Putting our kids first

perspective

Putting our kids first
State must bolster child services

By Becky Miller Updike and Bob Cooper
Article Last Updated: 03/22/2008 04:37:29 PM MDT


Tennyson Center teacher Kat Kimling guides a student through the halls of the school last week. (Tim Reese, Sundance Photography)

"The city of Denver recently announced it was going to tap into emergency reserves to hire 40 additional child welfare workers to handle ballooning caseloads.

But why is our city forced to raid emergency funds and piece together private grants to protect the most important resource our state has — our children?

Colorado ranks fifth in the nation in terms of wealth and per-capita income. Yet we have the eighth-highest rate of children living in poverty. Colorado is home to one of the largest concentrations of bachelor's degree graduates in the United States. Yet we rank among the bottom 10 states in terms of the number of students who graduate from high school.

Since 2001, the number of child abuse reports in Colorado has risen by more than 60 percent, while the number of child caseworkers has increased by only 8 percent.

Gov. Bill Ritter and Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien are making great strides in advancing children's access to preschool, education and health care in our state. However, there remains a moral and social responsibility to immediately address the needs of the children who need us most — those who are currently in the child welfare system and face the greatest levels of risk.

Almost half of the child abuse reports made this past year have not had the proper follow-up because our system is by all accounts over-burdened. And Colorado is currently investigating 13 child deaths statewide that were reported cases of abuse that "fell through the cracks."

Research has shown that children who experience abuse are 59 percent more likely to be arrested as juveniles, 28 percent more likely to be arrested as adults and 30 percent more likely to commit violent crimes. Other studies have found that as these children age, they are up to seven times more likely to experience major health problems.

In short, they will become drains on our society rather than contributors.

But the situation is not without hope. Research on risk and resilience demonstrates that children who have been abused can overcome adversity and thrive when they receive protection, treatment and access to positive influences and support.

We can make a difference in these children's lives. In fact, we must. It is our responsibility during this election season to ask the important questions and ensure that child welfare is part of the political dialogue. We need to support the candidates who prioritize the prevention and treatment of child abuse.

State government will have to play a key role if Colorado is going to move from a state of too many at-risk children to a state where children are protected and prized.

Some important legislative steps include mandating a maximum number of caseloads that county caseworkers are allowed to carry, and expanding state and county interagency collaboration to reduce service fragmentation, increase efficiency and streamline services to provide a comprehensive continuum of care.

But it will take a commitment from all of us to turn this situation around. It is time for leaders from business, philanthropic, academic and faith communities to collaborate and join government leaders in the fight to prevent child abuse in Colorado.

We invite everyone to learn more about these issues by visiting www.childabuse.org and read the Children's Action Agenda, a comprehensive agenda to help legislators introduce and measure policies that serve children in our state.

We encourage everyone to sign this important online petition and to let our state government know that children — all children — must be a political priority."

Becky Miller Updike is director of strategic initiatives and the Every Child Matters campaign at the Tennyson Center for Children in Denver. Bob Cooper is president of the center.

New Beginnings

So much to blog about, so little time...

Baby Grrl's biggest (foster) brother and the apple of my eye, whom I will call Le Yum this day, started a new (one day per week for homeschoolers) kindergarten today. He was excited until yesterday, when he told me he didn't want to go because he has already been to kindergarten and he knew everything already. So we talked about how he has to show that he is READY for first grade and then he can move on, and then he was good to go, especially when I reminded him they were homeschoolers, too. YAY!

We arrived early to the new site after taking DH to work, and we sat in the gym waiting for everyone to arrive. In assembly, after they said the pledge of allegiance, one of the facilitators asked if anyone had any announcements or anything to share. Yum raised his hand! (If I had been sitting beside him I would have pulled it down, LOL, but I was giving him his space since he is FIVE AND A HALF.) So then he said, in a very quiet little voice I have heard maybe twice from him, that he brought a book called C is for Centennial for Tell & Show, because his mom couldn't remember which letter was the one of the day! The facilitator then asked him to STAND UP and introduce himself (in front of a gym full of strange peers)! He then became one with the floor, so I introduced him. We were both wearing green and I was proud to announce my tall, lean and handsome young man with an Irish name on St. Patrick's Day; but alas, it was all too much for poor Yum. He c r a w l e d over to me and then somehow managed to attach himself to me like a leech, legs and arms wrapped around my body and face buried in my neck! I think he was close to tears, so I whispered to him that everyone was saying welcome and clapping, so he turned around and went to sit by one of his new classmates. Shortly after that I had to vacate with Shy Mouse (who was not being shy) and Princess Loudmouth, and I ended up getting into a great convo with another mom who has adopted two "children of color" so I missed it when the kids walked by us on the way to their classroom.

Several minutes later, one of the kindergarten teachers thanked me for letting Yum go off to class all by himself. (Hey, why didn't I think of that?!) It's all in how you spin it, so I simply said, "No problem!" and smiled. I peeked in and saw that while he was fidgeting and squirming already, Yum was actually sitting in the back row quietly and listening to story time (and the teacher was actually READING the story, not just playing a book on tape!) so I felt free to go. All of our paperwork was transferred from the site he attended last year, I had filled out a sheet of emergency contact information, and I had paid for his slice of pizza and juice (once a week won't kill him, right?) so it was clearly time for me to set off on a new adventure of parenting 1/3 less child one day a week. So far it feels like 2/3 more work-- as Yum is quite helpful with entertaining his younger sibs, and he's a natural leader who organizes activities for the entire family-- but it's all good (or it will be next week when Aunt Flo is not visiting, Baby Grrl doesn't have a cold, and it isn't 35 degrees outside). It will certainly be much easier to go to the Children's Museum with two chitlins instead of three, especially because Yum has pretty much outgrown it and would rather go to the Museum of Nature & Science.

Needless to say, I am counting the minutes until I can pick Yum up. I hope he will tell me he wants to go back. Sometimes I think I ought to send him to public school but in my heart of hearts I know the classroom is not the ideal learning environment for him. I often think about what he is learning on this family journey in foster care, and I know it is an invaluable education that cannot be taught but only lived. He has already learned that we are all the same inside, that skin color does not matter, and that love can help heal even the most severe of physical and emotional wounds. That's more than some of us will ever learn.

I will intervene!

We just found out some very disturbing and exciting news from another foster parent. The county case worker should have been telling us all along when the court hearings are so we can be there. Also, after NINETY days of having Baby Grrl in our custody {we have had her with us for FIVE MONTHS}, we have a right to "intervene" and make ourselves a "party" to the case. Plus, we may not even have to hire an attorney to fight for custody of her. This is all so thrilling and upsetting at the same time.

So, why hasn't the case worker been telling us what we have a right to know? Especially when I've been asking, and making it clear that we would be more than willing to adopt Baby Grrl if her parental rights were terminated? I suppose it could be due in part to the fact that this is our first time fostering and we don't know the drill, or the lingo or what to expect. But I have always felt that the County case worker was biased toward the bio mom, and has given her more than the benefit of a doubt, simply because she has called him often and said she wants her kids back. The GAL seems to think she is talking the talk but not walking the walk, and she is the one who told me she has a long, long way to go toward getting her kids back. I cling to that conversation like it's a life preserver. I've learned to take what others tell me could/will happen with a grain of salt, except for what the GAL says. After all, she's not only an attorney, but also the legal guardian of all the children. Nonetheless, she is careful not to make predictions.

There is a part of me that doesn't want to fight it if her bio mom wants her back, and knowing the people involved who may come to find her or us, but the part of me that doesn't want her to get hurt again is much stronger and is going to put up one heck of a fight. I feel the mama bear rising up in me, and I will not just stand by and let this little girl fall through the giant gaping cracks in the notoriously effed up Denver County DHS system. Remind me to blog about how many children died last year who were in kinship placements, thanks to case worker/DHS "oversights".

Maybe the court will decide to throw her back to the wolves and let her birth mom have another chance to protect her {and why hasn't she been charged with Failure to Protect since she is the one who brought her in to the ER with a "cold" anyway?}, but I think it would be unjust at best and tragic at worst.

What a difference a brain makes...

{Title inspired by What a Difference a Day Makes by Etta Fitzgerald: "Twenty four little hours...brought the sun and the flowers...where there used to be rain..."}

So, Mr. Superhunk {what I'm calling DH today} called this morning with some more, reassuring information on Permanency Planning, because as per usual he operates on Logic. It turns out that:

A) It is required by law after a child under six years of age has been in foster care for six months; B) There will be TWO concurrent plans, one of which could be permanent placement with us {cross all your fingers and toes and knock on everything wooden}; and C) 89% of children are placed within TWELVE months of being in foster care.

Thus, this is just the way the Department of Human Services system operates, and, of course, as usual, nothing personal against me as a foster mother.

Still, it's "wait and see" which I hate. Patience and Maintaining a Positive Attitude Throughout Uncertain Circumstances are not in my skill set.

And with that, Baby Grrl's awake now, so back to the floor!

Hopefully, growing pains.

I couldn't upload the video of Baby Grrl crawling from last week. DH has even tried to do it for me, and compressed the video to 10M so if Blogger can't handle that then fuhgedaboutit. Suffice to say, she's moving WAY faster now, and our house is not completely baby-proofed yet!

I literally spend my day mostly on the floor in various rooms of our house. She acts like she wants to be held and then arches her back and/or pinches me as if she wants to be put down, but if I put her down on the floor she just cries "mamamamamama" unless I get down on the floor and crawl or sit with her. Then, she will happily pull up on me, rock back and forth on all fours, try to eat my crocs, poke her pokey little fingers in the holes in my Crocs, squeal at the crocodile on my Crocs, and then cry like she wants on my lap, only to repeat the cycle. If the boys are in the room she will try to get their feet or shoes. The cycle is almost comedic for about thirty minutes, and then it just gets really annoying. But I just rinse & repeat.

Oh! and the other new fun thing is when I try to wear her in the mei tai or Moby Wrap she will either pinch my chest or if she's on my back, pull my hair/necklace or pick at the tattoo on the back of my neck. And before you say, why don't I wear her forward-facing in the MT/Wrap? Then she will just grab everything AND she hates it now, even though it used to be her favorite position.

We got a letter in the mail today, about the Permanency Planning hearing which is set for April 3. So the County Case Worker and GAL either acted like they didn't know it was coming up then or one of them started the ball rolling after the team meeting that was here at our house on March 3. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach when I read the letter. I don't know why I am being so pessimistic, but it certainly could be a coping/defensive mechanism. That is clearly the case with me wanting to give her up before she leaves us. When it comes to fight or flight, I usually take to the skies. Anyway, DH is going to take the day off if we are supposed to be there for the hearing. We are guessing that we can be there since we got a letter about it, but no one tells us anything. We're just the foster family who took in someone else's broken baby and helped put the fifty jagged pieces of her heart back together on two hours of sleep at a time for two months and then three hours at a time for three months. I definitely have a thing or twenty to say about the matter, but I don't know if I will have a chance to speak at all. Maybe I ought to keep my big mouth shut unless I am asked to talk. I don't even know. I've never done this before, and there isn't a map or a tour guide.

Obviously, I need to sleep on it.

"Keep moving forward...that's my motto."

Baby Grrl is officially crawling! My life is over.

I had five pix and two videos of her in action and I just accidentally deleted them {because I thought the file transfer was complete but there was actually an error during the transfer!!} so I will have to try again tomorrow. It will only be more exciting in a day, but there's nothing like those first manic moves!

Crying it out

Bear with me as I am having "a moment". I have signed into email and chat and called those I felt would be able to listen, but can't get ahold of anyone so here goes...

I have been crying all morning. I can't seem to turn off the waterworks. I can't even seem to find the handle. I don't know what is going on. I think it has to do with the meeting here Monday. I think it is because "They" feel like this case is moving toward reunification that I am pulling back again. I feel like I did when Bio Mom showed up for a few visits in a row, something other people predicted she wouldn't do...I felt my heart crumbling away a bit.

I am raising someone else's baby. Do you have any idea how hard that is? I am doing all the dirty work-- diaper changes, feedings every few hours, still only sleeping a few hours at a time. And yes, we have tried everything to extend her sleeping times at night, except for letting her cry it out (CIO). It's all in a day's work for us parents, but when you don't know if you will get to reap the rewards or taste fruits of your labor, it makes it somehow even more of a thankless job than usual. I can't say, "Oh, it's really hard now, but it will be so worth it when the three of them are performing a play in three acts for me someday, in a couple of years if I'm lucky." There are no gaurantees, and it feels like I am getting the short end of the stick at times.

Sure I am getting to see all the glorious firsts, but this is not what I signed up for and I have been sticking it out anyway. I am watching my own kids bond to this baby, and my husband, too...and she loves him SOOO MUCH...yesterday she actually said, I am NOT kidding and I have TWO witnesses: "I need, I need, I need Daddy!" and when he gets home she says "HE! HE!" as if to say, "HE IS HERE!" and if he goes to put away his cell phone, keys, and wallet in his bathroom closet or do ANYTHING but scoop her up the instant he sees her, she is FRANTIC. We finally have the Daddy's Girl we've always wanted, but it's bittersweet at best to watch them fall so deeply in love. It's actually painful for me to watch the living pieces of my heart that are walking around give their hearts away, too, when it ought to be one of the big joys of a mother's life.

Right now, I just can't see that this is going to end in a way that is pleasant.

So I called DH this morning and left him a message telling him I think we need to give the agency our 30 days notice that we cannot take care of Baby Grrl anymore, before we get more attached because it is clear that the County is going to push for her to go back to some faction of her so-called family, and I simply CANNOT imagine being any more attached when that happens. {Some people could argue that I let myself get too attached by attachment parenting and babywearing and et cetera, but I honestly do not think I would have been able to love someone else's baby without those practices. I even think that is perhaps why so many foster kids are abused by foster parents...because the foster parents ARE NOT bonded to the foster babies/children.}

Anyway, after I hung up I started bawling and the kids comforted me and told me we CANNOT give Baby Grrl to ANYONE else because she is too cute and they will help me and they don't care that I cannot spend all my time with them by day, and they can teach themselves and they will make their own pancakes tomorrow, et cetera. So I let them comfort me and hug me and kiss me until they decided that they needed to go out in the back yard and, using their trusty Guide to Animal Tracks, conclusively and finally identify that E.T. has in fact been walking around in our yard at night {and if you argue any other point, DS2 will call you "penis breath", from the movie}.

THANK GOODNESS since I started writing this, my rational DH has called and talked some sense to me, got me down off my ledge that I like to go out on for some reason, and of course he also came up with a three-fold plan for making things easier for me that includes but is not limited to: him taking the baby at night, since he can go right back to sleep after giving her a bottle and I cannot; him having breakfast set up for the boys so they can serve themselves; and him and I taking turns watching the baby for an hour in the evening while the other one homeschools with the boys. We even came up with a plan for doing Art, Math, Reading, Spelling, & Writing on specific days. His plans are all-ways the best, because they are based in reality, and not the idyllic fantasy of childhood I would like to somehow magically create out of dirt and dust {and I manage to do it somedays, too! but it isn't sustainable}.

We implemented a bedtime routine after a few months of chaos with a new baby, and it has been AMAZING. We take turns doing it {and DS1 will never let us forget whose night it is} but we now start the process at 8{ish} and the boys are even PUTTING THEMSELVES TO SLEEP after only a few weeks of doing it consistently {although DS1 will tell you he is putting them to sleep}. They go to sleep now after just two books {I used to read unlimited books 'til they fell asleep} and one book on CD/tape.

I am truly blessed to have such a supportive and wonderful husband, and I would definitely not be able to survive this experience with my heart, soul and sanity mostly intact without him. In fact, if I was a single mama trying to be a foster parent, I probably would've given up after only a few weeks AND ended up on a major anti-depressant for quitting before I even gave the poor baby a fair chance, too.

It's quite possible I am simply not cut out for this type of work, and I may end up on an anti-depressant anyway. I do have a herstory of depression {and yes, our Placement Coordinator knew that and it was noted in every.single.questionnaire I filled out} with one major depressive episode and a bad relapse when I worked in social services and was very stressed out working 70 hours a week and on call 24/7.

At the very least, next time {if there is a next time} I will only agree to take in a baby/child who is "legal risk" with termination of parental rights being almost a certainty, if not in process. And as much as I love them, I think I am just getting too old and arthritic for babies. The thought of a one- or two-year-old coming to us who eats solid food and sleeps through the night sounds more do-able.

And so I exhale. I will put away the laptop, splash some warm water on my face, and go outdoors to be under the sun with my children who love me just the way I am.

"Thank you for hearing me." ~ Sinead O' Connor

More of the Pod

e Blogger only lets you add 5 photos per post, so this is part two of the Pod pix...



The little placemats for eating are handy for catching slobber. I actually ordered the lime green color because I really wanted the kiwi placemat. Baby Grrl tries to pinch and pick up the seeds on the kiwi placemat! {she is perfecting her pincer grasp already}. The mod circles are cool, too. I don't know why retro prints are so popular but it's great timing pour moi. I hope that the next big trend is a psychedelic explosion!!





Is she not the cutest thing you have ever seen? She is wearing an outfit by Nanette, {Nanette's sizing is perfect for her petite frame} and the little paisley pants with
eyelet on the ankles are my favorite. With a matching onesie, cardigan sweater with little flower-shaped buttons and a hat! I got the outfit on ebay, part of a lot of 55 ITEMS of clothing for ONLY $36. But shopping on eBay is another post entirely...

Book us on Jerry Springer, yo.

I've received so much new information related to our foster daughter in the past twenty-four hours that I don't think I've even processed it all {and I only use the phrase "foster daughter" here, as she simply feels like my daughter to me. and ever more so each day. period.} I suppose that's what this blog is for, so here goes...

We had a meeting here at our house again with the County Case Worker ("Ben"), the Case Manager from our licensing agency ("Codi"), and the Gaurdian Ad Litem ("Amie"). I have to say, if it wasn't for these meetings here at our house, the legs of our kitchen table and chairs might never get cleaned. I almost all-ways clean like I did for the homestudy, when I know they will all be sitting in our dining room during the brightest part of the day. And what was I thinking with a white wood table and chairs and very light-colored maple wood flooring? I can't think of a less mess-disguising color scheme.

Basically, we got several more pieces of the puzzle yesterday, but no big changes. Luckily, at the end of the day, no matter what, we're still the ones holding her.

I will start with the fact that we FINALLY have confirmation of the identity of Baby Grrl's biological father. He lives in New York and he is not in jail anymore! So, Baby Grrl's three-year-old sister is her full sister {now I know why I like her the most} and I *almost* hope they eventually decide to separate her and the seven-year-old for therapeutic reasons and place her with us, or place her with us if they have to be moved again. I have made it clear that we're willing to take her but cannot take the two of them. Ben cautioned me that she is a lot of work and throws five-hour tantrums but I'm not afraid of her. She responds really well to me as an adult. And besides, NO ONE gets to throw five-hour tantrums in this house. Not even me. The boys have to go their room if their tantrum is longer than usual for their age or if it is interfering with the rights of other people in the house. It's called behavior management/modification, folks, and I have A LOT of experience working with very difficult people. Besides, I imagine 3.5 y.o. DS2 would throw five-hour tantrums if we didn't love him, let him be a voice in this family, and give him the space he needs to be himself, but we do-- and if that doesn't work, we tickle him out of the baddest of moods. Bring it on! {BTW, when the boys do get sent to their room it is with classical music playing and a bookshelf full of books to read, so fear not for their mental health, g-rents.}

Secondly, while the Baby Daddy will not return the calls from the Denver County Case Worker, he has been in contact with Baby Grrl's bio mom. She proudly told me last night that he had called her, and he even sent her a picture of his daughter by another woman. Baby Grrl's bio mom then gave *me* a picture of her for Baby Grrl's photo album. So, ANOTHER {half} SISTER.

Our Case Manager, being the great advocate she is, brought up the issue of whether or not the visits are being appropriately supervised and we discussed that at length. Ben showed his true colors by saying no one ever said the Case Aide denied the lollipop incident ever happened {actually, he told me she denied it on the phone on February 27 but WHATEV}. I was asked to share the photos of mom and a friend of the family holding Baby Grrl while she was clearly teething on a lollipop, and I think Ben and Amie were nonplussed. Nonetheless, Ben looked me in the eyes and told me he talked to the Case Aide and made it very clear that candy was not to be given to the baby. {So mom showed up with a bottle of juice. Cuz babies need juice by six months in her world.} She ate something orange at the visit last night {and I would bet my bottom dollar it was not sweet potato} that was all over her bib and outfit, and she has been fussy and gassy all.day.long. Oh, and she hasn't pooped yet today which is very odd for her. I don't even know why her mom has to shove food in her face during the visit when she has usually just eaten {and we tell her that} and has bottles and formula in the diaper bag if she does get hungry. I understand that giving her anything she wants to eat is within her rights as the biological parent but it feels like she is marking her territory or playing with a toy or something. Plus, it's the old "she act like she want it" story. But she acts like she wants my keys and the cellophane wrapper on my microwave popcorn bag but I don't let her eat them.

So the team is surprised we have not "blown through Case Aides" on this case as they expected, I guess because of the number of children and the situation that placed them all in foster care in the first place. Plus, Ben said a lot of Case Aides would find it hard to be around "Dad" since he could have been the abuser. I personally have the same problem being around "Mom", but no one seems to care what I think. Come to think of it, it irks me that they call them Dad and Mom at all but it's all part of their professional lingo and we are all just another case to them I'm sure.

Apparently, psychological evaluations have not painted a pretty picture of mom or her motivation and suggest she may have a developmental delay, which is not surprising and does help explains things a bit. That is good news for us in terms of "evidence" but also very sad to hear these findings in that she is the mother to these SIX girls. I predict that at least three of the six will most likely follow in their mom's footsteps, get pregnant at a young age, quit school, get on welfare and perpetuate the cycle. Fortunately, Baby Grrl shows signs of being highly intelligent, and she is above average developmentally and speaking already. She says "angy" {angry}, "bah-bah" {bottle}, "bay-buh" {baby}, "dada", "mama", "um" {for DS1, it is a syllable in his name}, "muh" {again, for DS2, a syllable in his name}, "dah-gah" {doggie} and "hi". And she has been known to say Baghdad, bigs, hey, off, sick, and up {each of those only on one occasion and clearly in mimicry}. As for the Nature versus Nurture debate, I still think it is complicated. Genetics are surely a part of it, but I think that Nurture is going a long way to help her heal and thrive; and it would be wrong for her to be taken out of a home where she is THRIVING and placed in one in which she would probably not only regress, but where there is the very serious potential for severe abuse or at the very least, severe neglect. Mark my words: if she is returned to her bio mom or placed with her bio dad, I will become the biggest, fiercest child advocate this world has ever seen. Or a mad, raving lunatic. It could absolutely go either way.

Okay, so back to the meeting...

Ben said something about the judge not even hearing cases if there isn't a thorough family history, and they haven't been able to obtain that, so it's far from being ready to go forward. The man Bio Mom initially accused of the abuse has his disposition hearing next week, so we will see how that turns out.

It was extremely upsetting to me when they started talking about "Permanency Plans". Apparently, they like to have them in place around one year. One year after placement or one year of age? I don't know and didn't think to ask. But it begs the question: What judge in her right mind would be okay with a Permanency Plan that includes ANY member of Baby Grrl's bio family? And after she is with us for a year or more, what would it do to her to be taken from the only family she has ever known? The weekly, hour and a half visits are hard enough for her now. Our Case Manager pushed for the Case Worker and GAL to say which way they think it will go, and that started them on a very long discussion that mostly centered around the inappropriateness of all of the family member's living situations, alcoholism, conflicting stories, and when the children will finally start therapy, et cetera.

But the thing that REALLY rattled me the most from yesterday's meeting was when the County Case Worker said he thought "it would be great if we could get a hold of Dad in another state, do a homestudy, and find a permanent home for her {Baby Grrl} and her sister" all based on his opinion that her Dad's mom {Grandma} and sister {Aunt} sound so nice on the phone. WTF?!?!?! Are we even on the same planet? These people in another state do not even know her, they have never met her, and she has no connection to them except sperm. But they would place the baby in their care simply because he has paternal rights. The very thought of that happening shook me up so badly, I almost had to leave the meeting and go to the bathroom and throw up {as it was, I saved it for after the visit drop-off}.

There are more pieces of the puzzle but I can't think of what they are right now. I'm fighting a bug and it's winning today, as I have finally spiked a fever after three days of feeling very ache-y and crappy, and I'm literally falling asleep at the keyboard which is scary since it's only Noon. But I've been up since 6:30 a.m. and slept only four solid hours last night {ah, but what a glorious four hours they were! thank you, DH!}. I'm getting through today on TheraFlu severe cold & flu medicine {I know, it only masks the symptoms but I have three children to take care of} but I'm going straight to bed when DH gets home and sleeping until I feel better. I have to get well for them and because my dad and stepmom are coming to town on Saturday!! Oh yeah, and for me. So I will feel better. Yeah, that, too.

The bebePod

It really stinks badly of toxic plastic but she likes it!

Food Bank & New Friends!

Last Saturday, DH volunteered with our Foster Parent Association and a local food bank, unloading and sorting orders for the foster families who participate in the food bank. He brought home a few loaves of whole grain bread, and a *case each* of animal crackers, baby food, pasta shells, peanut butter, saltine crackers, and this...

FREE, FRESH, *ORGANIC* PRODUCE!!!!

We received two trays of juicy blueberries, a dozen perfect Granny Smith apples, four pounds of sweet kiwi, a flat of big, ripe mangoes and a half dozen sumptuous Roma tomatoes on the vine! It was like Christmas, or Thanksgiving really. Oh, and we also received a CASE {twelve boxes of 4} of 365 brand {Whole Foods} mango frozen fruit bars, which are sooo delish. It was fantastic!

Each foster family is eligible for 150 pounds of food each month for *each* foster child who is in their care. We didn't think we would qualify until Tomorrow was eating solids, but we do! It's a wonderful way to help offset all of the costs associated with raising a foster child. And for us, a lot of the costs seem to creep up on us all at once, sort of like Tomorrow. Like last month, in which we needed to buy clothes in the next size up, feeding bibs, high chair, mesh self-feeders, and safety gates that we needed pretty much all at once, in addition to formula that's $60 a can, et cetera.

Anyway, we figured that the food from the food bank would be less than fresh or just not of good quality, so we were very pleasantly surprised to find that it is such fresh, high quality food. The items available are different every month as they are items that have been donated because they didn't sell well or were mislabeled or mispackaged, and so on. Thus, it will be interesting to see what is available to us each month. And it's good to get something extra for the work we're doing.

Mike is also helping to streamline the foster parent association's food bank ordering process by revising the spreadsheets they have been using, so today we went to the home of another foster family who coordinates one of the monthly food bank days.

The couple has SEVEN children~ including THREE sibling groups of two!! They have adopted FOUR of them. We met six of the seven children and they were all adorable, obviously very loved, and well-mannered. They played well with our children, and the younger ones actually seemed to bond quite a bit which was amazing and sweet to watch.

They adopted their youngest daughter who is Native American this past November, and they have had her with them since she was only 4 days old, so it was inspiring to hear their story and see their beautiful, living example of foster-adoption. She was born addicted to cocaine and did not even roll over until she was 11 months old, but you would never know it if you met her today. She met us at the door with a great big smile and welcomed us inside. She stayed pretty close to me~ I think because I was wearing Tomorrow who took a nap in the carrier~ and she kept saying "baby, baby!" and jumping up and down and running back and forth and upstairs and downstairs. Clearly, she was very excited for us to be there! She showed and told us many things. Her mom said she has a vocabulary of over two hundred words which I would think is very good for her developmental age. Her chronological age is only sixteen months and she is just the cutest little thing with her Native American eyes, hair and skin, and a little silver and turquoise bracelet on her wrist!

It was so good to meet another foster family, and to see such a stellar example of love. Clearly, theirs is an outstanding example of a foster family, because not everyone has that many children and is still that generous with their energy and time to coordinate something for other families!

They wouldn't let us leave without giving us seven cans of formula, two baby gates, a pack of diapers, a pair of Nikes and a baby sling! I'm so glad I had brought a big bag of my new lavender basil organic dead sea salts as a friendship gift, but I still feel indebted to them already for not only the items they gave us for Tomorrow, but the inspiration they were for us in the short time we were there, just by their example of being able to adopt so many children.

The mom and I made plans to go to a nearby casino restaurant and stuff ourselves silly at a seafood buffet! I'm glad to have finally made a friend who is also a foster mother, and especially one who is generous and kind and not caught up in the drama and gossip that plague so many.I really need to hear and learn from the experience, strength and hope of someone who has seen about everything there is to see on this path of foster-adoption, and can help guide me through the crags, over the ice bridges and around avalanches. Or just be there when I encounter them.

What a great day, and what a neat family. What started out as a way for us to help the agency and other foster families, of course ends up being a benefit to us. Isn't this always the case when we help others? We get energy simply from helping. Today, we cashed in karma like tenfold.