like Sunny’s earlier, or as Big Emotions that have no obvious source. So we hope for the best for the big holidays, and brace a little for impact just in case.

Despite the iffy memories attached to it, Sunny is still over the moon to be listening to the Karen birthday song, and begged to have a way to listen to it any time she wants and misses home. So I just ordered a bear with a 30-second voice recorder for her. It won’t be great quality, but she’ll be able to listen to “home” when she wants. I’ll look for some other Karen songs too that we could put on it. Perhaps some with better memories.

Speaking of things with recorded voices, allow me to plug a toy for Muslim kids. We got her a doll that has a hijab and says and sings a bunch of Muslim phrases and songs. It’s a truly beautiful little thing, well made with super soft fabrics. Sunny adores it, and has been hugging it and playing every phrase and song again and again. We got her the darker doll, and she exclaimed that it is “brown like me!” I think it makes Sunny feel seen in her white English family. She also got a t-shirt with an anime Muslim girl on it wearing hijab, and she’s wearing that today despite its being short sleeved. So far so good.

We shall see how the day unfolds. Hopefully she doesn’t have too many bad birthday memories that could get triggered today and things unfold smoothly!

A wheelchair = liberation

Having kids with physical limitations is illuminating.

After a battle with insurance, they finally approved an adorable little yellow smiley face wheelchair for Sunny. I pushed for it because there are so many things we can’t do with her now: we can’t go to the mall, or the State Fair, or the little village festival behind our house, because Sunny can’t walk that far. She walks, but with a lot of pain from significant knee deformities.

What I didn’t bank on was the sense of freedom a mobility aid would give to my kid! She’s over the moon excited, asking to go to the zoo now, and to the mall to get boba tea, which are things we couldn’t do without difficulty and a lot of pain before. And she has grand plans for Legoland next summer. I’d better start saving for it now!

I’ve never though of a wheelchair as a mechanism for delivering freedom and elation before. I thought of wheelchairs as being restrictive, limiting access because handicap accessibility sucks generally. I’ve “felt bad for” folks bound to a wheelchair… until now.

Now I see that a wheelchair is giving my kid access to a bunch of fun activities like the local science museum, zoo, and mall. It also gives her access to the outdoors because uneven ground is nearly impossible for her. Now we can go to the local swimming hole, and can access any handicap accessible parks and outdoor events and even maybe a handicap accessible cabin for camping. Her entire world just got way bigger.

I guess the lesson here is: question your assumptions, especially if it relates to the lived experience of people who are different from you. They might have a very different perspective than you think they do. Don’t pity my kid because she’s using a wheelchair – she doesn’t feel bad about it. Just celebrate how much more she can do because of a mobility aid.

Seeking: Someone to Pay Attention

We’ve noticed over the years that a common theme in our kids coming into foster care is a deep need for undivided attention.

I think there are a lot of different reasons for this. A lot of kids coming into care are coming from pretty extreme poverty, and quite frankly, an impoverished parent desperately trying to hang on isn’t likely to spend tons of joyful playtime with their kids. They have too much to worry about.

I think an even bigger factor, though, is cycles of abuse and neglect. Of the parents we’ve worked with, the majority have spent time in foster care themselves. Let that sink in. THE MAJORITY. It’s not just drugs and poverty, it’s generations of dysfunction that the “system” isn’t doing well at improving upon. What that means, practically speaking, is a lot of parents whose kids wind up in the system have never experienced good parenting and simply don’t know how to do it, or have the emotional resources to do it given their own past trauma.

The majority of the kids we have had have soaked up affection and attention like they’re a dry well, and we are life-giving water. I’m not thinking of the toddlers here – they’re just demanding as hell by nature. I’m thinking of the older kids, ages 4 – 16.

It means sometimes our kids are tiring to parent because they don’t want to entertain themselves – they understandably spend their time being needy. As someone who is an introvert, that means pushing my limits at times. Snuggling for HOURS on the couch watching horrible tv shows, 15 zillion hugs a day, a constant need for reassurance that they’re loved – these are all signs to me that kids have missed out on some much needed parent time/attention, and are needing to fill up their love batteries.

Something else we see at times is indiscriminate affection seeking. A child who hasn’t gotten enough love, stability, security, and affirmation will often latch onto strangers. Attachment disorder is a term that’s thrown around a lot but it’s a real thing, and indiscriminately seeking affection from abject strangers can be a sign of it.

We experienced a little of this attention seeking behavior yesterday. We went to visit Mama and the three other siblings at Mama’s house. The younger boy, who is 5, just ran around being wild with Sprout. They’re a force to be reckoned with when they’re together – holy! Anyway, the other two kids, who are 11 and 13, sat close to Seth and me and soaked up every ounce of attention we could pay them. We had our ears talked off! It was very sweet, but also concerning that they’re still not getting the attention they need in their current situation.

In general, I’m a bundle of guilt about not having any of the other kids in our home, especially the oldest sister who has medical needs that are even greater than Sprout and Sunny’s. She’s the sweetest kid, and I worry about her constantly. She needs a tremendous amount of care and I have my own fatigue limits, Seth has laid down the law to say no more kids to preserve his own sanity, we couldn’t fit her in our vehicle, we don’t have a ground floor bedroom for her which she will need as she experiences surgeries… it’s just all somehow too much. But my heart is aching for this sweet girl, and praying she is getting “enough” attention and affection to make it out of the system functional.

Anyway, I digress. With regard to attention seeking, it is a joy to watch kids grow more satiated over time, to gain confidence and security, to lessen their needs for nonstop attention and affection. It turns out love batteries can be filled; it just takes a lot of time and love and effort. We are in the early stages with Sunny and she still needs a lot of affection and attention, but in just 4 months we’ve already seen some improvement in her confidence and sense of independence. I look forward to watching her grow further and learn to seek fulfillment of her needs from healthy sources.

Openness in Adoptions

I’m strongly in favor of open adoptions – in the vast majority of cases – for so many reasons, primarily because there’s abundant research that now shows it is healthiest for the kids, and it should all be about the kids.

Times have changed. This is not the 80s when adoptions were usually closed. We know better now because of the research, so can do better.

There are a million ways for that openness to look. There can be visits or phone calls, ranging from occasional contact, to a blending of families, and everything in between.

We are headed toward adoption of the precious little 4-year-old girl I refer to as Sprout. It’s not an infant adoption, it’s through foster care. Does that change things with regard to openness? After all, her Mama screwed up. That’s why she’s in foster care.

No. No, it does not change a thing. This is going to be the openest of adoptions.

If Mama surrenders Sprout and voluntarily relinquishes her parental rights, which is suddenly back on the table as a possibility, we will agree to legally binding twice annual visits between Mom and child. In reality, we are aiming for monthly visits at least, but we’d be legally bound to making at least those two visits happen.

If Mom does not relinquish her rights she’s going to lose her legal right to see her youngest daughter and I am praying we do not go that route for so many reasons. But you know what? We have her phone number and her address and her brother’s phone number and there’s no way we are going to let this child lose contact with her Mama if we have any say in things.

Sprout already knows her Mama. She misses her with a fundamental need that is awe inspiring. They don’t speak the same language anymore – Mama speaks Burmese and Arabic and Thai. Sprout speaks only English at this point, but honestly it doesn’t seem to matter. They are attached deeply and profoundly. They need each other. Sprout has been with us more than half her life and was a tiny infant when she was with her Mama, but that doesn’t matter. We humans tend to discount the experiences of other humans in utero and early infancy by saying they “won’t remember” things, but my experience is that kids remember things in a primal way that is deeper than memories they can recall. It’s amazing to witness.

Sprout is also profoundly attached to my husband and me. We are the parents she remembers and relies on to meet all her needs. We are the ones who feed and clothe and play with and bathe and teach and comfort and have fun with her on a daily basis. She knows she is safe with us and can rely on us and that creates a different kind of bond, no less fundamental over time. This 4-year-old needs her Mama and her Mommy and her Daddy. All of us.

We are still foster parents for now though, even if adoption is the direction things are heading for Sprout. Visits right now with Mama are twice a month. We just got permission in court yesterday to supervise visits ourselves, so now we can take Sprout and her sister Sunny to visit their Mama two hours away on weekends and days off from school. Then the agencies will also arrange a visit each month, typically during the week. Visits had been being done twice a month by the agencies but that meant the girls missing two full days of school each month for visits which was way too much.

I think this will be better for the girls in several ways. For one, obviously, they miss less school. For another, it will help us build bridges of understanding with Mama if we are there supervising the visits. We don’t speak any of the languages Mama speaks, either, but Sprout’s sister Sunny, and her other three siblings do. They work hard to be good translators and get excited about being able to do so. If we are going to maintain a strong bond between Mama and Sprout after adoption, the more we know Mama and the more she trusts us, the better.

After all, we are a triad of parents. Three grownups who love this little girl body and soul and who need to work together to raise her well. We’re in. I think Mama is going to be in too, to the best of her ability. We’ll need some luck and some patience, but I believe that our bond to Sprout will carry us through.

Mom Life

Today is a virtual miracle.

I am getting the kids up and clean and fed and dressed and out the door for the bus to school this morning. But then?

I have the day off until 4.

This is a startling and welcome event. People seem to think that because I’m a stay-at-home mom and not working out of the house that I have all sorts of free time. At that, I laugh. Uproariously.

In the month of November we drove approximately 360 miles for doctor appointments just for the girls. We also drove another 300+ miles for horseback riding lessons and Arabic school at the mosque. There were parent teacher conferences. Then there were 5 medical, therapy, and dental appointments for me, a financial planning appointment, planning board meeting (my part, part time job) and work at the office for that, decorating the church for Christmas, a worship planning meeting for church, two home visits (one from the girls’ case worker and one from ours), a hair appointment, a queer group I attend, handbell choir rehearsals, and a partridge in a pair tree.

In among all that was Christmas shopping for my three girls, a child I fully sponsored, several other kids in need I got a single gift for, teachers, teacher aids, occupational, physical, and speech therapists, and a horseback riding instructor. Plus there was the need for keeping the house clean and running, and food in the fridge and on the table.

Are you tired? I’m tired. But this is my Mom life.

I can’t work for several reasons. Primarily, I couldn’t. My medical issues take too much of a toll on me and I must nap each day. I cannot get through my days without sleeping in the middle of them, even with heavy duty stimulants. But even perfectly healthy I don’t know that I could work – not full time anyway, and at best a work from home job or one that is profoundly flexible – because of all the girls’ medical appointments.

Do you know what I’m doing today though???

Reading this:

I love Barbara Kingsolver. Her books are amazing.

And I shall be listening to classical music the girls proclaim is “sooo booooring.” And I will be napping without an alarm, enjoying the Christmas tree, not cleaning, not cooking, not anything I’m “supposed” to do.

Good god! It’s going to be spectacular!

Kids’ Relationships with “Stuff”

I thought of this topic because someone posted in a Facebook page I follow about their frustration with their foster kids’ treatment of toys and general messiness. Compared with her bio kids, she was surprised by the way her foster kids relate to objects. The original poster has my sympathy. It’s something Seth and I talk about and struggle with constantly.

When Seth and I were kids, we played with our toys nicely and treated them well because we wanted them to last. For me, I also felt like my toys had feelings and didn’t want to hurt them, but that’s beside the point.

Why did we do that? Mostly because we were taught to. It’s not something that’s always inherent in kids, although in my sensitive, overly empathetic, autistic self, it might have been inherent to some degree.

One of the surprising challenges of foster care is having kids come into the house who haven’t been taught to respect their space or their things. Lots of toys get broken, sometimes on purpose. But even unintentional roughness breaks a lot of toys, just because they haven’t been taught differently. I’m continually surprised by how much gentleness and respect for things has to be taught.

There’s also a need to vent in foster kids and other kids who have experienced trauma. Built up anger and frustration need to go somewhere at young ages. Kids can trash a room in 10 seconds flat if they’re dysregulated. It took Seth and me a while to adjust to having Kiddo break 5 toys on purpose and throw a few others before she could regulate again after, say, a visit. Sunny is the sweetest kid, but in a fit of pique she broke a toy recently. Just grabbed it and snapped it. It was after her Mama failed to pick up the phone when we called. Somehow it startles me every time.

Sprout is the only one who doesn’t intentionally break things and plays pretty nicely with her toys and I suspect it’s because she came to us before age 2 so has learned the respect for stuff that we’ve tried to impart. That said, the child would rather have her fingernails pulled than pick up after she’s created a mess playing. It’s still a work in progress.

Another challenge we’ve run into is obsessive holding onto things. Kiddo has a really really hard time with this and I have deep fears that she’ll be a hoarder some day. She lost everything she owned in some traumatic moves when she was a kid (think bedbugs and a rightly freaked out mom, and then coming into foster care and leaving all her toys behind). Now she cannot part with toys that are for much younger kids, broken, unused,, or forgotten, until we pull them out to donate or toss them. She also wants everything she sees. It’s like a powerful need for her to acquire and have and keep.

My coffee table was clean yesterday morning. Then kids happened. And yes, we have enough barrettes for a small army of children.

Cleaning and keeping things clean can be a challenge too. Sunny and Sprout aren’t great but aren’t usually terrible unless they’re dysregulated (then all bets are off). But Kiddo would live in squalor and never notice. It is like the inside of her head is so chaotic she makes her surrounding environment match what’s inside. It’s incredible to watch her come into a clean and organized house and tear it apart in an hour of play. I don’t think it’s intentional, it’s just how she is inside and it quickly gets reflected in her surroundings. Her room’s state is a constant struggle (it has to be clean enough to access the Guinea pigs and not be a fire hazard), and it’s constant work to make her pick up after herself because it’s almost like she can’t see and recognize the mess. It’s kind of amazing. And exasperating.

I can only be so hard on Kiddo about the messiness of her room because a) it’s her space and b) I was a kid with executive dysfunction who couldn’t manage to clean her room for many years of my childhood. I feel like a hypocrite when I complain about Kiddo’s room and can live with it being messy, but it drives Seth bananas.

All we can do is try to keep teaching the kids and hope it sinks in. And buy sturdy toys. And crack the whip and make them pick up after themselves when they’ve trashed a space, no matter how much whining or heel dragging it evinces. All our efforts in this regard are still only somewhat effective. We are fighting an uphill battle against trauma, dysregulation, and lack of early teaching.

Persistence Pays Off… Maybe? 🤞🏻

After my last blog post, I wrote a frustrated Facebook post on a foster care group page about the misery of this situation with being unable to get the girls medical care they desperately need. I got a lot of “don’t give up, you have to do something” comments which didn’t accomplish anything but annoy me. But I DID get two deliciously practical suggestions:

1. Call the hospital we need to take them to again and get a written denial from them that I can take to the county, along with a cost estimate they put together for the cost of an initial consultation. Then take that up the ranks and see if I can get the county or state to cover the cost of at least an initial consult out of pocket.

2. Call the hospital we need to take them to again and see if they would offer any financial aid so we could afford out of pocket costs for an initial consult if necessary.

So I called a different number at the Delaware hospital than I’d called previously, and I got a wonderfully helpful woman who loaded me up with info and phone numbers and strategy. The most valuable thing she said was: “There are patients here with NY Medicaid so there has to be a way to do this. I’m not entirely sure how, but I have ideas.”

My heart just about thumped out my chest when she said that! Hooray!

She transferred me to an intake number, and the woman who answered the phone there was the same one I’d spoken with before who had said “we don’t take that insurance,” and cut off the conversation. She repeated her stock line this time but before she could hang up I told her I’d just spoken with someone who said there are patients there with the girls’ insurance so could I please speak with a supervisor? She grumpily consented. And lo and behold! There’s a process!

It may or may not work. There’s no ringing success to celebrate yet. But I hung up from that call and talked to the girls’ pediatrician’s office and she said she hasn’t done the process before but was sure willing to give it a try. We basically have to get the girls’ Medicaid to agree that an out of network provider is required for them because there’s no specialist closer who can provide the care they need. And THAT part should be easy since their geneticist and their orthopedic surgeon have both put that in their file notes.

I’m feeling a mix of hope and extreme irritation that this one woman was a roadblock for these girls getting help sooner. How does she still have a job? Does she just say no to everybody or am I just a lucky winner? Medicaid could still say no but at least I know how to fight that.

I suspect we are still probably a good three months out from a decision either way. The wheels grind slowly. But it’s not a critically urgent need – they’ll be ok for a three month wait. And hope is an amazing thing.

An interesting observation though: I felt like such a “Karen” asking for a supervisor. I don’t know that I’ve ever done that before. Women are so conditioned to be submissive and accepting that when we push back we feel uncomfortable. At least I did, and friends I’ve spoken with about it would have as well. Karen is a popular meme because frankly, white women can suck incredibly hard. But sometimes I wish the Karen meme would die a fiery death so women who are not just being bitchy can feel more empowered. Sometimes empowerment is critical for the life and wellbeing of a small human or two.