Bonding

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 -- Early on, H absolutely loved putting on Mama's high heels and necklaces and tromping around the house. I was slightly concerned until I had a flashback of myself as a three- or four-year-old trying on my sister's skirts.
• The I-only-like-Daddy phase -- Out of the blue, suddenly I was the only one who was allowed put H to bed or get him up in the morning, or the only one he would let comfort him when he was feeling all the feelings. Beth faced the constant risk of rejection in every interaction with him for several weeks, which you can imagine was quite difficult for her. I deeply admire her ability to not say, fine, you don't want me, you can't have me! Instead, she continued offering hugs and kisses, continued finding creative ways to make him forget he didn't want her to play with him. I would not have done the same.
• The Truck phase -- I don't even know if I can call this a phase. He's obsessed with trucks -- dump trucks, trash trucks, food trucks, excavators -- really any large machine with wheels is a winner in his book.
• The Social Worker phase -- The only times I ever had to face rejection was for a while when his social worker would drop him off after a visit with his parents. Even though he hadn't really bonded with her, he would act extremely attached to her and desperate to not let her leave him with us. She said this was not normal, and no kid had ever really been like that with her before, so we don't know what it was about. And then it just stopped one day, forgotten like a dream.

There were so many other little phases that they're hard to keep track of. One thing I hope to do better with future kids is to keep some sort of journal so we can remember all the weird phases and crazy things they say and do. Probably my favorite part of little kids is the connections their brains make as they try to make sense of the world around them. Once, we started randomly playing a game where H was hugging me, then ran to Beth and hugged her, back and forth, and every time he got away from one of us we would say, "Oh no, he escaped!" After a few times of this, instead of running between us, he began shuffling sideways between us like he had just learned the Electric Slide. At first we couldn't figure out why until we finally realized when we were saying escape, he was hearing skate - so he started skateboarding back and forth. It's stuff like that I wish I'd written down every minute of.

H finally started letting Mama put him to bed again. Then in early January, I started a new job that has some longer hours, so Beth and H began to have a lot more one-on-one time. During that time, they finally had some real bonding and Beth transformed into a real mom, with a different kind of love for H. Now anytime the subject comes up of him going home, Beth immediately starts crying -- at work, at dinner parties, at restaurants -- it's embarrassing for her, but quite endearing to me. It strangely makes me have a different kind of love for her.

Though it makes the thought of never seeing him again far more difficult, this bonding is a very good thing. Kids who are separated from their families and put into the foster system tend to have more attachment issues and are more likely to develop RAD, which is just about the worst misnomer I've ever heard of. Reactive Attachment Disorder is a terrible disorder that causes all kinds of problems, and the best way to prevent it is through loving relationships and healthy bonding. (I'm not a psychologist, so if you are and I've majorly botched any of that explanation, please let me know.) So, as painful as it is, Beth and I have known all along that this would be one of our primary goals in foster parenting.

Well, that's all the feelings. Beth and I keep talking about how we want this blog to be more informational so that people interested in becoming foster parents can use it as a resource and learn about details that might not otherwise come up. But ugh that's so boring! The only times I'm inspired to write, all this feelings stuff ends up spilling out. Sorry about that. If you're hoping for real information about foster parenting, maybe Beth will sit down and write some stuff after she has free time again and her brain is back to functioning normally (her words, not mine). Until then, you'll have to settle for me.