good news bad news

Its a good news bad news type of day

Bad news....notsosweetest girl today suspended from school for tomorrow

Good news.....the long awaited documents required to get the adoption home assessment completed have finally arrived after three...yes THREE painful months of waiting!!!!

It is true you have to take the bad with the good or is it good with the bad?

Either way

The making of mini banana loaves

setting the oven

This little dolly loves loves loves to bake.  It is an excellent activity to share time, knowledge and fun.  It is especially great as a means of teaching responsibility and independence in the kitchen along with helping issues with some tactile defensiveness.  There is a lot of touching of all kinds of textures when baking and when you find being dirty or gooey aversive it can be a baking buzz kill.  Luckily the child is motivated enough that she is overcoming some of her aversions.
Sadly this little chronicle of events is missing the documentation of the final product.  By that time the child was done and other issues took precedent and the banana loaves were eaten with great pride as always.

A little anticlimactic at the end I know....

the excitement begins!                                                                             

the pouring

the reading of the ingredients

the turning on of the mixer

the being allowed in a cupboard not usually allowed in

learning how to  measure

and measure accurately

the mashing of the bananas

the greasing of the tins

the flouring of the tin

shake shake

pouring and measuring

                                                                             

volunteering for Heartbreak

The Heartbreak of Foster Care

Posted on February 24, 2014 by daddystractor

I’ve gotten a lot of questions recently: lots of funny looks and tiny head shakes. Its not something I write about on the blog, but since there’s interest, I’ll answer. People don’t get why I’ve opened up my home to a foster child.

I understand that. I really do. And maybe I can explain it to you and maybe I can’t. I went through a process to get here myself. Basically it boils down to this.

Love is always worth it.

But to open yourself up for heartbreak? People tell me “I couldn’t do that.” Well, I’ve said that too, so coming from the other side, and with no malice, let me just say, yes. Yes you could.

We choose not to.

I mean, there’s nothing glamorous about it. You voluntarily allow a child into your home whose parents are probably less than stellar. They come with lice (or worse). They don’t know how to eat at the table properly. They probably cry for parents you wish could be locked up for decisions they’ve made. It means child services in your home, scrutinizing you in ways no one does for a biological child.

But take a second to consider the alternative.

Where else would they be? A fellow foster parent recently posted to her Facebook page “We don’t do it because we aren’t afraid of heartbreak, but because we are afraid of what would happen to them without us.”

Pretty much.

Foster kids are generally at the bottom of the social ladder. Who really wants these kids? Less than a week after the ink dried on our license I was holding a five month old in the middle of the night, tears streaming down my face as I both fed him a bottle and scrolled through my Pinterest account looking at pictures of Prince George. Just a few months apart, but the world ADORES the Prince of Cambridge. No one wanted the tiny life in my arms.

He literally was “the least of these.”

In the hard moments that’s what I cling to. This little guy isn’t just a foster child. He’s my little piece of Jesus, right here in my house.

But apart from all of that, people still want to know.

Will I get my heart broken?

It already is.

His tiny smile and great big losses. The phone calls for another child who needs a home. Every news report. Every Amber alert. All heart breaking.

If he goes back to his bio parents I’ll cry because I will have lost him. If we adopt him I’ll cry because he will have lost his bio parents.

Heartbreak is really just part of living.

But hopefully I’m teaching all my kids a really important lesson. Be compassionate. Take care of those who are weaker than you. Share.

And love.

Because I’ve looked into the eyes of an unwanted child and I know.

Its always worth it.

As you can see the first post is from someone else's blog.  Here is what I say to his beautiful writing.

Yet for one short week in the year Foster Parent Week foster parents are all considered abusers, neglectful, in it for the money and at its worse child murders as the Minister wants to continue to broadcast how many children have died under provincial care. No one reads further to see that many die due to unfortunate accidents (just as non foster children do), die as a result of their birth family prenatal choices or lack there of or even the abuses that the child has incurred that brought them into care in the first place. There are garbage people in every walk of life police officers, fire fighters, doctors, lawyers and EVEN including the judges and social workers employed to ensure the best interests of the children are met. For but a small few foster parents, social workers etc do what they do to help those who need help, to lift those that need lifting and worse case scenario finding new families for those whose ones of origin are too dangerous or apathetic. It is a thankless job if you are looking for public accolades however when as a foster parent you tuck safely into bed and kiss the top of a freshly bathed child who wraps their little arms around you saying "you are the best mommy ever!" and you know that for this moment for however these moments last this one child is safe, valued and very much loved that is the only accolade ever needed. The best.

On the road to crazy cat lady

Who in their right mind has this many pictures of a cat?!  These are only the half of it!  I knew I liked cats but who knew I had crazy cat lady tendencies?  I can see how it happens too.  You first get a kitten and they are so soft, adorable and funny.  Then they grow as cats do and though they are still cute, soft, adorable and funny they just don't have the uber adorability factor that their kitten self did.   Again, not that you don't love them as much just that you need the addictive fix of a kitten or better yet a basket full of kittens!  Luckily I am not there yet.  Yet. With the dog and cat both shedding I could knit a new one of each after each sweep.  Right now precious Olaf (we have Frozen fans in the house) is still keeping us all entertained and filled with kitty loving so there is no move to the collecting of another cat.  Luckily.

Without a doubt he is the most adored of family members.  On arrival home it is him that is sought out with high pitched squeals of "Kitty!" (and that's from one of the teenagers!).  It is him that is asked about first thing by the seven year old even before she has unbuckled her car seat.

I should be so popular.                                             

Love

Couldn't you just eat him up?!

21st century mouse hunt

Hugs

Whatcha doin?

Soft kitty, warm kitty
Little ball of fur
Happy kitty sleepy kitty
Purr purr purr

Ya I did it.  You gotta problem with it?

Shhh if I keep really still she won't realize she loves me.
Everyone loves me.  I'm the KITTY

Helping

In my head I have the washing machines and driers running, cookies in the oven and a kitchen devoid of any sign that I fed the children what most would think was a pretty good meal.  The reality however is I have not moved since diapering and tucking in the last child.

Tomorrow is a new day

adoption nonupdate

Three months after my application has gone in to adopt a newborn with special needs and I remain in the VERY beginning stages of the paperwork.  It is not my fault, it might not even be the worker who currently holds the power of it but more on the shorthandedness and maybe even shortsightedness of the bureaucracy of government adoption.  I was told that all things going well the required documents will hopefully be on their way to their appropriate recipient on Tuesday (long weekend here).  At that point I will then be put in the que for the actual home assessment.

If only one of the private agencies had a baby to place as they could do so with the birth parents choosing us with the paperwork to follow or even a direct placement by birth family.  It would take a miracle...

At this rate the baby and I will be in diapers at the same time....

today

Well today is Friday.  The last day of the work week has traditionally been when pivotal events for me have occurred.  If any news is to come my way that is dependent on more news to follow or requires action from other professionals it will come on a Friday.  Kids die on Fridays.  At any rate Fridays can come with feelings of relief that the school week is done, excitement to partake in weekend activities, frustration due to having to wait for the work week to begin again when depending on others for information or action or grief as the routine of Fridays holds many triggers.

What will this Friday, today hold?  

As always I am hopeful I will receive the call that will be life changing by way of a teeny tiny bundle destined to be ours.

It could happen.

I believe in the impossible.

I have to.

New wall art.  No coincidence then that the littlest boy is successfully holding a new toy and liking it.

February 3,2000

February 3, 2000.  What an amazing day in my life!  It was the day I was matched and brought home nine day old Ailish.

She had been alone in hospital, essentially abandoned for all of her nine days.  She had not even been named.  The dry erase board read something to the effect of "this is Baby "Emily".  She needs extra TLC".

I dressed her, signed the required adoption and discharge papers and couldn't wait to leave the hospital.  She was mine.  We were hers.  She was claimed for forever and for always.

(It bears noting that I can remember the time the CALL came, the majority of what was said and the events of the day that followed and it was fourteen years ago.  I cannot however remember where I put the dental floss that I just bought....)