foster child update

It has been one year since we had our first foster child come into our house. Almost 4 year old, Alexis, arrived to our house on 10/24/11. One year ago we were taking three children trick-or-treating. Life was crazy and we had big hopes that it would get less crazy. We lived in extreme stress for 6 months with Alexis and had to let her move on to another family about 6 months ago. Our family has recovered for the most part but we will never be the same people we were before doing foster care.

Alexis is now with a great family that is in the process of adopting her and her story in foster care has a great ending. God really did provide when we needed him to. He brought amazing parents, without other kids, and with the skills and love that Alexis needed. On top of that, the new family wants us involved in their lives. We had hoped and prayed that we would be able to keep up with Alexis. We love that little girl and hope that we can somehow overcome the difficulties and be her friends for life. The new parents are hoping that our continuing relationship also helps Alexis understand that she is still loved by us even though our relationship is different now.

Since Alexis left at the end of April, we have seen her a few times but the times together usually don't end well. She has fun with us for awhile and then something happens and memories are probably triggered and her behavior worsens.

About 2 months ago, I met with the new mom and Alexis for lunch and I enjoyed it but it was also difficult. The boys and Bryan haven't seen her in about 4 months but we were hoping for a short trick-or-treating visit at their house tonight. It was all setup to happen but it just got canceled. Alexis is having a really hard time right now trusting that her new parents won't leave her and that they love her. She asks them a lot and she cries a lot. She cries when life is hard and anything can bring out the tears. Not sure if she is remembering where she was a year ago but something has triggered this as a harder time for her.

It breaks my heart that she is having a harder time than usual time right now. I had been looking forward to seeing her tonight. I know that we helped Alexis get through some tough times in the past but I still have lots of negative thoughts creep in about what damaging things we did to her by not adopting her. I know it was for the best for her and for us but it still has some negative results attached to it.

I am happy to go trick-or-treating with my two little super heroes, Jaden and Clay (who chose to wear their same costumes this year), but I will also be thinking about what life was like one year ago. Alexis will always be in my prayers.

healing from foster care

I have so many mixed emotions about foster care and adoption and that has been keeping me from writing about it. I knew that it had been awhile since I last blogged about anything related to foster care but when I looked today at my blog I realized that I haven't written anything since 2 days after our little foster girl left (about 8 weeks ago).

Our family life is drastically different now. There are only four people in our house and we are able to relax. Our bodies and minds are recovering from living in extreme stress for six months. The boys behavior is getting back to a healthy state but there is always room for improvement. We still see some lasting behavior that developed during foster care but that will change with more time. The first week with the two boys was very difficult still dealing with their recently developed behavior challenges but since that week, things have steadily improved. We have now been a family of four for 8 weeks and it stills seems to soon to be healed. We are still processing everything.

Our family has been healing and I am sure the healing will continue. We accomplished something big by taking another child into our home and a difficult child at that. I thank God that He was with us throughout everything and that increased our prayer time. But I also know that we didn't succeed at adopting a child. I have a life goal list and on that list are many things including foster a child and adopt a child. We accomplished one but the other did not happen. Some may call it a failed adoption. I know there are some that are thinking that. I also know that God is bringing more good out of this than I thought possible. So I am going to keep praying that God will continue to bring more good out of this difficult situation.

I am not sure what lies ahead for our family. There are times we think that this (foster care or having 3 kids) just isn't our ministry and God has gifted us with other talents. Now we can shift our focus to pursuing other things we are passionate about. But there are other times that I think maybe these 3 kids weren't our ministry and that this just wasn't our time. I can't say that we will never foster a child again or that we will never adopt a child. I don't know what is in our future. I know that we will not intentionally be changing our family size any time soon and we will not be doing foster care any time soon. Our family needs more time to heal and our boys need some more stability. I see that more now than ever.

transitioning out of foster care

On Sunday I packed up the last of our little foster girl's stuff at our house. Everything was ready to be moved to her new home and new foster/adopt family. The boys and I said goodbye and see ya later while Bryan was at work. I was handling things pretty well. Saturday and Sunday were hard days because of dealing with 3 kids with behavior issues while Bryan was working. So in some ways it was a relief to say goodbye to one child. I knew the hardness of that would still hit me. Our family went to church Sunday evening and the emotion of it all hit me. I am still dealing with feelings of failure in what we hoped would end in adoption. There are feelings of sadness from all of us that we will miss this little girl. We are hopeful and excited about her new life. We also feel like celebrating our freedom. We have felt more confined to our house with three kids and their behavior issues. So we have mixed feelings of sadness and celebration, disappointment and hopefulness.

Monday night we got to see the new family of 3 for dinner as all 7 of us ate together. This was planned because Bryan missed out on the joint goodbye on Sunday and it was nice to have another thing to look forward to. At dinner we were reminded that little girl is still in a state of stress. She was overly loud and doesn't fully understand that she has left our house permanently. I am sure this will take some time to set in for her. We were also reminded that our attention is now focused off of this little girl and onto our two boys. The boys behavior needs to improve and get back to a healthy place. Neither of them ever had tantrums before this little girl entered our house and now at 5 and 7 years old, they are both having major emotional and physical breakdowns. We know our boys are resilient but they need a lot of love and attention right now. We are happy to provide that for them. I am amazed at how much quieter our house and cars are when there are only 2 kids instead of 3. I am enjoying the quietness and working through all that we have experienced in the last 6 months of foster care. Thank you again for your prayers and thoughts. We appreciate them.

the difference of a week

A week ago I was uncontrollably emotional. Now I am confident in the plans that God has seemingly crafted for our family and our little foster girl.

A week ago we met the new foster/adopt parents and we enjoyed a long dinner conversation with them and without kids. We got little girl excited to meet her special new friends and spend two hours with them on Wednesday. Then she had another visit with them on Friday. Both went really well. Then Saturday and Sunday, we had the new foster parents over to our house at different times. Every interaction with them continues to remind us that they will be a great family and home for this little girl.

This week she will be spending 2 overnights at their house. Then she will return to our house for 2 overnights. Then the big move will be happening on Sunday. In just a little over 2 weeks time, we found out about a great foster to adopt home in our suburb (just 10 minutes from us) and she will be moving to their house. This has felt fast and we wanted to extend it but as time goes on, 2 weeks will be just the right amount of time.

We are excited by the new family and their plans to adopt this little girl. They will be great parents to her. They have so many qualities we had hoped and prayed to find. They are Christians, extremely patient, understanding and laugh easily at little girl's silliness. They have experience with speech therapy and developmentally delayed kids. They have great family support and they don't have any other kids. On top of that, they have a fun and loving dog to share.

The new family is also supportive of our minimal involvement and we look forward to keeping up with this little girl. We hope we can provide some respite care to them and meet for some play dates with the kids.

This transition will still be difficult for everyone involved and tears will continue to be shed by many of us. The boys are trying to process everything that is happening and it is not easy for them to understand. You can pray for them to feel extra-loved during this time. We are also praying for continued improvement in little girl and for lots of love, patience and compassion to come flowing out of the new parents.

Thanks for your prayers and encouragement. Your encouraging words help me to focus on the positive and remember God is with us every step of the way.

foster care change of plans

I haven't blogged for about 2 weeks. There are many reasons for that and they are probably all related to doing foster care for a little girl. It was about 2 weeks ago that Bryan and I came to the conclusion that we will not be adopting our little, 4 year old foster girl. This decision was extremely hard to make because of all of the expectations and emotions that are tied to one complicated little girl. We are confident of our decision after having prayed about this for 6 months and talked with everyone close to us about our family. I am still very emotional at times about our decision and that has led me to not feel like I could write a clear blog post about this. Bryan has done a great job explaining our feelings and situation so I am stealing some of his words.

We went into foster care because we wanted to interact with a family that needed help taking care of their child. We also thought that we might be interested in adoption. Those thoughts have changed and been challenged to extremes we didn't know were possible. We are still very happy that we are foster parents. We will be forever changed by this decision to foster another child. Our potential plan to adopt a foster child will not be happening and so we are dealing with this change in our plans...and that is very difficult right now.

 

We decided 2 weeks ago that we are not equipped to handle three kids and the challenges that would bring in the long term. We told this to our social workers and they said they would look for a new family over the next few months as we hoped to make sure her mom was out of the picture before the transition. The following week we were called with what seems to be the perfect family match for little girl. They had everything we had thought little girl needs and they seem like really great people! We met with the couple on Monday night in preparation for the transition. They will have their first visit with her at their house tonight (Wednesday). We will have a couple visits and an overnight for them to decide about foster care with the plan of adopting her.

 

This is all going fast for us and we are starting to grieve the upcoming loss of little girl and process the guilt of not being able to make everything work. We have dumped so much of our lives into her over the last 6 months and her improvements intellectually, physically and behaviorally have been huge. She doesn't fall down as much; she knows her shapes, colors, numbers to 10 on a good day and many letters now including her name; and her tantrums are free from intentionally hurting herself and shows signs of starting to self regulate by asking us to tickle her before she breaks down. We are now trying to do everything we can to make the transition for her and her new family to be as smooth and as positive as possible. We are even hoping to have future interactions and play dates with her to make sure she knows we enjoy and love her. Please pray for this transition, for her new family/home and for our family to adjust and understand the good we did for this little girl is worth the uncomfortable feelings it brings to let her go to another family. We truly believe that she will be better off in their home than ours and look forward to seeing her do well as a part of their family.

little girl takes the blame

Today our little foster girl got to see her birth mom at a one and a half hour visit. She was very much looking forward to it especially after mom didn't show up last week. After the visit, little girl was very talkative. She seemed to be reminiscing about her life. She kept telling me that she was nice and she went to jail. "Me nice. Me not bad. Me go to jail." After more questions and having her explain it about five times, she was talking about the night she got taken from her mom. In little girl's mind, she went to jail because she was on the street. She is now terrified of going in the street. She doesn't want to go to jail again.

I attempted to explain to her that she went to a shelter, not jail after she was found on the street. She firmly disagreed repeatedly. She is convinced she went to jail and that is the reason she is not with her mom. Whenever we try to explain that her mom didn't take good care of her or that her mom is on drugs or sick, she denies all of it with anger and yelling. In her head, she has a good mom. It was all she knew until she was taken away. I don't think she is old enough to grasp the different kind of family or house that she is in now as compared to what she used to have. She doesn't trust me or Bryan and doesn't believe a lot of what we say. We will continue to remind her that she is not the reason she was taken from her mom. Her mom is the reason they are not together. Her mom has made bad choices and so this little girl needs a better home.

Kids seem to always blame themselves for anything bad that happens around them even when they are not responsible for the bad action. We see that so clearly with our little foster girl. It makes me wonder what actions of mine that the boys will blame themselves. It is also interesting for me to think about the kids' bad actions and their choices to escape blame or consequences. Are these two opposite scenarios tied together? When parents make mistakes, the kids feel bad and feel like they are the ones who made a mistake. When kids make mistakes, the kids pretend to not feel bad and portray that they didn't make a mistake. In reality, the kids probably feel bad when their parents make mistakes and when they, themselves, make mistakes. Poor kids are taking on way too much on their shoulders. Kids need to be reminded that parents make mistakes and the kids are not blame.

unexpected birth mom story

Yesterday, Bryan and I went to Hennepin County court. We were hoping and praying that little girl's birth mom would not show up to her next court appointment. The hearing was just to get an update on what mom has done to get her daughter back. And for the judge to find out if mom has followed any of the court ordered plan. Mom did show up and what happened is not what we expected. The court date got rescheduled due to an unexpected plan.

We talked with the birth mom for a little while. She reinforced that she wants her daughter back but only after I asked and she answered with only a head nod. Not very convincing. She is trying to get better. She has stopped using cocaine and the drug screens are showing it but she is still using marijuana and living with her boyfriend and who sells and uses cocaine. Mom is trying to get a bed in an inpatient drug treatment program and things are in process to do this for her. She has been showing up to visits with her daughter but she is not concerned about her daughter's well being at all and never has any questions about her daughter. This is very strange considering she has taken care of her daughter for 4 years and is seemingly happy that she doesn't have to do it any more. Mom has no concerns about what is happening to her daughter. Mom needs parenting help (classes) and help with being physically abused. She has been told repeatedly that she will not get her daughter back unless she moves out from her boyfriend, goes through drug treatment and completes some classes along with checking in daily for potential drug screens and showing up to visits with her daughter. Mom just started getting into action 5 months after her daughter was removed. Her actions may be too late but most likely she will not complete drug treatment and will not move out from her boyfriend. Mom knew from the beginning that she has 6 months to prove that she can be a better parent by carrying out the court ordered plan. That 6 months is up at the end of March. If mom is not in drug treatment at our next hearing in 4 weeks, then the parental rights will be removed next.

So that is the update on the mom that we got while waiting for court. While we were talking with little girl's social worker, the mom was meeting with her public defender/lawyer in a room across the hallway. We were informed that there is a warrant out for mom's arrest but the officials were not sure if it was accurate because it only showed up in 1 of 2 databases. While we were talking about this, our social worker said, look through the window...mom is getting arrested. So the warrant was indeed correct and the mom was under arrest for not appearing in criminal court when she was scheduled for charges of child endangerment. We watched through the glass as mom was handcuffed and taken away, tears streaming down her cheeks. She appeared to be trying to get her daughter back and get herself some help but all that changed in an instant. She spent last night in jail and may still be there for a day or two more. The county is probably planning to hold her until they can get a bed ready for her at the inpatient drug treatment program.

We have visits scheduled for Friday and next Tuesday for little girl and mom to get some supervised time together but they may not be happening now. Somehow in some weird way I may have gotten my prayer answered. I was praying for mom to not show up because she would have fewer rights to see her daughter again. I knew this would help lead to little girl getting a permanent healthy family sooner. I was also hoping that she wouldn't show up to our next visit so that our lives are not made more difficult. Little girl always regresses after seeing her mom so that makes our family life even harder. So now mom may be in jail or in treatment for our next visit so most likely it will not be happening. Once that is confirmed on Friday, it will feel much better but until then, I am still praying for no more visits with mom until she is better, if that ever happens.

I prayed hard for mom to get better when we first got little girl. I knew I was praying against the odds but figured it would still be better for both of them in the end. All of the people involved in the case have been assuming this mom would not be able to get better. We are in agreement with them and focusing on getting a better life for this little girl. So mom's recovery is secondary to saving this little girl's life now.

low on compassion and high on frustration

Usually I try to wait to write a blog post until my frustration has decreased and I am in a calm state. I am not there yet and this post might end up being a mistake later. We will see.

I have been at home all day with little girl after she threw up twice in the middle of the night. No fun being sick and no fun cleaning up puke in the carpet, on the blankets, in buckets, in the bed and on the clothes. Yuck. The up side is that there was no visit with birth mom today. And no subsequent regression of behavior. Yay! I don't think we will have any visits for the next 3 weeks and that leads me to hope for no more visits indefinitely and hopefully a continual recovery from neglect and emotional abuse for little girl. There will be no visit this week due to sickness and none next week because we are taking little girl on our family vacation to Phoenix. Then there will be no visit the week after that because of mom's next court hearing.

I am frustrated by a misbehaving child who hasn't really acted sick all day. Unless her sickness is causing her to misbehave and have lots of peeing issues. They could be related but I am out of compassion. I have done countless loads of laundry today and it wasn't to wash the full hampers in our house. That laundry will have to wait while the pee and puke laundry is taken care of.

Bryan is hopefully having fun with the boys while I continue to be at home. We had about 2 hours of off and on screaming from 4-6pm with 2 peeing accidents on the carpet. Little girl has been really good about not peeing on the carpet or furniture, surprisingly, so that has made that a little harder to deal with today. I really do know that potty training can be much worse because it was with my two boys. She has been relatively easy to train but today was no fun. I had enough and a pull-up is now being used. I do not plan on regretting that later.

It is really hard to express the frustration and stress level that is induced in our house because of having our first foster child in our house. People see her at school, church or out and about and they think she is a little odd but still cute and wonderful. She is not cute and wonderful very often. That is the exception. She has induced a lot of problems in our family life and it is hard, very hard to not take any of it out on her. Sometimes I am able to blame the birth mom for little girl's problems but that is not easy. I know I need more compassion for little girl and in my best moments, God comes through with more compassion than I could ever muster up. Right now I am out of compassion and need a break. I am looking forward to escaping to the grocery store once Bryan is home. Who knew that grocery shopping could feel like a reward!

bottles and attachment

So my judgment is still pending about my latest idea with our little foster girl. I bought baby bottles. I have read in multiple places and been encouraged by multiple people to try bottle feeding with little girl. We know she has been neglected and was not well cared for as a baby. She acts like a baby often and wants us treat her like one more often than we would like. The experts are telling us that is encouraging because she is trying to form attachment to us. I am not convinced but they do know more than I do about this. So I have tried a bottle twice with different feelings about it. I think it is good for her and will keep trying but not sure for how long. One bottle a day is good for her to be held and good for eye contact and good for her to get the nutrition of milk in her body. She does not drink very much and could use some more hydrating so the bottle feeding is helping with that too. She is not the biggest fan of milk so I wonder if that is because she wasn't given that much of it...who knows.

We continue to work on attachment with her, which really just means being very intentional about loving her and meeting her needs. On top of that there are lots of discipline issues remaining. Multiple daily tantrums/outbursts/emotional breakdowns or whatever you want to call them still remain a part of our life. On top of that we are still dealing with the negative behaviors that have developed in our boys after she arrived.

The last 3 weeks have been rougher than the previous month because birth mom entered the picture again. This made little girl have more fear and more bad behavior because of that fear. She doesn't know what is going on. Who will she live with and what is in the future? We reassure her with our best ideas and explanations but we know she can't understand all of what we are saying to her. Her mom is trying again and states that she is off cocaine and only using marijuana. She is seeming more normal and talking and interactive but we will see how long that lasts. She is still living with her boyfriend who uses and sells cocaine and there is physical abuse between them. Very bad environment for little girl. I can almost say with certainty that she will not be returning to her mom. Mom has only 3 more weeks to prove herself and move out or get into treatment or the process to remove parental rights will be started. The parental rights will most likely be terminated in April or May and little girl will be available for adoption.

still in transition

I have not intentionally been putting off writing about our little foster girl but my emotions and feelings and thoughts about our whole situation seem to change daily. I'm not sure if my thoughts are becoming more consistent or not yet but I feel inspired to write again. (Thank you to the movie The Help. So inspirational on so many levels.)

Life still seems incredibly hard around our house. I am sure I am making it harder than it really is but our family is still in transition. I am generally grumpy. Grumpy to my husband, my boys and little girl. Sometimes more angry than grumpy but I don't want to admit that. It is difficult to enjoy the good moments and I linger in the bad. I am a pessimist.

Little girl's behavior is improving. Her behavior is seeming normal for a 2 or 3 year old, even though she is 4. She cries at times (when she didn't use to let it out) and asks for lots of hugs when her mood is escalating instead of jumping to screaming right away. I am continually faced with her deficits from potty training issues to missing vocabulary to the multitude of bruises on her legs (gross motor issues) to rising anger when I can't figure out a word she is trying desperately to pronounce. She is developmentally delayed. She will be getting special education because of deficits in five areas. She needs the extra help. She may end up being a learning challenged kid the rest of her life. She does not have an easy life ahead of her whether she stays with our family or not.

There is continual talk of adoption. Birth mom dropped out of the picture over a month ago. Breaks my heart. We continue to pray for mom's health and her life. We were able to let the social workers involved know that we would really just like to focus on foster care as long as we can handle it and defer any adoption conversation. There were some emotional conversations in mid December about possibly needing to end this sooner than we thought. We are done with that thinking, hopefully, and we are focusing on making our family healthy no matter what the outcome is for little girl's forever family. Birth mom's parental rights will be terminated, most likely in April and little girl will be available for adoption. We will either adopt her or help in choosing a better family fit for her. This is undecided and I don't see that decision getting made any time soon (not at least for another month).

Even though little girl has improved, we are waiting to see the boys behavior improve. Jaden is stuck in a perfectionist world that is so hard for him to let go. He has trouble following the simplest commands at times. Clay has anger toward little girl that we are trying to decrease. We have a new set of goals (not rules) in our family and it is helping us all. Here are the most common repeated adages in our house. No hurts. Ask not tell. Listen and obey. Eyes. Hugs.

learning delays

Here are a couple pictures from little girl's birthday party last weekend. We had my brother and his 3 kids over for dinner and cake and presents. She loved her dress up clothes from them! We inflated a bunch of balloons for her, which she calls, "moons" and she loved them too.

On Friday we took her to her special education evaluation after she needed further assessment from her preschool screening. I had to get over the lump in my throat that she would be going to special education and we were beginning to face development delays. Then yesterday she was having a very "smart" day. She performed very well on all the testing. The evaluator was quite impressed with her and said she was a teacher's dream but that she definitely needed speech help. I don't think she saw what we see and deal with daily. Then when we were about to leave the behavior issues started coming out. She didn't want to go and did everything she could to stay. We got through it and got her in the van. This was not the result of the evaluation we were expecting.

We know little girl is mentally delayed. We still don't know if that is because she just hasn't been taught (although she was in daycare from 1 to 3 years old) or because she has some severe learning difficulties. She might catch up completely but it is unknown. There is a lot of unknown with her. It is unknown how much speech progress she can make and it is unknown how her behavior will change as she ages. We know her learning is delayed and she will need extra help and the professionals agree but she looks smart compared to other special education children. What the evaluation did show me was that some of my efforts are paying off. I have been practicing a lot of the skills that were tested with her. And she performed them very well. She can now understand "what's missing," same or different and play matching games. She can write better and has learned more shapes. Her deficiencies still exist but they were not tested yet, other than her speech.

I was also reassured that having her at Clay's Montessori school is the right thing for her. We met with the 2 Montessorians (teachers) yesterday for Clay's conference and they reminded me that Dr. Montessori originally designed this program specifically for kids like our little foster girl. Dr. Montessori was the first female physician in Italy and she was put in charge of the "orphaned" children in Italy because it seemed like they didn't know what to do with her. The teachers agree with us that little girl needs lots of love and it is great to know she is getting more love while she is at school too. We have had her at school only one day a week but will be increasing it to two in December. A little more freedom for me and education for her. I am looking forward to getting involved again at the science museum.

birth mom

A birth mom is what is known as the mom that gives birth to a child. She used to be known as a biological mom but now the correct term is birth mom. Less science-y and a shorter word to use. We are dealing with birth mom interactions and complications from those interactions or lack of them.

This afternoon was hard. Little girl can't understand why her mom doesn't show up to see her and she doesn't have the words to talk about it. We just say it is hard. I try to explain to the boys why she had a hard afternoon. We try to relax, share a treat and have some fun on hard days like today.

Today was the 4th visit that has been scheduled for mom to interact with her daughter since she has been in our house. The first visit mom showed up and left early. About 20 minutes into a 2 hour visit because little girl threw a tantrum and couldn't calm down quickly. Second visit mom didn't show up because she was in the hospital after a pretty serious suicide attempt. Third visit mom showed up late but had about an hour and half successful visit. Chips were shared and she got a stuffed gorilla. There was no mention of little girl's upcoming birthday. Little girl turned 4. Fourth visit was supposed to happen today and mom didn't show up. We lingered extra long in the waiting area of the supervised visit building, mostly because little girl wanted to finish coloring. I kinda wonder if she was hoping that her mom would show up. Not sure. I know she knew why we were there but it is very hard to talk about and it just makes her angry when we do talk about mom visiting. We got in the van to leave. Got a treat from Starbucks. Avoided a screaming melt down after the cake-pop (lollipop made of cake) was gone. Little girl had the saddest look on her face. Made me tear-up. She fell asleep on the drive home. Breaks my heart.

I am praying for mom to show up at our next visit on Monday. My life is harder whether mom shows up or not because of the emotion, fear, uncertainty and anger in little girl that results when thinking about her mom and knowing the possibility of seeing her. I pray her mom is still alive and that she has the will to try to get better.

3 kids is harder than 2

We are still adjusting to having three kids in our house. For the first two weeks, the boys were on their best behavior. I appreciated their perspective sooo much. When little girl was throwing a fit in the van, Clay said, "It's ok that I don't have toys on one side of my car seat because I have enough on the other side." We had to remove toys from little girl's car seat and from one side of Clay's because she can reach his toys when she gets angry and throws a fit in the van while strapped into the seat. She likes to throw things when she gets mad. She also screams very loudly which has caused her to lose part of her voice the last couple days. That is actually refreshing because she can't be as loud. When she was at her ear-piercing loudest, Jaden and I were riding in the van with her on the way to school and Jaden had perfect timing as I was trying to mentally and physically block out the screaming. I was wishing for ear plugs. My ears were actually in pain. Jaden said in between screams, "Mom, it's ok. It doesn't hurt my ears because I have my hood up." So sweet. I wish I could make the screaming stop and I wish that he didn't have to suffer through it also.

We are over three weeks into this process and last week the boys got difficult. They snapped out of their good behavior and seem to have lost track of house rules and boundaries. We are trying hard to love each of them in individual ways and figure out what they need most. Dealing with three misbehaving kids is hard and exhausting.

We celebrated little girl's 4th birthday this weekend. We had fun and again it was exhausting. For once she got away with saying, "Mine!" as much as she wanted. Her birthday presents belonged to her. The 20 balloons Bryan blew up, belonged to her. Her birthday cake was hers and she enjoyed the mine-ness for a short while.

Tantrums

It has been two weeks now that we have had our foster girl in our house. It has been quite an experience. More work and a bigger challenge than we expected. I think we have had 3 days that have been tantrum free with 1-3 tantrums on the other days. This is the hardest part of life with the little girl. She gets violent to herself and with Bryan and I so we have to restrain her. It continues to shock me how much she tries to hurt herself - kicking and hitting walls and furniture, hitting her head on anything around her, pulling out her hair, digging in her fingernails into her hands and the list will go on. When she gets angry she has a very difficult time calming down and it takes her up to 40 minutes to calm down and stop screaming and yelling. Bryan and I have figured out that it actually helps for us to talk to her intermittently throughout the tantrum. This shortens the screaming time. We have also noticed that she is ready to be done when she starts screaming "Please..." and requesting whatever she wants to do. It is amazing how quickly she stops screaming and becomes the sweetest kid possible. There are lots of hugs and kisses and lots of holding and reading books in the calm period.

The tantrums are very difficult. We have not really seen notable improvement in the tantrum area. On the other hand, I have noticed improvement in other areas. She can share sometimes and can take turns. She can react to "No" without screaming now. She responds to threats with good behavior and doesn't throw a tantrum (all the time). She learned a new shape, square. She now can say some numbers even if they are in the wrong order. She can match and sort colors. She uses the toilet occasionally (even pooped once in the toilet). She will repeat her words and almost always tries to pronounce the word correctly when prompted. These might seem like small things but it is so encouraging to see any improvement.

I have been praying so much over the last two weeks. I need more patience. She needs to feel loved and given attention. She needs to be able to use some calming techniques when her anger or emotions are out of control. Her mom needs help to recover from drug addiction. We need to get services set up for developmental delays, speech therapy and possible physical therapy.

Thank you for your prayers. We feel them and it is neat to see God answering some prayers. She had her preschool screening last Wednesday. It didn't go well, as expected but now the ball is rolling to get her some help that she needs.

Her birthday is 6 days away and it will be exciting to celebrate with her. She will be 4 years old which is hard to believe. We often feel like she is a 2 year old in many ways but is the size of a 4 1/2 year old. I continue to be taken by her affection and sweetness. She has a soft heart and needs a lot of love and help from people around her. I continue to pray that we can provide some of the help that she needs.

Foster the change

There are times when I just need to write to express all that is going on. This is one of those times. There is so much going on inside my head. My house is a mess and there are dishes to do and mail to tend to and laundry to be done. I guess that is what happens when you add another child into your house. I did plan for this as best as I could with the one week notice we had that our first foster child would be arriving in our house.

A little 3 year old girl arrived calmly to our house around 1pm on Monday, October 24th with her social worker. She was sweet and instantly affectionate. A sign of how love-starved she is. Cute but also very sad. She strokes your hair. She says, "Nice shirt. Nice hair." She gives wonderful hugs. She needs lots of love. She is quiet but not silent with a cute little high pitch voice. She is chatty and makes lots of little noises. She is curious. She will stick her in your pocket and point to everything saying "What dat?" or the latest, "What color dis?"

She turns 4 soon but does not know her colors or numbers and can not count even one. She does know she is three and responds promptly when asked. She plays extremely well by herself. She seems most interested in building anything, blocks, train tracks, kinex, etc. So that makes her fit well with our boy toys. She doesn't seem to know what to do with a doll or barbie doll beyond hold it. She really likes quiet and when Jaden and Clay are around she is often heard saying, "Kids loud. Kids noisy."

She is probably delayed mentally and physically. This is yet to be assessed. Her speech is very hard to understand but she is great at charades and repeating her words. She falls a lot and can't walk a straight line. She has a lot of problems with stairs. She did not have a great start in life and has not had anyone helping her progress so hopefully we can make up for that some.

We are still working on getting her to learn our names; Raquel, Bryan, Jaden and Clay. She has figured out the quickest way to get my attention is to yell (in her quiet voice), "Mom!" It is pretty cute but also makes me think of her mom every time I hear her say it. Sometimes I correct her. "You can call me Raquel or Quel."

She has blond hair and very fair skin with greenish-gray eyes. Very cute little chubby cheeks. She looks and acts like an angel most of the time. She is big for her age and already looks about 4 1/2 years old. She seems heaven sent at times. She couldn't be more loving and cute. I actually calculated (my engineer-side) that she is quite amazing about 96% of the time that she is awake which is even better if you account for sleeping time. There is that 4% which is causing me to write. It is good to remind my pessimist self that it is only 4% of the time. So that 4% of the time she screams and yells and cries at the top of her little bitty lungs. Which is amazingly loud and excruciatingly painful to my ears at times. She has started to act-out violently in the last 24 hours. Kicking, hitting, grabbing, scratching, pulling hair. That is not fun. It is exhausting. I have been completely calm and amazingly disconnected until I see the pain in her eyes as she is screaming. I guess others might not see it as pain but when her eyes light up all red from the crying, I swear I can feel a little bit of her pain. It has brought me to tears a few times while I watch her scream and yell and just not know how to calm down. Usually it has been as dramatic of an end to the tantrum as the beginning. Once she is done, on average about 15 minutes later, she is pleasant. Says sorry and gives hugs and is ready to play calmly. It is amazing to watch it all unfold. I didn't know that could come out of such a cute small package until now.

She has gotten more challenging as the week has went on but her life has only been more complicated because of our family. I would love to think we are doing an amazing thing for taking her in but her hurt and wounds seem so huge that our contribution seems so small and may not amount to much even over time. This has brought me to tears and prayer many times this week. God is my fuel and my motivation comes from Jesus and the love and grace He shows me continually.

We know quite a bit about what she has endured and what her mother's life has been like and that just makes me hurt. Why are some people dealt such a hard life? I would like to think that maybe we can help change the generational pattern in this family but it seems quite impossible. More prayer. I met her mother just briefly today for our first supervised visit where I dropped her off. After the visit that did not go well and ended early, she said, "Mom mean. Me sad." Out of her three year old little mouth. Me sad too.