Two Weeks

Zoe's mom goes back to court two weeks from today, on December 3. She has made minimal progress in terms of dietary compliance, although Zoe has been gaining an appropriate amount of weight, so that doesn't "appear" to be an issue. She still has unstable housing, telephone access, and employment. She has been seeing her five days a week for visits and they do appear to have a good bond, although Zoe is a completely different child when her mom is present. She has been very inconsistent with her parenting and Zoe definitely pushes the limits. For example, her mom just started doing her evening treatment and medication (after a strong push from me to get her involved in that). What normally takes me 30 minutes has taken an hour or more because she can't get Zoe to cooperate. Four and a half years of not having "authority" over your child is not going to go away overnight. She has had supervised visits, but I'm not sure they have been doing "parenting" teaching, so that is hopefully in the works.

So, the plan is not to send Zoe home to her mom yet. However, they want to place her with mom's sister, Zoe's aunt. I have some concerns about this, mostly because her aunt has an infant and taking care of a child with Cystic Fibrosis is a LOT of work! I've been a pediatric nurse for over 10 years and think I would struggle if I had to juggle another child on top of all her needs. However, I guess she will do what she has to do and I will pray that she doesn't get burned out and given enough support so she isn't set up to fail. Zoe's mom can be kind of a "care blocker" because she doesn't have consistent parenting and Zoe knows that. I worry about the aunt being able to establish boundaries with her sister so Zoe's needs are met...

But, it sounds like it is going to happen, so I should try not to worry so much, try and let go of some of my "control issues" and CHOOSE to make the most of whatever time we have left. She is a really sweet girl and I will definitely miss her snuggles and silliness. But, that's part of life as a foster parent. My job is to give the children a safe, loving, and stable environment for however long I am blessed to have them in my home...and my love will remain in their hearts forever.

No Excuses

or too many to count ;)

I'm not sure why I haven't been blogging. I guess I have been finding other ways to "vent" (and have become addicted to watching Touched by an Angel reruns on GMC). I had a post in my head to write about my "One Word" and how I've been choosing to focus on the things that are in my control rather than dwell on the (many) things that are not. Maybe that post will come out of my head one of these days, but not tonight.

I have been off all week long and didn't do anything about my room that has so much clutter I can barely get to my dresser. However, I was reminded by Monica and company many times this week that God loves me ;)

Two of Zoe's visits were canceled last week and today's was canceled this week. It was kind of nice since we don't get to "hang out" as much as I'd like to since she goes to school from 9-4 with visits right after that until she gets here at nearly 8:00. Then, we have to do her treatment, give meds, have a snack, and hopefully get a bath in (I used to do them every night, but now I skip it if it's getting too late). In the morning, we are pretty busy with treatment, meds, and getting ready for the day, so don't get to play.

Since I was off all week, I work all weekend. So, I was excited for today. I brought her to the place where I used to bring the girls to feed the geese/ducks/swans. We were nearly attacked by a large group of them, so stood on benches and threw our bread at them so they wouldn't get us. It was pretty funny. I'll have to try to remember to post some pictures of that next time I blog...whenever that will be ;)

She was helping me make dinner and we were going to have an apple along with a pepperoni pizza crescent roll thing. I cut it using my pampered chef apple cutter (without her help). A couple slices were stuck in there, but I started cutting the slices that weren't stuck. She pushed one piece through and right before I was going to remind/tell her to be careful since it's sharp, another piece was more stuck and she sliced the top of her finger open. Of course! I will admit that I kind of freaked out (knowing I'd have to do an incident report whether she needed stitches or not). It was hard to tell right away if she'd need stitches or not and I panicked (yes, the Pediatric Nurse...if I wasn't worried about all the other people I had to tell about the "incident", I probably would have been fine!) I actually walked her across the street and knocked on the door of the Pediatric Pulmonologist (and mother of 3) for a second set of eyes. She told me that if it didn't stop bleeding, it would need a stitch or two, but totally understood why I didn't want to go to the ER for that! She did come over and check on us a little later which was really nice :) It did stop bleeding and it was a clean slice, so the last time I looked at it, you could barely tell (and now I feel like a freak for calling the on-call caseworker and both workers assigned to her case). But, better safe than not tell people soon enough. She was so brave and didn't even cry. She held still for the nearly 30 minutes I had to hold pressure. Too bad I didn't take a picture.

I'm still frustrated with not knowing what is happening with the case. In my opinion, her mom hasn't made any changes. However, I don't know what the goals are for her to go home. After an extra push from me, the day care has approved for mom to do a portion of her supervised visit there so she can do her evening treatment/medications. It sounds like she still has minimal/no control over Zoe and her "behavior" (it is really hard/weird to hear how "bad" she is at visits because she is not like that at all here...thank goodness!)

Last weekend, she helped me rake the leaves (and helped me cook, do laundry, make her bed...) I did let her play for a little while in them too ;)

So, we are making the most of the time we have (it was 9 weeks yesterday and the next court date is December 3). I haven't seen/heard from the teen in nearly 2 weeks (tomorrow will be 3 weeks since I saw her). The last three times she contacted me was to do something--drive her to the ACT, give her a ride home (she found someone else), bring her uniform to her at school. People have reminded me that that's what teenagers do--talk to you when they need something. It is hard, but I'm trying not to get sad about her not being around and sharing things with me. I am constantly reminding myself that one of the goals of a parent is to make it so your children can live independently and (safely) learn from their mistakes. I did help get her on a good path and just keep praying that she stays there working hard toward her goal of going to college.

That's all I have for now. No excuses to have taken so long, but things overall are good.
Until the next time...

Eight Weeks

I can't believe Zoe has been living here for eight weeks now. I also can't believe how busy I am even though she goes to Head Start from 9-4 and has visits right after that until 8 Monday through Friday...and took an almost 2 week vacation and wasn't getting full-time hours in the weeks before that. So, I feel like I haven't been on my computer much, twitter much, fb much, and my house isn't clean. But, we try to have fun during the time we do have together (which isn't that much, unfortunately...and probably part of why it is usually close to 10:00 by the time she gets to sleep which makes for way too short of a night for a 4 1/2 year old :( )

Last week, she was off school a couple of days while I was on vacation. We went to the Zoo, an IMAX movie, the pumpkin patch, and the children's museum. She is SO good for me, and super sweet. She got a cold last week which turned into a lot of coughing and I decided to go ahead and call the doctor on Monday. They started her on an (oral) antibiotic and treatments three times a day instead of two. Thankfully, her teacher is awesome and is going to do the middle of the day treatment, but I still have to drag her heavy machine back and forth places every day (hopefully for only two weeks!) I guess this is better than living in the hospital, but it is still tough.

The case is kind of frustrating because the "people who matter" seem very high on Zoe's mom and she gets free passes all the time. She missed a doctor's appointment, hasn't attended any family team meetings, and is difficult to reach because half the time her phone is disconnected. I thought she was making progress a couple weeks ago when she got talked to about increasing the amount of calories Zoe takes in at visits, but that only happened once or twice. She "refuses" her supplement when with her mom, but she drank 6 ounces tonight for me without me giving more than a "drink your milk" prompt. She apparently throws tantrums and doesn't listen to anyone on visits. I haven't seen any behavior like that. Since her mom hasn't attended any meetings (and I haven't talked to the worker in a while), there really are no established goals that I know of...just that they want her back home ASAP (or maybe with the aunt who doesn't seem as involved as I thought she was going to be).

The next court date is December 3, so I know I'll have her until then. Right now, the visits are supervised and mom doesn't do any of her treatments. So, hopefully there will be a gradual transition or some kind of way to prove that mom actually is going to take care of all her needs (and keep a working phone which is really important when you have a child with medical needs).

Anyway, that's what's been going on here. The teen hasn't stayed the night here in over a month. I miss her, but she has called when she needed things, so at least she knows who she can count on ;) She took her ACT last Saturday and I'm hoping she was able to boost her score enough to be at the minimum requirement to attend her "dream school".

Until the next time...