Three Months

I can't believe that I've been a foster mom for three months now. I still find myself wondering how this can be, that this really IS my life. I'm a "mom", something that I have wanted to be my entire life. Granted, these girls will go home, but for now, I'm "kinda" raising them, (even though I sometimes feel like a baby-sitter because there is NO way I'm REALLY a mom, right?!)

Even with all the pinching that's been going on, though, I do believe that I am doing a good job...and that my home and my family are a perfect fit for these girls in this season of their life. I'm not much of a "pat myself on the back" kind of person, but when I sit down and think about it, most of the time I feel like I know what I am doing!

"M" is super stressed out about school. That girl studies constantly and is trying REALLY hard. After every test and quiz, she comes home saying things are "horrible", even though I helped quiz her and KNOW how much time she spent preparing for them. Granted, she doesn't have straight A's right now, but here are her classes--Biology, Algebra, Spanish, Theology, World History, Health, and English. I have told her time and again that the first round of tests/quizzes is the hardest because you have no idea what the teacher will expect you to know or how he/she will ask the questions. She is not failing any of her classes and I can't be upset about her grades with the amount of effort she is putting forth. I think writing is a challenge for her, so I will continue to encourage her to let me read her papers prior to her handing them in, but so far she has not let me do that. She was doing homework at 9:00 this morning before Mass and she is studying right now (after cleaning her room AND washing all of our dinner dishes...she is so awesome!)

"L" and I had a lot of fun last week. I had all week off because I was scheduled to work Thursday/Friday/Saturday. I ended up calling in sick on Thursday because my parents were out of town and I didn't want to drive her "all" the way across town to my sister's house PRIOR to dropping "M" off at school by 6:40 and getting myself to work by 7. Plus, I don't think my sister wanted to be up that early! So, we had lots of one-on-one time which was good, but also REALLY tiring! God bless the stay-at-home mom because I honestly don't think I could do it! By 9:30 most days, I was ready for a nap! Granted, I'd been up for 4 hours by then, but still, that was after getting a full night's sleep and being with a child who doesn't need constant attention or supervision! We tried to do a little bit of "school" each day since she isn't going to a structured pre-school. She doesn't know her colors, so I'm trying really hard to get her to learn those! We did some finger painting and other "hands-on" activity pretty much every day and one day we went to the Zoo. She likes to help me cook and is really a ton of fun. She did manage to "earn" herself a couple of time-outs, but for the most part, I'm SO blessed that she actually CAN entertain herself for a while (and feed herself, dress herself, basically give herself a bath...ha!)

We made "finger paint" out of flour, salt, water, and food coloring. It actually cleaned up pretty easily. I was worried about the food coloring, but I guess it isn't much/any different than frosting for sugar cookies!

This is something that people call "oobleck" or something like that. It's just corn starch and water, but as you can tell, she had a fun time. I did save the left-overs so we may try this again this week. I tossed the rest of the finger paint down the sink which was another "plus" for that!

We actually finger painted on the front porch on Thursday, but those pictures aren't uploaded from my camera yet.

So, there's an update on the girls. Apparently, their mom was granted unsupervised visits, effective this past Friday, but they decided that it wasn't necessary to tell the caseworker or me. It's great when your 15-year-old keeps you informed of what's going on...ha! I'm not exactly sure what this means because it happened right before the holiday weekend. They did get to go to a family gathering on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon without a visitation worker, so that is nice. The one thing that has me curious is that apparently they have a HUGE family, so why were the kids not placed with family? They have been in foster care for about nine months now and that's just crazy to me that no one in the family "stepped up" to take them...or maybe people in their family couldn't pass background checks?! No clue, but it is sad. I mean, the girls have it really good right now (if I do say so myself...ha!) but they have missed out on a lot of family things since they have been in foster care.

I suppose I need to start preparing myself for when they go back home, even though I'm not sure how/when this will happen. People have asked me if is going to be hard. In some ways, it will be. I mean, even though it's hard to believe, they HAVE been a part of my life for three months now. We have a relationship. We have lots of memories. I lived by myself for three years before they came to live with me and now it feels like I'm rarely by myself! I am so blessed that my first experience with motherhood has been with such great kids...especially since if you tell people you have a teen and a toddler, they think you're some kind of saint...ha! There are no other kids like them and I'm sure the house will feel empty without them in it. Thankfully, this isn't going to happen in the VERY near future so I don't even know why I brought it up! :)

Work is fine. Things have changed a lot, but I do still enjoy what I do. I have to focus on that and not get discouraged/frustrated with the changes. We have lost some staff and our census fluctuates all the time so sometimes we need extra nurses and sometimes you don't get your hours. They may start doing mandatory on-call, and we may need to work more weekends and holidays. Definitely not enough changes to send me looking for another job, since I've been there for nearly seven years, but enough to make me want to put my two cents in whenever I can to make it so I DON'T feel the need to look elsewhere.

I've been so busy recently and I miss blogging, reading blogs, being on facebook, talking to friends. I guess having kids, even if they are older, does change things! I feel like I'm "out of the loop", but maybe it's OK that I have 225 unread posts in my Google Reader... It's totally different, but right now my job is to be there for these girls and that involves playing Barbies, finger painting, reading books, singing lullabies...and watching Days of Our Lives, studying for quizzes and tests, listening to complaints about homework (and semi-sympathizing), and teaching a girl to drive.

It's been way too long since I posted, so there's a nice little book :)

Happy Labor Day!