All 4 of my boys, eating dinner. Sorry, I can’t show you their faces.
It’s been one week, so I thought I’d post an update for all you curious souls out there. What’s life like with 4 boys, two of whom I’ve only had 2 weeks to get to know?
First of all, this foster care experience is NOTHING like our first, thus far. Even on the craziest night of the week, where one kid was scream/sobbing in his bed due to an injury, another was having a tantrum, and another missed the toilet doing a “number two” (yes, ALL AT THE SAME TIME!), Jesse said to me at the end of the day, “Honestly, as crazy as this day was, we used to count ourselves blessed if we had this normal of a day with C.”
Basically, the long and short of it is that this week has been a LOT of work. One day ALONE I made over 30 ph0ne calls in a morning! Granted, there won’t always be this many logistics. Both boys are at different schools and in an afterschool care program (since I teach piano 3-5:30 every day), but now that they have all of our contact info, things will die down. I also have a nanny/friend to help me out with pickups and appointments in the afternoons.
There are calls to the therapist during the transition, the TBS workers, the social worker, more and more paperwork, our LiveScan appointments, the dentist (both kids were super neglected when they arrived in foster care and needed lots of fake teeth and crowns), the doctor (one has asthma and bronchitis right now), and the pediatrist (one is getting foot surgery in 2 weeks). Not to mention that I had to take AJ in the doctor as well because his cough was getting worrisome. And our health insurance just switched, so I had a lot of phone calls to make switching that all around. And our internet was acting up, so I spent 2 hours on the phone with them as well.
Whew! I hope this explains why I haven’t returned some of my less-urgent phone calls, right?
These are our little chore charts, made from these cutouts pasted onto cardstock.
We’ve been trying to institute some structure into their life, having dinner at the same exact time every night and sticking to a strict bedtime for everybody. As Jim Gaffigan put it, “Bedtime with 4 kids is a CRISIS. It becomes a reverse hostage negotiation. ‘Look, if you stay in there, I’ll give you WHATEVER YOU WANT! What do you want, a helicopter to Cuba?’ ” (If you haven’t seen this sketch, you must!). We’ve ended up staggering the bed times in 15 minute increments so that we can get it all done and not go crazy. Food/dinner is still an issue, as we have so many different dietary needs and the boys are wanting comfort food.
But it’s been good, regardless. Despite the fact that there are a MILLION dirty socks everywhere at any given time, these boys are really well behaved and respectful. The only problems we’ve seen are because they’re trying to process the transition. The older cries at night, especially after he speaks with one of his parents on the phone, and the younger is extremely attention-starved. But they don’t have any of the “typical” foster care issues people talk about. As a mom, it’s nice to know that my boys aren’t being exposed to foul language or behavior.
In fact, when I was discussing how sad it would be if they accidentally said a bad word and Gregory repeated it, the older one said, “Oh! I know a kid once who said the C-WORD in front of his brother!”
I gulped. “The C-Word???”
“Yeah,” he whispered. “You know, C-R-A-P”.
Hahaha. Good. Whew.
Long and short, we are getting our rhythm down around here. One of their parents is on the right track, doing everything the court asks, so we should only have them a few months. If it was longer, I wouldn’t be disappointed, but I know that going back to their bio-parent is the right thing in this situation. These boys need stability, and it would be great if their entire foster care experience could be over in just a year, just a memory but not forever part of their identity.
 The Blessings After Foster Parenting |
 A Home Is Not A Home |
 My Daily Schedule |
 A “Maybe” House switcheroo! |
