Michelle is a Teen!

It is hard to believe that Michelle is now a teenager! It seems like just a short time ago she joined our family. We have changed things up a bit and the new tradition is lunch out with mom. The kids are loving it because I don't get to have too much one on one when eating out.

Michelle picked a hamburger joint and then ordered boneless wings.

We had a nice long conversation. She sees where some of her actions have actually had the negative consequences that I had foretold her about. She is finally realizing that I am actually on her side and I am actually trying to help her. Socially she is very, hmmmm, awkward. She tries to cover it by being the clown but it doesn't come across that way. She has not been willing to listen to me when I try to talk to her about this and offer suggestions. She talked about several incidents where she disregarded my advice and it didn't end well. She says she is more open to listening. 

We also talked about relationships. She said that she really wants to be closer with Larissa but she isn't sure that Larissa is open to that. Michelle acknowledged that she has really hurt Larissa and that for years Larissa was still kind back to her. However, lately Larissa has stopped really interacting with her. She wondered if Larissa would give her another chance. I told her that I thought that Larissa would if she talked to her. She did and right now they are cautiously working on their relationship.

She admitted that she is jealous of Larissa and how tall and skinny she is. A month or so back I had told Michelle to let that go because genetics are involved there and she will never be that tall. I told her that if she wants her own family nitch to work on her academics. We currently have no kids who are excelling at school. Yes, Anthony has made great strides for himself in school but Michelle could be doing so much more. She is making it her goal to study harder and excel at school. I hope that she can maintain that because she does have the potential. Realizing that she could have her own personal strength and to finally let go of that jealousy would be so healthy for her. For some reason one of my early memories of her was her first birthday here and she stated that she was now older than Larissa so why wasn't she taller than her. She has always had an issue that Larissa's height!

Then we discussed friends. At the end of the year she lost a lot of her friends when she realized that they were only her friends when she gave them answers to homework and such. She says that all of her current friends are outcasts. That they don't care if she is awkward and accept her anyways. After a long conversation about friendships she told me that many of her friends try to blend in so that they don't get bullied. She said that I should not send Larissa back to school. She says when Larissa walks down the hallway she has such a presence that everyone sees her and then she is too nice. People pick on those who stand out and are too nice. I didn't realize that she had such an understanding of Larissa. That night after they talked they asked if Michelle could spend the night in her room. I said yes and they did really well. 

I know that there will be lots of backsliding but I do hope that Michelle can develop a relationship with Larissa and excel in school. While we were driving home Michelle said that she actually had an entire conversation with me and didn't lie. That is a rare thing but apparently it wasn't too painful. She said she needed to do that more. Uh, yes.

Cake of choice, Reeces Peanut Butter cake.

Happy Birthday Michelle!

Foster Update

I don't think that I have updated about our foster baby who is no longer a baby but a toddler.

What is going on? Nothing, kind of.

After about a year of sending the mother pictures I have stopped. She now has to contact the social worker if she wants new pictures. She hasn't contacted her yet. Will she? I have no idea. Originally I was willing to send pictures to act as an encouragement to work their plan. Mom has literally done nothing. She is expecting dad to get him back.

Dad is about to get out of jail in August. Apparently he has early release because he worked his plan in jail. He says he is fighting to get him back when he gets out of jail.

Court is in September. Social worker is recommending TPR. GAL is recommending TPR. We will see what the judge recommends. So far no new family members have come forward.

We continue to tell the kids that their parents are trying to get him back. Benjamin calls him his foster brother although lately he slips and just calls him his brother. The other kids are starting to ask if we are adopting him. Others are starting to ask. We say it is out of our hands, that the system can be hard to understand and sometimes it turns topsy turvy. If he leaves there will be a lot of broken hearts in our family.

He is growing well, he is on target and into everything. He is loved.

We wait.

Boys bedroom

Everyone: Why is it taking you so long to get that bedroom done?

Me: I don't know, I have so much help!

I continue to work on the boys bedroom. I can't quite decide what I want to do with it. I just know blue walls as per Benjamin's instructions.

Busy Summer Days

We are enjoying our summer here in spite of the heat.

Joselin celebrated another birthday and requested strawberry shortcake. I may have made a bit too much whip cream and fit as much on as I could. All the kids got spoons and finished it off.

The kids barely lasted an hour at a picnic at the park. Too hot.

Sno cones are more my thing for this heat!

Our short term placement of only 2 weeks is still here. The older boy has learned how to swim. They are enjoying the pool quite a bit and have settled in rather well. Our biggest challenge is their eating. If there is food in the house they seem obligated to eat every last bit of it. I spent $1000 in groceries in one week! Normally we spend about $2000/month. I try to leave out fruit and crackers for snacks. Fruit gets expensive when they go through a bag of oranges, apples and bananas a day. Heck, they even ate up my celery in the fridge.

The 10 year old has a birthday next Saturday. I am not sure what to do. I hadn't budged for it. If they don't go to their aunt soom then they will be on vacation with us. Then I have back to school to get. That is a lot of expense I wasn't expecting and since they both are in school that dramatically increases my costs. I haven't started shopping for school yet! Has anyone?

ER Visit

At midnight I was working on cleaning out a garage when Larissa came to me telling me that her chest hurt and she couldn't breathe. After watching her roll on the ground struggling to breathe I decided to take her to the ER. The ER was quite busy. People coughing on us and all. After a while they called her back to check her vitals. She didn't appear to be in distress but was complaining about her chest and was breathing in short breaths. They did all her vitals and her oxygen was good. I knew based on that we had a long wait. I asked her how she was feeling and did she just want to leave. She did, she didn't like all the people coughing on her! On the drive home I had her do some coughing and it seemed to help her chest pain.

After talking with a lot of friends the though of panic attack came up. Hmmm, this is actually her second chest pain/hard to breathe issue but the first time it was rather mild. I wouldn't rule out panic attacks.

I took her to her doctor and she wanted to rule out asthma. She gave us an inhaler and an appointment to have a pulmonary function test at our local hospital. We received a call the next day that they don't do them on children. So today we went to the doctors office where they did a spirometry test. Tasha says it will not rule out asthma. The nurse said that her results looked good so I will have to meet back with her doctor to see where to go from here.

Kids, never a dull moment. Anyone with panic attacks? Asthma? Chest pains with shortness of breathe?

Racism

Sat with Larissa today at lunch and she was talking about what she felt she needed to work on. She mentioned not shutting down when she is upset. If you know Larissa that is a real thing. Then she talked about how she needed to stop allowing others to steal her joy. This led to a discussion on racism.

She says that her first experience she remembers is from Emma and how Emma turned a bunch of girls against her and they all started bullying her at school saying racist things. Her own sister. The pain and mistrust is still there. She wonders if the impact of one child turned many kids to be racist or was it there anyways. I wonder too.

Then recently she had another issue at VBS where a girl just came up and started attacking her. The girl came from Emma’s group. She strongly feels that Emma said something. It hurt her to the core. Can’t be proved but she doesn’t think her heart has changed.

 Attack from within the family hurts in a way that is different than from strangers.

She says that now she sees racism all the time. That it is sad, you can’t judge someone by the color of their skin.

She said that many black people are racist. She has watched me come under attack from some black women and that they were just so wrong. (Actually in one incident she was so terrified she was crying and shaking.) 

She says she loves people of all races and colors, more people should try it.

Foster Care Finances

There are some people who believe that people who do foster care are in it for the money. I don't know the rates for all the other states but it just doesn't seem to me that you can make that much money in South Carolina.

Yes, you get paid a stipend of about $400 a month. But with that $400 you are supposed to provide everything for that child. They also pay a quarterly clothing allowance of $100. So a total of $400/year to clothe a child (if you receive it). The challenge with clothing a child is typically they arrive with next to nothing. I am often amazed at the cost of underwear, socks, shoes and pj's. Things I won't buy used. Right now many folks are not getting those allowances because the state didn't request enough money to fund it. Heck, we aren't even sure when we will get our subsidies, any time between the 10th and 16th.

One thing to realize about the subsidy is that you will not receive it until the middle of the next month. So if you receive children on the first of the month, you won't get any money for about 6 weeks. You have to be sure that you are prepared to clothe, feed, entertain, buy school supplies and such for 6 weeks before you receive any funds. If you receive more than one child the costs are multiplied.

I try to keep some clothing at my house so I have some stuff for the kids. The $100 placement check doesn't go far. There are also foster closets around. When I got the two boys I just didn't have any clothing for them. I had not had any older boy placements in a long time. I contacted the local closets and got them some items. They even supplied some boy toys. Because of the clothing closet I was able to fill in the needs; swim suits, shorts for the older boy, socks, slides and such. I like to have enough clothing for a week. It will grow over time if they stay. Our current placement is supposed to be short term and if it ends up being that way we will have spent much more on them then we ever received. Right now I have to put in the back of my mind that if they aren't short term I have another birthday to buy for, two more kids on our NC vacation and school supplies and clothing. We will receive about half a month subsidy for them right before school starts.

So, no we don't do it for the money. However, we do need the subsidies. We got out to eat, go to the movies, travel, do activities. We include our foster kids. We couldn't afford to do so without the subsidies. I don't know of many people who could, yet they want to deny foster parents the financial means to offer the kids a "normal" lifestyle. The sad thing is that some folks will spend the money on other things and not provide well for their foster kids. They make all foster parents look bad. I would hope that people would get to know folks before making a judgement all across the board.

Fun Day

Yesterday was quite a day, all I did was run around. Larissa went to her orthodontist appoint and then Sarah to her cardiologist appointment. Her heart continues to beat too fast so her medication was increased. Not sure why she is having this problem but her racing heart makes her anxiety worse.

Then I drove to Tasha's house to drop off a bassinet I had. We were lazy and didn't want to take it apart, it fit in my van but not in her car. While on the other side of town I stopped off at a foster closet and picked up some items for the new foster kids.

At this time it looks like we won't get any placement checks for the kids. The previous foster mom actually requested placement checks for the three kids she had last mid-week and then Friday told them not to bring the kids back. The combination of our foster association check and the state check means she will get $600 for those three kids and she supplied them with very little. Sad but not unusual. That means that the folks who end up with the kids get no funding.

Today we had some fun. We decided to do the cow appreciation day at Chic fil A. Dress in some cow garb and get a free entree or kids meal. The kids enjoyed getting a little creative.

I paid for drinks and fries. Pretty good deal for our size group. It was also the first time the new kids had been to Chic Fil A.

It was also Miguel's first trip and Joselin's first food mishap with her son. Ooops, mayo.

Home to chores and swimming and I pretty much wore the kids out! 

A little couch cuddle time ended our day.

Anyone else do cow appreciation day?

Calm Day

It was actually a calm day here. Well, calm for us. I suspect that our calm is not the same as calm for others. We successfully got everyone to church on time and signed in to their classes. As we were leaving Joselin called and did that she was being released. I dropped everyone off at home and went and picked her and Miguel up from the hospital.

I took that bit of time to stop and get some groceries. Literally every day or two I have to shop for groceries. The bag of oranges I bought today is gone, a few bananas remain so I may make it through tomorrow as I saw 2 gallons of milk left. Well, perhaps not, I am not sure what I will be cooking for dinner tomorrow.

I spent a large portion of my afternoon cleaning my bedroom. It is a mess and laundry accumulates there. Washing clothing isn’t a problem, putting it away is! It doesn’t help that so many kids are always outgrowing their clothing and I need to organize that somewheee (not successful with that at this time). Although I did get some laundry put away and sorted a lot does remain. I did not meet my goal of cleaning my bedroom this weekend! Anyone accomplish anything this weekend?

I promised the kids that I would take them swimming after dinner and chores were done. The new boys actually helped with chores so that they could swim. I  need to look at giving them some chores like all the other kids.

Tomorrow I have a few appointments and need to make a few more. I sure do get tired of driving!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Had to be better than mine, cleaning my bedroom.

Nite

New Placement

I know, I know, you have to learn to say no.

DSS called me asking if we could take a 6 year old boy, they had several kids that they were trying to take placement of and sounded kind of desperate. I asked my husband and he said go ahead and accept him, we can put him in Anthony's room.

We start discussing moving a bed and they call back. They have his 10 year old brother there as well and it is expected to be just a few weeks as an aunt has already passed the background check. We decided that we would actually move little man in with Anthony and let the two boys stay in that bedroom together.

The boys arrived with nothing, not even a toothbrush. We find out that they had been in a foster placement for 10 days and when they went to pick them up for a visit the foster parents said not to bring them back. They had given no warning, told the worker that they were going to the beach and didn't want to take them. They also had their sister. Their sister went to the home where their other sister was placed.

Obviously something was going on. I don't know if they were overwhelmed or what but the fact that the boys came in the clothing that they went into care with is just not right. We haven't been taking the older boys so I was not prepared at all. I had to go out and buy underwear, swimming suits, clothing, toothbrushes and such. I realized too late that I forgot pajamas so they made do with big t-shirts and shorts.

They have been acclimating well, went swimming and out for sno cones today. The 10 year old came up to me and said that he wished his sister was here, he said she would have fun. It has to be hard to not know where your siblings went and to wonder if they are doing well.

Thanks to a group I am on on facebook I have been able to find the foster mom who has the girls. We are hoping that the kids go to their aunt quickly but if not we plan on meeting up every other week, opposite of their visitations. Neither of us is in a position to take the other two, we both have 8 kids under 18 in the home! I really wish that I had just one more bedroom in our home. Not so we could take more kids, so we wouldn't have to shuffle around to place kids where they would do best.

In other news, Miguel did not get to come home today. They want to observe him one more night and they are expected to come home tomorrow afternoon.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! I am cleaning my garage between parenting duties.

What a Day!

It has been quite a day here. Joselin and I took baby Miguel to the doctors. He had a temperature of 97 when they first checked him. They wanted us to bundle him and see if his temperature went up. Nope, it went to 96. Once more we bundled and snuggled and his temperature went down to 95. At that point he was sent to the hospital.

Our appointment time was 8:30 and when we made I thought that I would have plenty of time to make it home by 11 am to meet with my moms social worker. I was wrong. I stayed long enough to make sure Joselin and Miguel were settled so didn't make it home in time to talk with the worker, luckily my husband was off and filled in for me.

Joselin and Miguel have been at the hospital all day and are supposed to come home tomorrow morning. Apparently his blood work came back fine and his temperature has come back up to normal. According to Joselin she was told that something was low and he needs to be double bundled to keep his temperature up. This is new but I assume he is having problems regulating his temperature.

I have been spending so much time away from home that Benjamin is acting up and everyone swears that the baby is now having 2 year old tantrums. The house just doesn't run the same without momma home.

Vaida was over so the kids did some water coloring. It is nice to have a big stash of craft supplies to pull from.

Benjamin's art

Benjamin holding Vaida's masterpiece.

I love it, same paint totally different results.

I made a few short trips to the hospital to check up on Joselin and take her items that she needed. We weren't anticipating that she would end up in the hospital all day. I also made a milk run, a lunch with husband and Benjamin run and then later a pizza run and Walmart run. I feel like I spent very little time actually home today although I really tried!

We also accepted placement of two foster kids. I know, so much for saying no. I just couldn't keep doing it! They need to stop calling! Supposed to be a short term placement as background checks have already cleared. I will talk about it tomorrow, I am very tired and am heading to bed.

Nite

Feels like Saturday

The day felt like Saturday all day. I started my day taking Miguel to the doctors. He has another appointment tomorrow morning. I think that he wants to keep an eye on his coloring.

My husband took today off so we went to go see The Incredibles. The kids all enjoyed it. Benjamin isn't a big TV watcher but does great at the movies. Maybe it is the popcorn.

Larissa starts her modeling classes next weekend and needed some black pump shoes for runway walking. I took her to Belk's where she had an elderly black lady come up to her and tell her that she was beautiful and should be a model. I could see the surprised look on Larissa's face. She later told me that she is not used to people saying positive things to her so it always surprises her. Just a few words but they meant a lot to her. It is amazing how a few kind words can really lift someone up. We should be doing that more often instead of tearing each other down.

I haven't gone to the grocery store in two days and noticed that I have an emergency, only half a gallon of milk. I will have to stop off at the store after Miguel's doctor appointment in the morning. Normally I would take late night runs to Walmart. However, I am just too tired. I probably need to pick something up to cook for dinner too. I am so tired of cooking. I feel like I cook the same stuff over and over. I need to find some simple, cheap, quick recipes but I just don't make the time. Anyone else feel like you get in a cooking rut? I find that when I do that we tend to eat out too much. That isn't really a healthy choice and it is breaking my budget. 

Send me your simple recipes, we will test them out!

Home

Joselin and Miguel got to come home today. They both are looking real good and Miguel has his first doctor appointment tomorrow at 8 am.

This is the only picture I have taken of him with his eyes open. Yes, I took about 15 pictures to capture him. I don't think he was happy with me.

I think that we are all exhausted. I tried to spend as much time as possible at the hospital. I had some concerns. On the first day I recognized that Joselin didn't always understand what was being said to her. I thought maybe it was the medications she was given for the C-section. However, I noticed the same the next day as did a friend of mine who sat with her for a bit for me.

I had not noticed this before. I assume that it was the setting. Maybe the medication and the stress. I am not sure but it concerned me.

Now we settle into a new normal!

Yesterday

I was so tired yesterday that I fell asleep really early! I spent the entire day before at the hospital and then a majority of yesterday at the hospital and getting ready for the baby and Joselin to come home.

Benjamin helped carry our the car seat.

I actually left the hospital early as she had a bunch of friends coming and the family wanted fed. We went out, it wasn't cooking or shopping.

Around midnight I got a call from DSS, wanted to know if we would take a 12 year old boy. I said that I have girls ages 11, 12 and 12 and I can not take in 12 year old boys. Yes, they will call you outside of your designated ages. I have had to learn how to say no!

Today I head to the hospital to wait for them to be discharged. More later. I have lots of thoughts and concerns at this time.

Meet Miguel

Joselin and I headed to the hospital this morning for her scheduled C-section.

The procedure went well and even on schedule. We did learn that there was a reason why Joselin had a breech baby and it had to do with the shape of her uterus. Any other pregnancies she has will be breech. 

This is my first baby where I was able to cut the umbilical cord.

I felt that I was very blessed to be able to be with Joselin during this time. 

As small as Joselin is I thought that baby would be small. He weighed in at 7 lb 3 oz and 19 3/4 inches. He is bigger than any of my babies!

Just perfect with a stock of dark black hair.

Baby overload pictures ahead.........