Tomorrow marks fifteen months since the girls spent their first night here. At that time, they had already been living in foster care for five months and I was basically told to expect a pretty short placement. I thought they were going home a year ago, nine months ago, six months ago, fifteen weeks ago...and yet here they still are. We love our time together and have so many memories (and HUNDREDS of pictures) from these fifteen months. However, this back and forth and the unknown is "starting" to get pretty old. Granted, I still think their mom's "mothering" leaves much to be desired, but they have already spent 20 months living apart from their siblings and I have a hard time saying that is "right". She frustrates me and disappoints me, but I honestly think that it is probably time to "move on" to the next phase of our relationship where I will hopefully be a mentor/support to them for the rest of our lives.
Here is a slide show of pictures from August which include a trip to the park, a trip Downtown to feed the ducks, a birthday celebration, and a baseball game.
The teen was having WAY too much fun taking horrible pictures of me at the baseball game. She thought it was hilarious. I wasn't 100% excited about them and really could have chosen not to put them on my blog, but I want to remember everything from this time, so here ya go ;)
Yesterday, I spent the day with one of my mom's sisters. She fixed a couple of the little one's outfits and then invited me to go to a football watching party with her, my uncle, and their friends. I wasn't expecting that and hadn't showered, but went anyway and had a really fun time. Before the game, she and I had a really nice visit and she let me "vent" about a lot of things (mostly frustrations with my family). I shared with her my disappointment that even after fifteen months, the girls are still kind of "extras" to my mom. We changed our birthday celebration plans mostly due to my mom expressing that two "extras" made a fancy dinner kind of expensive. It's hard for me to see how my sister having three people in her family and me having three people in my family is different, but I guess to her it is. Also, I tried not to be disappointed when the little one opened her birthday gift from my parents to find colored pencils and post-it notes. I realize that it really is the thought that counts and she was excited anyway, but they never would have gotten something like that for my nephew (today we went and had pedicures and she shared that they bought him a "roller coaster" as an early Christmas present). I know that all parents just do the best they can and there always is some kind of "sibling rivalry" even with the best of parents, so I'm trying very hard not to take things personally. It was very nice to have someone in the family to talk to as well as having this blog (and scheduled appointments to see my therapist and my spiritual director this week are coming at the perfect time) to vent.
Well, I'm not sure what is going on with the formatting today, but hopefully this isn't too hard to read. Last weekend, I ripped out the carpet in my living room and found some beautiful oak floors. Today I hope to paint the baseboards because they are getting refinished on Thursday and Friday. I bought new couches too and am VERY excited to see how everything all comes together (and proud of myself for doing almost everything by myself!) For sure there will be pictures when it's all done. The girls' mom expressed interest in having my old couch, so hopefully she will come through and pick it up on Tuesday to have that done (I offered her a bed back in January and that is still sitting in my basement...she says she still wants it).
Until the next time...
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