Change Without Annoucement

In a moment things seem to change without announcement.

As I wrote in an earlier post, our normal respite family who takes our kiddos when we need child care took on other responsibilities and is no longer available to us.  Last weekend we had a chance to meet a new respite family.  They can only take the baby (so we will need another family for the boys).  They live in Mesa, which is on the other side of the valley from us.  We drove to their home last Sunday and met with them.  They are a nice couple, married around the same time as us, hospitable.  They told us many of their experiences within the system.  Getting to hear their accounts and stories of the goods and bads of fostering (they have actually adopted one child) was an interesting re-affirmation that at the very least Cheryl and I are not taking crazy pills and living in some other reality.  In addition to getting to hear their own story we also had a chance to see where the baby will sleep and eat and all of the other things.  Sometimes sudden change can lead to an unexpected surprise.  We will have to a chance to meet the other respite family this coming weekend.

Just the other morning I woke up to the fussy sounds of the baby wanting her morning change and meal.  Most mornings she is up before the boys and this morning was no different.  I went into her room and she was still half sleeping.  Because she was still half asleep I left her in her crib while I picked out her outfit for the day.  Daycare always asks us to send her in “footsies” because of her protest to keeping on shoes and socks.  That morning I chose a “onesie” and pants.  I remember looking through the selection and the many messages on the front “Daddy’s Favorite”, “Mommy Loves me”, “Mommy’s Favorite” and so on and so forth, so many of the baby clothes that the many stores out there carry have person specific messages.  On this this particular morning it had a picture of a whale a something about how Daddy loved her.  So many things have changed in the kiddos lives since they have come to live with us.  Keeping them focused on hitting their developmental stages is important to us.  After court this last week we have to keep that in mind the most.  It is not a competition to make the cute clothes ring true but about helping her learn to walk and getting the boys to learn to use the potty.

In the meantime… we will look forward to the changes that happen suddenly and sometimes without announcement.  Thanks for reading.

Remembering

Right around this time of day four years ago my mom passed away. In thinking about her today I remember how very much she wished to be a grandmother. I know that if she had loves to see Cheryl and I be foster parents she would have loved them as much as her own parents loved her.

We never know when the last time will be the time until we can look at it from the other side. It reminds me a lot that we need to treat each day as a gift.

A Valentine Mix-Up

Cheryl and I are involved in a number of things in our community both professionally and within the community at large.  Much of the time we are able to be a part of these groups within the context of our day, while the kiddos are at day care or while one of us is able to be at home with them as the other is not.  When the community group involves both Cheryl and I we have two options 1)’ making sure it is family friendly and we all go 2) finding care takers to take the kiddos for the time.  When it is the second option it is not as easy as picking up the phone and asking this family member or that close friend because the care givers have to have a minimal amount “security clearance”.

One such event (with option two) is coming up this weekend, yes over Valentine ’s Day.   Knowing of our needs Cheryl and I asked our licensing agency to help us find respite care way back at the end of December.  We had all the kiddos scheduled to go to our usual home.  About a week and a half ago our licensing agency emailed us telling us that the family we had scheduled with were no longer available and we were out of luck.

What did that mean for Cheryl and I?  Scramble time.

With only about two weeks before a Friday evening, all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday what type of person could we ask?  That short of notice over a weekend when something special is going on we will have to ask someone to re-arrange their plans.  So to answer the question we could only ask people who we thought would be forgiving that we would ask on such short notice and would still be willing to help out.  We reached out to our Engaged Encounter group (the community group we will be involved in this weekend), however because of the specialness of the weekend all group members are in the same boat as we are, helping with the weekend.  After them we had a short list of people and finally found our saving couple Crystal and Scott Bott who, because of the job backgrounds, meet the “security clearance” and were wonderful enough to rearrange their time so we can be there for 30 engaged couples.

One large topic that I don’t think Cheryl or I talk about enough on here is the need for personal and community time.  As we have gone through our baby puzzle journey some times that need gets pushed to the back burners.  There is always another diaper to change, another sippy cup to fill, another boo-boo to kiss, another dirty front room to clean up, another load of laundry to put over, another sink full of used bottles to scrub, another banana to slice, but there is only one full time partner through it all.  For those of you on your own baby puzzle journeys (no matter where you are) take some time to remember that all parts of your relationships, your mommy roles, and daddy roles all need a little bit of nurture and care for.

And if I did not say it enough THANK YOU CRYSTAL AND SCOTT…

Thanks for reading.

Groundhog Day and Other Updates

It has been a while.  Life is busy with three children, which I am sure more than one of you could have told anyone so I am sharing nothing new.

It is Groundhogs Day.  The groundhog saw his shadow which means there will be six more weeks of winter which in Arizona means sixties, seventies and maybe some low eighties.  It is going to be a rough end to winter.

Growing up I loved the Groundhog Day movie.  Being a foster parent it seems like some situations are much like Bill Murray experienced.  We see many of the same things happen and no matter what we do to try to “correct” something it still happens just as it would have if we had done nothing.  If I wake up to “I Got You Babe” tomorrow morning I will certainly check my phone calendar to make sure it says February 3^rd.  Anyways… on to the updates.

A few weeks back all three of the little ones came down with a respiratory bug.  Having three kiddos all sick is no fun.  On that Saturday morning we went to an urgent care.  Cheryl went inside and did the paper work things.  I stayed in the car and had the kiddos watch “Frozen”.  Surprisingly this worked like a charm.  Cheryl came out and got us after about a half hour wait.  We went straight back and all three kiddos were set up with meds to put them on the mend.  For a solid week we were gave the kiddos those meds, it was like an assembly line.  I think, in retrospect, it would have been much more complicated if one kiddo had gotten sick at a different time than the others.

Over the last week and a half we have gone from a third non crawler to a full time crawler.  The little lady can go from one side of the front room to the other in less than a minute.  I think that she is going to have a career in search and rescue.  At the very least, she is pretty good at searching out and finding small pieces of things and cords and other things that she should not be grabbing. Pulling, eating or otherwise interacting with.    She is still not super great at sitting up, but we are working hard on getting that down.  It will not be too long before she is standing on her own and walking, which will be a whole different ball game.

Cheryl and I are still trying to get our schedule completely straight.  Three different visit times a week that seem to happen on different days and times each week I guess will really do that to you.  I think after this week all three will have parent aids.  In comparing the time timing of obtaining a parent aid with our last placement all three now took about half the amount of time as it did before.   Not really sure what that means other than it was quicker this time around.  I think maybe in part because of changes in the overall process and possibly also because of when our first placement came into care.

We will do better with the updates in the coming weeks.  Thanks for taking the time to read and the many kind comments we so regularly receive.