Time to Go

I’m spending the next few hours running around, trying to find all of K. and S.’s clothes and toys.  They will be leaving at 11:00 for their grandmother’s house.  I got the news at 8:30.  Trust me, I’m so happy for them.  I know they should be with a relative.  But of course, I am still sad to see them go.  They are good boys to have in our house.  They play with Junior so well, they look after Baby, they get along with my husband, and they are loving and helpful.  We were just commenting last night how we are lucky they were our first placement.  It could have been a LOT worse.

I’m curious as to how Daughter and husband will react when they come home and K. and S. are not here. I’m going to try and swing by Daughter’s school and husband’s work for goodbyes, but that will require some planning.  I doubt I’ll have enough time.

Yesterday was such a good day too.  K. even slept through the night.

And just a few minutes ago, I went out and checked on the robin’s nest.  I noticed the mother had not been there at all this morning.  And both eggs are broken…

I can’t hear you, what?

Wow. It is so noisy at our house. From 7 am until 8 pm, it doesn’t get quiet but for a few minutes at a time.  And then at 11:30, K. usually wakes up crying, so I really have to work hard to enjoy that brief calm.  Kind of ironic.

I’m not minding the noise too much.  In fact, I’m surprised at my zen serenity during tantrums (usually K’s).  I feel a lot of sympathy for these little guys, so I don’t begrudge them at all for crying and screaming over such problems as:

pajama bottoms not matching pajama tops

not having all of one’s ham cut up at one time (like Mama does at home)

not getting chocolate for not eating more at dinner than just said ham

Today was a visit with Mom and their other two sibs.  Caseworker, let’s call her Nabisco (that’s a mental connection, for my benefit only) said the four kids were crazy.  Knocking over trash cans, pulling phones off the wall, just generally way too excited.  So I hope the rest of the day isn’t ruined, but right now, two hours later, no obvious changes.

Anyway, it’s good.  This is all right. And I’m so happy our little girl (19 months) has already learned to say K.’s and S.’s name and give them hugs.  Super cute.

Good Good Friday

Last Friday afternoon, K. and S. came to stay with our family!

S. will be 5 in less than two months, and K. will be 4 even sooner.  Besides a few items, which I’ll note later, I have been rather underwhelmed.  I guess our training dwelled on the worst case scenarios.  These brothers almost immediately settled into our house and home.  Like, seriously, if my kids get taken into care, I really hope they are a little more traumatized than these guys.  It’s weird.

They do talk of missing their two siblings (in a different placement) and mom, but S. also already told me he likes it here, he wants to stay, and he doesn’t want to go home.  Pretty sad.

I was able to categorize the boys within 24 hours:

• K. is the boss.  He takes what he wants from others, pushes limits, and occasionally hits – not really out of anger, more like excitement/mischievousness.  So far, he has only hit me and my husband; I hope it stays that way.
• S. is sensitive, a bit whiny, but much more obedient and calm.  Sucks his thumb when he’s upset or nervous.

They both seem smart and generally developmentally on track, but I’m no expert.  They do have the cutest little speech impediments, except that it makes them incomprehensible.  They don’t pronounce about half the consonants!  I hope they stay long enough to get some speech therapy.

K. has a lot of trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep.  It is pretty rough.  He wakes up every few hours crying for his Mama, but luckily, he falls asleep again pretty quickly.  However, he has refused to sleep in his room (sharing with his brother), so he’s sleeping on a mat on the floor of our room.  I hope that’s not habit-forming.

They were dropped off Friday from a woman who wasn’t even their case worker, so I know zilch about their past, just the one incident that brought them into care.

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head, and I’ve been lucky to get this much time to type relatively uninterrupted.  I’m so glad I could document this!!!

And an unsuspecting robin is building a nest on the porch railing where we eat dinner every night, once it gets warm:

Nagging Reconsiderations

Maybe we should change our age range.  I’ve read that half of abuse cases involve children three or younger, so if we dropped down to 12 months or even newborns, we’d probably see a lot more calls for placements.  However, I’ve also heard anecdotal evidence that those younger children are less likely to need non-relative placements.  Relatives are more likely to accept a younger child who has been placed in foster care, versus an older child or a teenager.  So maybe we wouldn’t see any more calls at all.  (Although at least we wouldn’t get fewer! Ha Ha!)

However, I’ve got to remind myself there’s a reason I said kids over 2 years: I’m lazy.  I’ve breastfed all my own kids, and I don’t think I could ever switch to bottle-feeding after I learned how effortless breastfeeding really is.  And trust me, we asked if I could breastfeed.  It’s cool, I understand why the state doesn’t want that, but I value my sleep and time waaaay more than that.

Incidentally, I just noticed breastfeed is a word, but bottlefeed is not, according to my browser’s spellcheck. It has to be hyphenated. That’s nice. Also I just learned spellcheck is not a word, but spell-check is.

Okay, stop the presses!! I checked two dictionaries in our home:

• Merriam-Webster Collegiate, 12 years old, has entries for ‘breast-feed’ (1903) and ‘bottle-feed’ (1865). VERY interesting that bottlefeed was known first, and both are hyphenated.
• Webster’s Lexicon, 20 years old, has NO entry for breastfeed at all, but does have ‘bottlefeed’ – NO HYPHEN! Curiouser and curiouser.