Around the house

As a wise man once said, "Now for something completely different!"

Fun things that have happened lately

• The boys got their own rooms!  We spent the last couple of months spending an hour and a half each night trying to calm the boys down for bed, the bedtime routine that worked so well suddenly stopped working and our monkey boy (SU4) would lead the revolution against bedtime.  We got tired of yelling, time outs, screaming boys, the inevitable injuries from physically tantruming children.  So we split them up, moving Lanse's office to the loft, and converting the blue room into a perfect room for SU3.  They have their names on the doors, each got to tell Lanse where to hang posters on the walls, they are reveling (somewhat) in having their own clothes in their own closets and dressers, and - most importantly - the bedtime routine is back to twenty minutes now that monkey boy doesn't have an audience.  
• While the boys were mid-switch, we bit the bullet and hired our friends from church to tear out the cat-pee-soaked carpet and install wood laminate.  We finally got rid of the smell, (drenched the sub-floor with Nature's Miracle) and the rooms look fabulous.  I'll try to post pictures when I get them off my phone.
• SU3 is officially accepted for the Head Start program in August!  SUCH relief!  SU4 will be starting the public school 4K program, which is slotted for at risk kids, and they'll both be at the same amazing arts-infused school.  I'm so thrilled!  Oddly, due to differences in funding, SU4 will go to school for three hours every morning (standard half-day Kindergarten), but SU3's Head Start program is six hours - a full day of school!  I'm almost wondering if I can go unenroll SU4 and get him into the Head Start program as well, but I think there will be future benefits for him starting public now, as they'll get all his therapies on file while they're still (hopefully) with us.  SU3 is sufficiently adjusted that he won't be needing special services from public.
• We got ourselves a mew kitten from the SPCA!  Her name is Moonlight, aka Moony, she's black and sleek - extremely short haired - looks a bit like an enormous rat.  She also has huge eyes and ears and I called her Dobby for a while.  She's been microchipped, and it costs $20 to change a name on there, so we'll stick to Moony until we can't stand it anymore.  In three minutes we head to the vet for her first post-adoption check up.  She and SU3 have hit it off, which is a lot of fun to watch, though SU4 really doesn't seem to like her... though he tries.

Quotations

• SU3 "Where are we going?"  SU4 "We're going to the church nervous!" (service)
• SU3 (upside-down) "Momma, get me out of stuck!" 

Technicalities

It's easy to feel, most of the time, as though our job is simply to be parents - complete with everything you all know I mean by that.  In fact, quite often we struggle with anger for how vital we are in the system but how ill-treated we feel by those who require us.  Ignoring for the moment the personality quirks from each individual with whom we deal personally, (I have actually felt very encouraged and supported by the individuals with whom we've been working), the system as a whole is so amazingly broken that it's easy to feel that someone designed it to intentionally scorn those of us dealing incessantly with the emotional, behavioral, and developmental effects of someone else's crime.

Now, this isn't a pity-party post.  I understand that our social workers have 30+ hours worth of work to do in every 24 hour day, that there are not enough workers and not nearly enough money, and that this is a horribly heart-wrenching and exhausting occupation to choose.  I currently choose to believe that everyone directly involved is doing as much as they can for us, and that while my children are (obviously!) the most important creatures on Earth, each worker may have 10 or 20 or 40 most important creatures to care for who need much more worker intervention than our relatively stable boys.

That said, our job is not simply to be parents in the traditional sense.  We get to add a layer of administration and technicalities, that most parents don't.  The status of our children's living situation is at the beck and call of the gavel (though apparently gavels have gone the way of the caboose, judges here don't use them anymore) and we have the dubious honor of attending and - if the judge is amenable - having a brief say into proceedings.  Our first day in family court was at the beginning of March, and we had spent the prior month preparing ourselves emotionally for the boys leaving our home.  Surprisingly, there was what seemed to us a pretty basic problem regarding representation and the ruling was for a continuance in three months.  We received a call early May (not three months) that we were scheduled again; after a week of steeling ourselves and preparing, that appearance was canceled since it did not provide the three months required by the judge.

In early June we received another call: a new court date is set!  Three months?  Check.  Everyone appropriately represented?  Check.  That date was to be this Thursday (note the wording there...).  Due to a paperwork delay, one of the participants is unable to attend - which in this case is legally sufficient to cancel our court date.  Family court meets each Thursday; ten days are required for notice, so next week is out... then there's July 4 week where there's no cases, and due to that vacation, the 12th is booked solid.  There were a couple of slots left for the 19th, which they are going to try to get, but after the 19th.... wait for it.... one of the major players loses their representation and has to train in someone new.  Once we miss the 19th, all bets are off.

Not to mention that the addition of another month potentially changes the future plans for the children, as some things came in under the wire but without time to process them and now there's time.

We knew that this was a slow process.  Obviously, since we got the boys in October for a six-week placement and we're on month eight.  I had assumed it was due to the extreme working conditions placed on the social workers.  But for the entire legal system to be working (or not working) such that we are now on our fourth court date to set the complete life trajectory of these boys?  It's astonishing, and not in a good way.  Somehow, in some way, the foster revolution needs to overhaul this part of the system so that our children can receive closure and begin moving forward and healing while they're still young, so that they can heal and become amazing contributors to our world.

Foster Revolution

I'm coming to think that my role in this crazy world is to lead a revolution in foster care.  I'm not skilled at advocacy by any means, I just talk and write occasionally.  Despite my English degree work I don't know how to write a position paper, and I haven't the faintest idea of how to go about changing the world or where to start and it seems a losing battle.  If I could find myself a microphone and some foster parents willing to listen, I absolutely would; I'm quite sure that a great deal of them won't like what I have to say.  But as we move along I'm learning that my opinion of our job does not match the opinion of my DSS training, the Guardian ad Litem, the Social Worker, the birth parents, or even other foster parents.

You see, the problem is this:  we are to treat these children as if they are our own.  We are to be sure that we clothe them and feed them just like our own children. We have been told in training seminars and throughout home visits that we must be sure they have just as many life opportunities as our own kids.  Throughout our weekend of foster care training we heard statements like these in every session.  Now, I understand that these children legally belong to their first mom and first dad.  I understand that we are employees of the state, and that DSS holds the guardianship of them (somehow 'guardian' and 'foster parent' are different things legally, although here we have all rights of a parent except spanking.)  I also understand that my three year old already clearly knows that "foster kid" equals "not mine", and that the absolute bottom line thing he needs to recover from this is a firm and unbreakable attachment to parents.  And I am that parent.

So what is my stance?  From October of 2011 until the day they walk out this door with suitcases and boxes in hand, I refuse to treat these children as if they are our own... because they are our own.  Many families these days include more than one set of parents, and each of those sets claim the child as their own and love them and help them adjust to the split situation.  No one even considers the idea of telling the other that they're not a parent.  Our children have two sets of parents and right now, they are as much ours as theirs, if not more.  Right now, every time I stop and think, "Would I do this for my kids?" I am actively damaging my son's ability to connect and heal.  These children belong to us, and I will continue to hold that perspective as long as it is my job to raise these children through the chaos that is their past.



You see, the problem is this: when speaking with the trauma therapist, she asks me honestly why in the world we haven't taken them back to DSS yet because of his tantrums.  We have been 'comforted' multiple times by people within the system - DSS and therapists and foster parents - all telling us that it's completely okay to decide it's too hard, to be sure that we take care of our own needs and if that means sending the children back, there's no guilt or shame attached.

I had a short conversation the other day with an acquaintance, and her side went something like this:

"I walked into a church the other day, and you know?  All they talked about was faith!  And GOD!  I mean, geez, why're they wasting all that time and money on those things in church, when it could be fun and exciting?  Do you know if there's someone that will donate some money or maybe drive me around to other churches and fix this problem for me?  If not, I'm certainly not going to CHURCH again, cuz what's the point?"

All right, so maybe that's not how the conversation went exactly.  But just as a church is a formalized institution created with the original purpose of presenting the ideas of faith and God to the populace, the foster care system is a formalized system created with the original purpose of caring for children who have been abused or suffered trauma, the causes behind removal from the home.  So why is it that people go to a DSS office, go through 14 hours of intense training, sign up to be a foster parent, then - in shock and dismay - discover that their new children suffer from abuse or trauma? Seriously?  Did you not expect this?  This is THE PURPOSE of foster care.

So what is my stance?  It comes in three parts: general parenting, special needs parenting, and foster parenting.

Generally speaking, Parenting is hard.  I don't care if it's foster, step, biological, or godparenting, if you have a child in your care it will not be easy. While every age is tough in its own way, no one in their right mind would expect starting out with toddlers to be anything but a struggle.  Anyone who voluntarily signs up to be a parent and then gets annoyed that it's hard is clearly out of their minds.  On hard days some parents may joke that they'll sell their kids to the gypsies, but everyone knows they're joking.  Apparently there's some people in the world who haven't realized it's a joke.

Then there's the fact that pretty much every single person I know has something. I have dwarfism.  My brother-in-law has neurofibromytosis. My cousin had learning disabilities. One of my best friends' brothers was on meds for ADHD back in the early 90s.  Eight out of ten families that I knew growing up had something that required parents to fill out extra forms, attend extra meetings, sit in doctor's waiting rooms, hold back tears in pre-op or therapy, write the umpteenth appeal to insurance, and threaten school districts with lawyers.  This is normal life.  All of the things that I or family or friends have were genetic, and we lived with our supportive and loving birth families.  Every child in the foster care system also has something, it just has a different cause. Right now, we are their supportive and loving families.  We focus on providing for our children everything that they need to grow and heal regardless of the status of DSS support or financial backing not because they're poor damaged children and we feel sorry for them or are guilted into it, but because this is parenting.  When we say we intend to be parents, this is what we're talking about.

Of course, my final perspective comes when recognizing those different causes of the something that they have.  When I signed paper after paper saying that I will become a foster mother, I thought about the hours of training we've been through.  I thought about the photographs of children physically abused, I thought through the different scenarios of behavior shown by children who were sexually abused. I thought about my cousin who was adopted after years of being my uncle's foster daughter and all the chaos in their lives. We filled out the five page child factors checklist four times and update it annually, taking each behavior, each addiction, each genetic difference, deciding which ones we are capable of taking on.  With each mark of the pen, we created structure and guidelines to develop a foster care scenario with which we agree.  In business terms, we signed a contract designed to give us everything we wanted.  In heart terms, we accepted our children before they even walked in the door.  So - saying nothing of the fact that every child who is 2, 3, or 4 years old will throw tantrums - returning them is out of the question.  Like everyone in that training room, we were fully aware of what was asked of us and we don't just throw in the towel when it gets hard.  And now, of course, it has nothing to do with the training or the therapists or the other foster parents.  It has to do with what will happen to these children inside themselves if I strap them into the car and tell them that because (at three and four years old) they won't go to bed on time I'm dropping them off in the office to start a new life with new strangers.  The fact that this happens all the time should fill every single one of us with overwhelming shame.



There's more, but that's a start.  My revolution involves changing fundamentals.  It involves changing the language related to foster parents and overhauling the perspectives of our responsibilities.  It brings a paradigm shift to the process, hopefully ending in not just the best care that can be provided in the given circumstances, but in a new generation of foster children who are stable and washed with complete healing.  It also involves an awful lot of people unfamiliar with these ideas to pull together and support each other for the good of our children and our future.  Though I don't often get opportunity to blog like this, I hope that over time I'll be able to tell you all how we're working out solutions.

Food for thought

2009 Statistics

Number of families in the US: 113,567,967
Minus families in shelters:  131,000
Minus birth families of foster kids: <423,773 (in reality considerably fewer families given multiple children per home)
Minus food insecure households with children: 16,000,000


There were, in 2009, 423,773 children in foster care in the US.  Four hundred and twenty four thousand.

There were, in 2009, 16,000,000 households in which children could not consistently eat every day.  Sixteen million.

In 2009 there were 97,013,194 families with suitable living conditions for children (not in shelters, families of removed children, or food insecure).  Ninety-seven million families.


If every family with suitable living conditions housed ONE foster child and/or fed ONE hungry child, there would still be 80,589,421 families untouched.  Over eighty million families who don't have to care.


Number of children hungry or unloved:  ZERO



So why do we have this problem again?

 
Facts gathered from feedingamerica.org, childwelfare.gov, census.gov

Introductions

Now that our SUs are a more lengthy part of our lives than we expected them to be, I figured introductions are in order.  Like every good early learning game, we'll let the youngest go first.

World, meet SU3, previously SU2.  SU3, meet the world.  Hmmm.  Where to start.  I think the most obvious thing (to me) about him is that he is empathetic and a people person. He talks to everyone he meets, and takes the initiative if he thinks something may make someone else happy.  He's sensitive to the mood in a room, and any mood that his brother, Lanse, or I may have. He can read faces very well, and can usually guess how people are feeling. He's brilliant; though in speech therapy for an intermittent slight lisp, he has a fabulous vocabulary, and at age two tested in expressive language around five years old.  Combining these traits often leads to a wonderful, wide-eyed face coming around, looking up, and saying, "Are you fruthtrated?  Are you very fruthtrated, or just a little fruthtrated?" He can be extremely sweet and helpful, and likes to please. He can reason through things when you explain to him, (he'll often not comply because he honestly doesn't get why.... when he understands he'll do it happily).  And just recently he was able to stop a crying tantrum because he understood the situation we presented to him.  Our current behavior management program is "Happy Sticks"; each time we catch them being good, we give them a stick. If they have five sticks at the end of the day, they get a prize. For SU3, five sticks at the end means he's a good boy.

Of course, being a people person has its down sides. He always wants to know what someone said to someone else and will cry if I can't or won't tell him. He is also extremely sensitive to being left alone. He'll cry suddenly if he decides someone's walking or biking too far ahead, and during tantrums, once the anger is vented, he'll quiet down for his three minute time out if I sit in the hall with him. If I stand up and turn my back, or simply walk down the hall to check on his brother, he'll scream bloody murder for an hour and accuse us of horrible things in a scream, simply because we're not talking to him or sitting with him.  He breaks down if his brother interrupts him when he's talking, because he courteously listens to his brother when he speaks and is dreadfully hurt.  He has an extremely strong sense of fairness, and expects the same from others.  But if he doesn't receive it, turn-around's fair play (at least with his brother)!  He's also very stubborn; if he already understands something in a certain way it's nearly impossible to correct him without visible proof, and if he strongly misunderstands something, his justice senses are triggered, which almost always leads to a meltdown.

SU3 also loves beauty. This has been hard for him as a little boy in the South, since I won't let him wear dresses to daycare. He started our dress-up clothes pile by asking to wear my red bridesmaid dress, (No, but you can wear this other one), and he also loves my sparkly shoes. Once the weather turned very nice, we planted some seeds and he's been very gentle with his green bean plant, which is about to flower.  He loves to water the garden, and often comments on unexpected things being pretty in shape or color. He is very observant and comments on lizards and birds that go by. While his artistic skills are still age-appropriate (perhaps slightly delayed) he has an astonishing attention span, and will read a number of books in a row, play three or four games of Candyland happily in one sitting, and enjoys coloring and cutting shapes when he can be left alone. 

Finally, and importantly, he eats his vegetables - he'll trade in fish sticks for more broccoli - and he still naps almost three hours in the afternoon.  Still working on the potty training, but he's only just three, so it's okay.  He's not perfect by any means (those tantrums are scary!) but he is pretty amazing.

World, meet SU4, previously SU3.  SU4, meet the world!  The word that best sums up SU4 is "energetic".  During our time with him, he has changed probably the most dramatically.  He was very fearful, and now has conquered many frightening things, like swings and climbing and water.  He has an amazing imagination, and is constantly blending real life into an imaginary world in his head, which makes conversations.... interesting sometimes.  Some of the stories he tells are obviously related to his personal experience as a foster child, but others are simply great stories.  He also has a very strong sense of rhythm and lyrics, though his tune isn't that accurate. He makes up songs and dances along with them, and is fascinated with anything that plays music.  One "beepy" (battery operated) toy we have has 30 buttons and each plays a different song when on the right setting, and he'll sit for half an hour playing songs and dancing along.  He has self-soothing mechanisms of rocking and head-banging which, while disturbing to us, he calls dancing and will jump on the sofa and start rocking out with his music. 

SU4 also carries an amazing map in his head, and an amazing memory for visual things.  He knows where we are by landmarks every time we go somewhere, and can identify familiar places in the dark when I'm not even sure where we are.  He knows the alphabet and can count to 30 (when I prompt him on the word "thirty"), is finally potty trained, completely dresses himself, and can set the table for breakfast on his own.  Every day he meets a new goal, and while he's often still fearful and is extremely easily frustrated, (leading to a lot of dramatic tantrums,) he is really amazing us with his developmental leaps.

While extremely intelligent, SU4 receives speech and occupational therapies for challenges that he faces. He struggles to understand and express speech properly, which frustrates all of us on occasion. He and his brother both have difficulty correctly processing sensory elements such as textures and temperatures, and when they arrived with us, also had challenges with the proprioceptive centers, which is the inner ear center of gravity. (In other words, they couldn't swing, turn upside-down, or otherwise feel off-balance without panicking.)  SU4 has conquered that challenge, and is now addicted to kicking the sky on the big swings at the playground.  The sensory elements, however, influence how they bathe, what they will eat, and what kind of activities we can do - beach sand is bad, water on the head is bad, too much sun or too much noise is bad.  "Bad" meaning panic-inducing.  We still do these things, but we have to do more planning ahead and create intentional routines to lessen the impact.

While generally much more self-centered than SU3, SU4 thrives on verbal praise, prizes, and Doing Things Right.  If we challenge him to do something all by himself he often will jump right to it, and grin maniacally when he completes it.  Any small correction, however, could ruin his whole day.  SU4 also has an overburdened penance drive. If he feels he is being bad (even if we've not corrected him) he will put himself in time out, or he will throw his toys away, or he will dump out his Happy Sticks.  He also loves getting his brother in trouble, and often tries to put him in time out.  We haven't decided yet if he's just a bossy big brother or if he's been parentified through the fostering processes. 

When it comes to Happy Sticks, having five at the end of the day means a prize. Yay!  To phrase the Happy Sticks a different way, when SU4 does not have five sticks, he's crushed because he doesn't have a prize.  When SU3 does not have five sticks, he's crushed because he's a very bad boy.  While this is true, it's only at the end of the day at prize time. During the day, it's reversed - SU3 focuses on the toys, but SU4 constantly judges himself.  Very interesting.  But in the end, SU4 is making us just as proud as SU3, and we're looking forward to seeing where they both end up as big kids. 

The hordes have just returned from the out of doors, so that's all you get for now.  It's bedtime!

Routines and trust

Ask any early childhood educator and they'll tell you that clear routines and consistency are necessary for the management and developmental growth of young children. Any parent of young children can verify that repetition is an innate part of childhood, as they read the same book again for the twelfth time in a row.  Routines - even ones as simple as reading the same book repeatedly - teach the child that each time one action occurs, the same actions result. That when they hear "I think I can" the train makes it up the hill.  That when they push a toy off the table it will fall (again, and again, and again...)  That when they're hungry, they will have food, and when they're stinky, they will not have to sit in it.  They learn, through all these repetitions, that you, the caregiver, are dependable.

Coming from an environment of abuse or neglect means that each of those tests of dependability brought different results.  Maybe the train didn't make it up the hill, I don't know because you were too busy to finish the book.  Maybe the toy doesn't always fall downward every time, but I don't know because you threw it away when I was loud.  And maybe I'm going to have to eat whatever's laying around, because last few times I was hungry, I couldn't find you.  I don't know what to expect, because I can't predict what you're going to do next.

Something I have intentionally done with our children from the very start has been to create routines in the little, seemingly unimportant things, so that they can learn that when we do or say this, then this will happen every time. When they know that, then they can begin to trust that it extends to the extremely important things like food and toileting and medicine when they're sick.  So, in the hopes that it may help someone else, I thought to write out some of our routines here.  (Feel free to skip to the bottom if it gets boring, I put a little bit more there. This is mostly for me.)

In no particular order:


Car routine: 
SU3.025 was originally the most dependable one, so we would all walk out, I'd open the door for him to have him climb into his seat, and then I would walk around and buckle in SU3.11 first, otherwise he'd wander off. Buckle the buckles, pat the buckle, say "all safe!", kiss his forehead, say "watch your fingers and toes!" and shut the door.  Go back around, and repeat with the younger one.

When we arrive (usually at day care), I prep them for what will happen next by saying, "I will stay for five or ten minutes only if it's play time; if it's circle time then I have to leave."  Then I let SU3.025 out first to be the Bag Boy. He stands by the daycare door and carries the diaper bag, a Very Important Job.  Then I go unbuckle SU3.11, who often needed coaxing to get out of the car, though that's not often now.  He climbs down, and gets a big long hug. He closes the door, and gets the Very Important Job of beeping the car lock.  Then we go inside, hang up the bag, and I do what I said about staying or not.

Misc:
They each have a travel mug that's a cartoon character, and it's only "for outside or in the car". They also use it at snack time when we're on the porch.

Other things end up being done exactly the same way every time, like when we change their pull-ups, or where clothes are located, but that's done simply because it's the only way to do it given the space we have. Again, consistency is good... but pretty boring to write out here.

Terminology of places and landmarks also remain the same. Along certain routes we often point out the same things, and discuss things such as "Ronald is stuck on the bench!" (McDonald's). Each playground we frequent has a unique name that the boys came up with.

Discipline:
This primarily is a matter of manners.  We use respect with people, animals, and things. That means a small set of rules (table manners at table, no toys in the kitchen and no food in the rest of the house, kind words and actions, stop and listen and obey when we speak).

We've taught them to take deep breaths, take a break on their own, or count to ten when they're upset or want to disobey. They've both done it on their own on occasion, though not with any consistency.

If the toy is distracting you from listening/obeying, then it will have to take a break with me.  The toys get the same punishments that the boys do, though we don't hug them at the end.
 
We alternate between standard time out of sitting on the sofa or bed for three minutes/we come talk to you, and "taking a break", which is that they must go sit on the bed until they feel calm and are ready to listen/obey. They can choose when they're done, but if they come out and re-offend they go right back again.  We also follow Super Nanny's method of ending time out, where we discuss with them why they were told to sit, have them repeat back, apologize, and then hug and we say "I love you."  Then they must go and complete what they originally did not do.



Breakfast/meals:
The boys now help me set up breakfast each morning, and help Lanse set the table for dinner as well.  Whoever's closest gets the bowls/plates, then we alternate with forks/spoons, yogurt cups, drinking cups, cereal (set out each box on the floor, they take them as they come), juice and milk out of the fridge. I start water for my tea, then I ask the best behaved one which cereal they want, and get him set up, and then go help the other one. Then I make my own breakfast, and we talk about the day. After the meal, they put their dishes in the sink, though I usually have to stop them from trying to wash them.  Then they have to play quietly and nicely while I finish my breakfast (including my tea and reading my email on my phone!)

Bedtime:
The bedtime routine was adapted from Super Nanny's routine, specifically from one episode I saw where the child truly was terrified of being alone (completely applicable here!) and she allowed the parent to sit inside the room.  At 7:30, we turn off the lights except one chair-side lamp, and turn on the bedtime music, which is a great collection of international lullabies. They finish playing, clean up, or read books.  At 7:45 or 7:50 we turn the music off and walk to the hallway where the PJs are, change, go potty, get water (I put an inch of water in their cups for the Last Drink - they do not drink anything between dinner and the Last Drink), brush teeth (they brush first, then I brush their teeth. "Where does the toothpaste go?" "ON MY TEETH!!"  "Rinse and Spit!").  Then they go to bed, with only the bathroom light on nearby. We alternate nights letting each child start choosing a song. For the first while it was Jesus Loves Me and the Alphabet Song, then a few others from the CDs in the car. Now we have a range of things to chose from. One chooses a song, then the other; then each boy has bedtime prayer with each of us, and Lanse goes out and closes the door.

And then Super Nanny begins. At first I explained what behavior I wanted from them, said, "Good night, I love you, it's bedtime", and then sat huddled up on the floor by the closet trying to be a piece of furniture.  On the first infraction I say, "OK, boys, it's bedtime." On the second, I leave the room. They completely ignored me and went crazy the first week, and somehow it then evolved into a routine of question/response.  Now I say, "OK, boys, you know how this works!" They hurriedly and loudly say, "If you're talking, crying, bouncing, crazy, or get out of bed, you'll JUST HAVE TO LEAVE!" (Originally it was just talking, crying and bouncing, since those things they could not seem to quit; the other two they added themselves.)  In the first few weeks of this I did, in fact, leave the room twice; that's all it took before they behaved. After they finish telling me how it works, I say the "Good night... it's bedtime" part, and it's instant quiet.  I'm currently in the process of weaning them off of my presence, since my leaving indicated to them that they messed up somehow. But at the start, I stayed until they were both asleep... up to over an hour if necessary. Trust growing. And if I told them I had to go do something and would come back to check on them, I made sure to do it while they were still semi-conscious, so they knew I kept my promise.  Now I can step out after two minutes and they're out quickly.

The Day (when they're home all day)
Interestingly, they seem to think that the part of the day before nap and the part after are two different days.  So I created a 24 hour clock with pictures of each activity and put it on the wall, with a clock hand made of painter's tape that they can move.  They're slowly getting the idea.

6:30 - 7:30 - wake up, Lanse gets them changed and dressed while I get ready. On good days they'll play quietly and let us "sleep" until nearly 8:00.
7:30 - 9:00 - breakfast; sometimes they'll eat it all at once, sometimes they do their best and come back later; food all goes away at 9:00.  Breakfast time also includes a discussion of what's going on today, tomorrow, and what happened yesterday.
9:00-10:30 - play. Some days it's therapy time, some days I chose specific things like playdoh, other days (like yesterday) it's free play or kick-em-outside time.
10:30 - snack. Usually something healthy, plus crackers. Any time the weather's amenable, all snacks are taken on the screen porch. If they snack on the porch, they can play and eat at the same time; food taken inside is done sitting at the table with no toys.
10:45 - 11:30 - more play
11:30 - 12:00 - lunch; I tend to choose small portions of many types of food. Typical lunch may be three or four (or more) slices of deli lunch meat, a large pickle or a serving of veggies, a cheese stick, half a single serving tub of yogurt, and a few crackers (to serve as the bread for the meat). At each meal they choose between milk and water, at breakfast they can have juice but only three half-cups (about 3-4 oz) max.
12:00 - go to nap. Lanse takes a break from work to help SU3.11, I help SU3.025; each goes to the bathroom, then SU3.11 sleeps in the sensory-deprived dark room (our bedroom) on the sofa, and falls asleep pretty independently. SU3.025 needs me to complete the bedtime routine with him ("Good night, I love you, it's naptime"); in the case of naps, I almost always have to sit with him until he's asleep or he lays awake playing with his toes for hours waiting for me to come back.
After nap - 4:00 - snack, (see above, this snack tends to have a veg or cheese stick depending on lunch and goldfish crackers), then more free play.
4:00 - 6:00 - Daddy Lanse play time; this is when I clean, organize paperwork, make phone calls, or review the home finances.
6:00(ish) - dinner (this is the least consistent timing we have due to evening commitments or lack of proper planning between me figuring out supper and Lanse taking them out on walks or us all going to a playground).
After dinner - 7:45ish - play, and cleaning up.  On Sundays we look at the magnetic calendar during this time to discuss the coming week.
7:45 - sleep - bedtime routine


The Week:
This is put up on our magnetic calendar, with pictures I printed and stuck to magnet strip. We don't have the eggs or pancakes, but we do add other things like birthdays and holidays to the calendar.

Sunday: eggs for breakfast, cooked by Daddy Lanse; Church; review the coming week
Monday: play with Miss Maria
Tuesday: daycare
Wednesday: play with Miss Angel
Thursday: play with Miss Mollie; Choir practice/nursery play in p.m.
Friday: daycare
Saturday: pancakes and chocolate milk for breakfast, cooked by Mommy Jessica; go out somewhere to play

Some weeks we add a third day of daycare, and the therapist meets them there.


I have to say, routine fits me.  I feel much more confident and less panicked when I know what's going on; though I also feel a lot more rushed - and therefore grouchy - when the routine means we're leaving the house at a specific time.  I know the boys act a lot better and feel more settled when we stick to these routines.  And sometimes, the oddest things throw them off... tonight is going to be warm, so Lanse "let them" leave their daytime t-shirts on as sleep shirts, thinking it'd be fun for them. SU3.025 sobbed when he realized it was "Good night... it's bedtime" and we "didn't let" him change into his PJs. Inconsequential, and quite easily fixed, but we're often surprised by something that matters to them that we never realized. 

Routine matters, especially in the little things. It builds trust, which is what these kids - and all kids - desperately need in order to build self-esteem and be able to succeed.  As they've gained trust, these boys have blossomed amazingly, and accomplished amazing things in an extremely short time.  Feel free to try it with your own.

Land of Confusion

Unfortunately, I'm not talking about a Genesis song, I'm talking about our life.  Our six week placement is now running a week past four months, and while things appear to be rolling forward, it's potentially across different ground than we first supposed.  But we really don't know, and we continue to pretend that we're their forever home so that we can complete required things like pre-registering for school, and we continue to pretend they're going home tomorrow so that we can emotionally keep the distance we need to keep for when they do.  Completely crazy.  Next Thursday we will go to court to speak on their behalf. It was supposed to be the day that dad gained custody, but he has been unable to meet the requirements set within the time frame for him to do so.  Court will still be held, in order to begin paperwork for freeing them for adoption.  We are wobbling all over the emotional spectrum when we think of that, so we're mostly poking it gently to see it wobble or trying to ignore it until the Judge has his say and things are more definite.

Since our last post, SU2.10 is now SU3.025. He had a birthday!  Since we're allowed to visit with their dad whenever we (all) care to arrange it, we had a nice little cake and presents at McDonald's [never had SO MUCH McD's in my LIFE, but it's the only indoor playground we know of].  SU3.11's birthday is next month, so we'll be having a joint friends party next weekend at the park and hopefully we'll see dad again at the end of the month.

SU3.11 is now mostly potty trained, which is a God-send in more than one way... not being potty trained meant that daycare required he stay in the 2 yr old classroom,  which was strongly contributing to delays in social and language skills.  He moved up this week, and then his new teacher had to go to a funeral, so hopefully he'll get more of a feel for her style next week.  Unfortunately, they both need (in both my parental and professional opinion) to go to daycare 3+ mornings a week for therapeutic purposes but the state only pays for daycare if both of us are employed.  So we only schedule what fits our budget.

There've been a lot of transitions in the last two weeks, in large part due to the birthday. In SC (I don't know if this is national), there's one therapy service provider for kids ages 0 through 3, and when they turn 3, they test them and release them to a different agency. SU3.025 tested way beyond developmental level - frankly, he's brilliant - and so all of his therapies except one stopped on his birthday.  Both boys have suddenly made enormous strides in their skills, finally feeling safe enough to begin to build self-confidence.

We also began taking them to a counselor for play therapy to process trauma, something that the state does not consider necessary for foster children as far as we can tell [can anyone tell me why they have an emotional therapist on staff for adoptable children but not for foster kids??), and also something that Medicaid does not pay for for young children.  (They do cover "mental health" but if we're specifically looking for play therapy, it's up to each therapist if they accept it, and none of the ones I can find do.) Play therapy focuses on the therapist or parent (there's a 'do it at home' version, called filial therapy) allowing the child to choose the play, and using the time simply to learn the child's groove. Allow them to do whatever they like, given the toys and environment that you've carefully arranged, and they begin to act out what's inside of them. We've already seen some very concerning patterns in the play for both boys, but part of the (very difficult) process is not drawing any conclusions.  It's simply the safe environment to allow them to process.  It also exhausts them, so the day of and the day after are usually pretty awful behaviorally.

Finally, we've also been sick.  Two weeks ago tonight the stomach flu began, and didn't end until last Friday.  We had two days off and SU3.11 started coughing and then spiked a fever on Wednesday night.  Now SU3.025 is coughing, though no one went to bed tonight with a fever.  The weather's also been wacky, which doesn't help.

Whereas they used to be all one thing or another, now we're a pretty even mix of behaviors edging towards (at least the last few days) good choices. I was able to kick them outside (79 degrees and sunshine!) all morning yesterday and they played nicely while I did laundry and other things.  I was really proud of them.  So we're getting there.

Please keep praying!