the Morons

The practical fostering info you came here for in the first place.   And some advice from a novice parent that I’ll probably feel embarrassed about giving out when I have learned as much as you all probably already know: a calendar wasn’t too advanced for a 24-month old. It was helpful and alleviated stress for him.   H e didn’t take 64 things to bed and need to take them out of bed with him when he knew what people were going to be part of his day.  We used just a paper with 7 boxes and printed pictures to represent his normal activities and then taped them to the day in the order that they were going to happen.  "Here's tomorrow, Wednesday, and you'll go to school and then see Ms. B and then see Mommy and Daddy. And after that, Mama is going to come get you and we will come back here." clothing reimbursements (how our county does clothing) are very slow and they are VERY picky about receipts being for exactly things that are obviously only for the child in car...

Is this motherhood? My kid is the smartest.  A nd he’s just so funny.   It’s not because I’m biased, right? I want to be with him all the time, but I also keep sneaking away to try and quietly eat chips around the corner. I have all the laundry done but what day is it? I feel nervous to see my son. Butterflies. Every time. How long will I get to love this child?... and is bedtime soon? Six hours to go?! How is that possible? It’s just poop, it’s not that gross. Do you think that person over there wants to see a picture of my kid?   He’s so cute, they do I bet. When I think about the first day I met you I want to cry. Or I do cry; but usually only if I’m in a really public place where it’s weird to cry. Is this motherhood? I hope my smart, funny son is coping with being back home. I hope his mom understands that he’s experiencing trauma now and that tantrums are probably for a reason. I mean maybe they’re not for any reason other than that ...

H goes home to his birth family next weekend. There's a wide array of feelings associated with this knowledge. The ratio of relief to sadness is pretty much the inverse of what it would have been a month ago, especially for Beth. As recently as December, when people would ask us (/tell us) how sad we were going to be when he went home, I sort of felt pressured to agree. Our response was always, "Yeah, it will be nice to have some free time again, but it will be sad too." I felt like a monster if I didn't add the last part even though I didn't really mean it. But something changed at some point, I'm not exactly sure when -- it's mind-blowing how fast we go through various phases. In four months, we've experienced: The W phase -- H could perfectly read and recite the entire alphabet since he came to us, but he was really only interested in W's for the first few weeks. We almost nicknamed him W on the blog instead of H. The Dress-up phase -- Earl...