The [Foster] Moms Must Be Crazy

So, this evening Serious was being a bit disrespectful - ignoring and talking back when we told her to do something, generally being really tense and touchy. We had had some discussion about her possibly going to live with her mom one day (she brought it up as if it were a done deal) and maybe it was related. Or maybe she’s just 3. 

Anyway, she sassed herself right into a time out when she hit her sister and then shrieked at me when I intervened. 

When I put her in time out she shrieked some more, really high pitched squeals that just make you sure the neighbors are going to wonder what kind of torture chamber you are running. Then she started yelling at me. “I. AM. GOING. TO. HIT. YOU!!!!” I ignored it, of course. So she upped the ante. And shouted, loudly and slowly:

“IIII!  

AAAAAMMMMM!

MICHAAAAAAEL! 

JAAAAACKSON!”

I had to just walk away and laugh my face off.

This is R. Can i just say, i sometimes get frustrated that everyone else in my house likes sparkly pink things?

I can girl with the rest of ‘em, and I do, but I generally prefer bold color, jeans, flats. But no one here ever wants jeans or plain things! Just sparklysparkletown. This includes Jen!

When I was a kid, my mom made a (short lived but memorable) rule that I had to wear a dress once a week. Maybe I should make a role that the kids have to wear cargo shorts once a week?

I’m kidding of course. I respect everyones fashion choices.

We now have the ladies on the weekend, and we all really enjoy this time to hang out together and just do fun stuff.

On Saturday, went to the farmers market, we met some friends at the museum of natural history and we had a movie night (Secret of the Wings is not bad). On Sunday the girls and Jen had a morning at home while I worked, then we meet up with family for another museum and some playground time. Then out for dinner with a friend from out of town.

The girls were awesome and they had tons of fun. Sassy is obsessed with my tweenaged cousin and he’s really nice to both girls. And socializing with friends and family is great, I love having my fostering experience and all the people I love integrate more and influence each other on weekends.

Someone else just posted about the fears you have when you are getting into fostering. Like, will these kids turn my life upside down and rage and hurt themselves, or me? What will life look like and can i handle it?

Obviously every situation and every child is different. But for now at least we have found a way forward with these girls that acknowledges and addresses their anger and sadness but also is a normal, functional enjoyable life for all of us.

Sassy in particular seems to be having a hard time right now with Mommy related anger, confusion and sadness, i think in part because we are having fun and she is bonded to us but she knows now in a more mature way that we are not official Mommy. She had a major, major, furious fit on Saturday night and some smaller ones here and there. We helped her through it.

Today is picture day for the small ladies!!!! That means that they got to put on their fancy dresses this morning - they love to get dressed up - and their sparkly shoes, and the socks w/the lace on them. Sassy, in particular, was psyched.

I just hope she doesn’t pitch a fit when it’s time to change back into normal clothes afterward. Also, while Sassy is a huge ham (I have seen her legit practicing poses the day after she got her picture taken last time), Serious does NOT like to have her photo taken, and pics often come out looking like she’s grimacing. Because she is. 

I empathize, I hate having my picture taken, too. But she’s a truly beautiful  kid, I hope that we get at least one good shot so we can send it home to their mom.

In other news, apparently I’m now “Daddy Jen.”

No change. They stay with us for now.

In answer to a comment on the last post. If these girls were to end up needing a permanent home, we would be honored to adopt them. But they have parents that would very much like to have them come home, as well as other family resources that are capable of parenting them. If it ever came to tpr and adoption outside the family, it would be a very sad day for their family and for them. As much as I’d enjoy being their mom forever, and am sure we would be a great forever family, I in no way wish for their family to be severed like that.

Tomorrow is the next court date. It seems likely that everything will change. But then again, maybe nothing whatsoever will change. The cognitive dissonance involved in simultaneously preparing for reunification, change in custody to a family member, keeping things status quo, and possible (although highly unlikely) TPR is really something else.

I feel like everyone we know is preparing for the zombie apocalypse or something. We had brunch with some of Jen’s old zumba buddies who were doing a Spartan Race today. Then we met up with our friend Adam, who had been at the gym for a few hours and his shoulders and biceps were like 3 times the size of when I last saw him, and he too is prepping for an obstacle race. We then saw our friend JP and he gamely said he’d be up try any classes with us, from dancehall to hot yoga. Jen and I only did Soul Cycle classes today, but we of course also have the unmatchable little lady training regimin (lifting 35 lb plus children, bending to pick up 1000000 small toys, socks, books…) that we do daily so zombies beware. 

There’s yet another court date coming up shortly, so a lot of our conversations begin with “If the small ladies stay” these days. If the small ladies stay – and if they continue to be with us on the weekends – then we should hit up the New York Hall of Science and learn about rainbows. If the small ladies stay, we should get some more dresses for school. If the small ladies stay, we’re really going to have to start bugging the social worker about vacation plans. Lots and lots more discussion, too, on other things we should do if they stay.

Rarely do we discuss “if the small ladies go.” Because there is only one thing to say about it.

If the small ladies go, we will be so happy for them, but we will also miss them so much.

We had a great weekend with the little ladies. We took a road trip down to Maryland to attend a family wedding. They were perplexed at first, they didn’t understand how far we were going or why. But they got into the swing of things, and really seemed to have a blast dressing up fancy and enjoying the party. The wedding was at a beautiful home, with a few swings and a little pond with tadpoles and a frog to look at, it was very kid friendly.

Everyone was very excited to meet them, since they had heard that we were fostering and had heard a lot about the girls. We got into a lot of conversations about fostering, which was very interesting. I’m always happy to talk (not in front of the kids) about our experiences and how really wonderful it has been to have these children in our lives. We got some of the “I admire you for doing this.” And of course I was like, yeah, don’t. This is a regular thing that many humans can do. But it was nice that people cared and were happy for and with us.

Serious was of course more serious about the proceedings. She was very curious about what a wedding really was, and concerned that this might mean the entire assembled party was being married. I explained that it didn’t work that way, but I think she was tense about possibly becoming married by accident until the ceremony part was over.

Sassy was not very outgoing at first, she was tired. But she warmed up. She already knows and loves some of my cousins (who are in their early 20s) so she hung with them a lot. There were other kids there, but they were questionable – a bit older, not that friendly, and throwing rocks at frogs – so we were fine with the girls staying with a more grown up crowd. One of our family friends has a son with some pretty severe genetic disorders (I don’t know exactly, so I won’t speculate what they are specifically). He is non-verbal, cognitively impaired, has delayed motor skills and he doesn’t always want to interact. But Sassy will always try to make friends. She approached him and they were cracking each other up before long; they had a lot of fun together.  

This is one thing I really like about Sassy, she truly wants to get to know everyone.  At first I thought it might be an attachment thing, but I don’t really think so any more. She is quite bonded to us but she is also naturally outgoing, and genuinely interested in all kinds of people.

After the wedding we went back to the house where we were staying, the girls fell asleep pretty early and Jen and I hung out and read. The fam had gone out for Chinese, and kindly brought us back some food. Then we had a little ladyfest after party with my mom, her friends, my cousin, and prosecco and ribald tales, it was fun.

The next morning we went to my grandparents’ for breakfast, more family times. If the girls go home soon, I am so glad we got this time to spend with my extended family. First, because I love my family and I personally like being with them. But also because they are very warm and accepting and sensitive to how people are treated.  I know the girls feel comfortable with them, and I’m glad that they could have that experience. I wish we could have more time to spend with Jen’s family who are also extremely awesome in the same way. If the girls stay with us, we are going to make it a priority to spend time with Jen’s side more often.  

As we were leaving Serious said to me and Jen, “I don’t have a Daddy.” We corrected her, she does have a daddy, his name is _____. “No. My Daddy is dead.” We explained that she doesn’t live with her dad, but he is alive and he cares about her. I added that you can be part of more than one family, anyone who loves you and you love them can be your family and it doesn’t erase the others. So she is part of our family, and part of her Dad’s family too.

It seems like she’s working on this one, because then on Monday she said to me, “Not everyone has a Mommy.” I said that it was true that not everyone lived with their mommy. Some people live with grandmas or grandpas or aunts or uncles, or just a daddy or just a mommy. And some people live with foster parents. Some people who are older might even live with friends.

Later in the day, she discussed it with Jen too. Jen pointed out that she herself does not live with her mother and hasn’t for a long time. “Me neither,” Serious said. “Are you sad about it?” Jen said that yes, she does miss her mommy sometimes.

That’s where we’ve left it for now, but I’m glad she’s talking to us about this. I think this is what makes her so confused and sad all the time, wondering when she can go to mommy or if she ever will and really just pining to be back in that nuclear family situation (which I don’t even know if she really remembers). I think her mom has encouraged this kind of thinking, emphasizing that foster care is temporary, and one day things will be the way they “should” be. But I think Serious is realizing that that proposed ideal doesn’t fit her experience, and she is finding that her needs are being met by people other than her mom and dad.  So whether she stays with us for a longer time, or goes to live with another family member it’s good for her to talk about alternative family structures, and be confident that they are legitimate families as well, but to also know that she doesn’t have to obliterate her connection to her mother and father, no matter where she lives or who parents her. And if she does RU, then I’m glad we talked about it because I want her to get the message from someone that her connection to the families she’s been part of in foster care is genuine and lasting. We will love her forever, and I know her former foster mom does too.

Anyway, after all that family time, on Monday we had some friend time and hung out in Williamsburg. We walked around, looked at the river, bought lemonade from some kids, chilled in McCarren park and generally hipstered out. Jen got so sunburned! From now on, we all wear sunblock. 

LOL, just realized that we both posted about (separate) Bikram yoga classes over the course of two days. Sassy and Serious are all about yoga, too, they always ask if they can “play yoga,” and Sassy’s favorite line in the book Not Now, Ollie (a story about a pug trying to get its owner to play with it) is “Not now, Ollie. I’m doing yoga.” The funny part is that neither R nor I are all that serious about yoga, and we don’t go that often, but it seems to come up an awful lot!

I went to Bikram yoga last night. Its really difficult, the room is 110 degrees and the poses.really require intense concentration, not to mention test your strength and flexibility. For 90 solid minutes.

I’ve been before, so now I both know I can do it and I know that its hard. Standing in the hooooot room before class yesterday, I was like ooooh, this is gonna be tough. And then I looked around and I was like, screw it. These other people aren’t yoga savants or professional athletes. They aren’t better or necessarily stronger than me, or if they are now, they weren’t when they were new to this. We all only have human bodies. And none of them have been foster parents! I do hard things all the time!

The girls may go home at their next court date. But they will have given me the lasting gift of being our first children, and honestly the hardest new experience I’ve ever had in my life. Meeting that challenge is like having a superpower now. it’s not confidence. More like…fortitude.