tell the truth

It has taken me awhile to post because i just don't know how to put into words all these feelings i have for the boy's birth parents. It is much more difficult to deal with the birth parents when it is a kinship situation and not a foster care situation. I have known brian's brother for about 10 years now and i have had some interaction with the boy's birth mom. It is a crazy dynamic when you are taking care of a family member's child and not just some stranger's child. As a family member i find i expect so much more from the birth parents because of the relationship we have and i can only imagine how much brian must expect from his brother. I will say that i don't think honesty is an unreasonable expectation but it is something that i never expected (or still expect) from our love bug's mom. It is something i expect from the boy's bio parents. Now that i have been lied to, i cannot take anything they say for the truth and it makes me angry because i cannot believe anything they have told me in the past either. We would sit there in their living room and listen to them cry and pour their heart out and i cried with them and now i don't know what to believe or how much of it was an act. I feel like such a fool for believing their sob stories.
I feel like there should be some respect shown to me and brian for stepping in and giving these boys a home; a safe, loving and stable home where they will still be able to have some sort of contact with their bio parents. The bio parents would not have had the opportunity to have any contact with the boys if they had stayed with the other foster family. We have listened to the bio parents requests for information, we have let them know what the boys are doing and we have allowed weekly phone calls. We talk to them every week and brian sometimes talks to his brother more than that and then we find out he is being deceptive and lying by omission. It is disgusting and it will not happen again. Not to me. I will not allow these boys to be hurt by their bio parents, they have done enough and i will keep the contact safe and regulated. These bio parents are so incredibly selfish and immature, i will protect my boys any way i can.
I can't imagine how hard this is for brian. He loves his brother. They grew up together, they have a history together but now here he is taking care of his older brother's kids and how do you do that and still keep that family relationship with your brother? I suppose it is difficult to find your place in the family now, the whole family dynamic has changed. How do you do family functions? It is something he is going to have to find out for himself and i hope i will be able to help him. We are going to start going to the kinship support group because taking care of a family member's children is sooooo different from doing foster care. There are many questions we have, many situations that are different. We need some guidance and wisdom from those who are experiencing the same type of situation.

potty time

Our little turtle is wearing underwear. Brian actually made the plunge and decided on saturday that he had enough of buying diapers and changing poopy diapers. He started taking him to the potty every 30 minutes. I bought him some underwear and an elmo potty book (he LOVES elmo) and gave it to him as his 'going in the potty' gift, and he started wearing them saturday evening. We have had two accidents since saturday. i must say that it has gone surprisingly well. I wasn't sure he was ready but he has just taken to it, no problem! He goes all by himself and has even gone poo in the potty. It is great! I was hoping to get him potty trained this week while he was out of school and i am excited thinking that it just might happen! He wears his underwear all the time except for at night time. I am happy to say that it is him doing all the work and not me or brian who are the trained ones! That used to drive me crazy at school when parents would insist their kid was potty trained and never had accidents at home; then at school the kid would never go to the potty on their own. In those cases, it is the parent who is trained, taking the kid to the potty every 30 to 60 minutes. I am happy to say that turtle is going on his own and is doing a great job, too!!

i carry your heart

by E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you


here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart


i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)


I love this poem, it is actually in one of my favorite movies 'In Her Shoes'. It makes me cry every time but i think every one of my favorite movies has a moment that makes me cry. That's what makes them my favorite movies whether it is tears of joy or tears of sadness, i cry.
This is for my lil' love bug, my baby girl. I pray she is safe, loved and happy.

Grrrrr.......

Grrrrr........that is how this post is starting, you know it's not going to be an uplifting one! We took our lil' love bug to her mom last night. She did not want to go and wanted to stay with us. I can't imagine why she didn't want to spend the night in a hospital room with her mom and the new baby. duh. and i can't imagine what is going through her poor little brain. I think she is just so confused and she wants so badly to stay with us where she is taken care of and can be a little girl. She doesn't want to have to take care of her mom and her sister and now her baby brother. She wants to be where the grown ups in her life will put her needs first and where she can play and cry and laugh and throw a fit just because she is a little girl and trying to figure out what the hell is going on in this world around her. She shouldn't be responsible for making her mom feel loved, to keep her from being lonely and to help her take care of the younger ones. SHE'S 3 YEARS OLD! Give the baby a fricken break!!!
Mom texted me this morning "____ was throwing up again last night. We can't get the baby sick, so she can't go to your house on Friday" SERIOUSLY!?!?! You stupid cow! She threw up last week after being at our house for a couple days and she threw up last night after spending 5 days with us. hmmmmmm. if her mom was any kind of a mom and if her mom REALLY knew our lil' love bug like i do, she'd know that our lil' love bug throws up every time she is stressed out and is going through traumatic time. duh, again!
Our little girl is so scared and confused. I haven't even had a chance to talk to brian about this yet but i think we are going to have to cut down on our visits with her. I DO NOT want these visits to stress her out. She needs to know that she is going to be living with her mom and not us. I will continue to pray that she will eventually come home to live with us but for now she needs to know that her place is with her mom. I am going to do what is best for our lil' love bug. i am not going to be a source of stress for her, she gets enough of that from her mom and her family. I feel the need to continue some sort of visits though. She needs someone looking out for her and i will not let these people harm my lil' love bug! I will continue to keep my eyes open and watching out for her!

a little of this and that

What a week! We have had our lil' love bug since sunday morning and let me tell you how happy i have been!! Her mom went in tuesday evening to be induced and here we are thursday afternoon and no baby yet. The last time i heard from her was yesterday morning and no baby then, i haven't heard anything since. It just surprises me, how does she just leave our lil' love bug and not call her EVERY SINGLE DAY! I know if i had the option, that is exactly what i would do. I just don't get it. How is she going to take care of 2 girls and a baby? We'll see what happens.
Anyway, MY week has been crazy! I take the two older ones to school monday thru thursday mornings. Here is our morning: Get them all up at 6:30, change diapers and use the bathroom, dress all 4, get them to sit on the couch with cartoons while each one takes their turn brushing their teeth and i do their hair, feed them breakfast (mainly cereal), wash hands and faces, get shoes on, get coats on, pile into the van!
Then it is off to take Gee to school, unbuckle and take all four in to sign in Gee and then we pile back into the van and take turtle to school. I take all three down and into the school to sign in and drop off turtle. Then i finally get a break with the younger 2 till i have to start all over again in 2 hours.
I tell you, i LOVE nap time. This is my only time where it is quiet, it is MY time and unfortunately much of this time is spent doing laundry, dishes and anything that can be done quietly. DON'T mess with nap time. It drives me over the edge when the mailman comes at nap time (my dog is a yapper) or (like the other day) when someone doesn't understand the need for quiet at nap time and i end up with about half an hour of nap time.
Well this was a rambling post but it is kind of how i felt today.

inside

Struggling.
Finding my role, learning my path.
Dealing.
The emotions are raw, they steal my sleep.
Coping.
The days fade into night, the night rushes.
Searching.
The babies visit in my dreams.
Grasping.
I reach out, feel the way.
Hoping.
it continues..........

false alarm

Received a call this morning at like 7 a.m. and just knew that our lil' love bug's mom had gone into labor and was calling for us to watch her for a couple of days. That's the plan, when she's in the hospital, we'll watch our lil' love bug. NOPE, not the case. Mom is 3 days past her due date and is having a hard time dealing with the girls. She is having a hard time, she's stressed, tired and needed a break. So the call at 7 this morning was to see if we could watch both girls for the day while the boyfriend was at work for the day.
What?!?!? She's stressed out now? How is she going to handle two girls AND a newborn baby? A crying baby who will need SOMETHING every two hours and she has two girls who don't listen and have no boundaries and a boyfriend who does absolutely nothing!! I just continue to pray every single day that she will love our lil' love bug enough to realize that she would be better here with me and brian. I hope she can put our lil' love bug before herself and her needs and see that she deserves so much more. I pray that she will love our lil' love bug enough to keep her safe and that she won't get so overwhelmed that she starts abusing or neglecting our lil' love bug.
I just pray that our lil' love bug will be safe, happy and ultimately that she will come home to live with me and brian.

one on one

Geo started school today, he was soooo excited! Turtle started school last week and Geo was starting to feel really left out and i couldn't take another week of questions about when he was going to start! Thank goodness it has all been figured out.
So it is just me and banana in the morning. It will be interesting to see how that goes for the two of us. I am looking forward to it, i don't get to spend much one on one time with any of the boys but geo and turtle seek it out and manage to get some one on one time with me during the day. Banana is much more independent and has some issues with attachment so i know this will be a wonderful time for us to bond and work on his attachment. He depends on his brothers so much that it will be nice that it will be just the two of us for a couple hours. Maybe he can get some talking going and i can actually hear him! His brothers demand so much attention and are much more verbal (even turtle), it will be nice to hear banana talk for awhile.

getting it out

Okay, so i know i just posted less than an hour ago but this is seriously how crazy fostering is! There was a hearing today for the boys case and apparently the former foster family is still involved and they are still trying to get the boys?!?!? AND the family therapist is concerned and feels that we are not setting up the services fast enough! This from a lady who talked to me once for half an hour the first week the boys were home and last week for 2 hours. She is the same lady i called 2 weeks into having the boys and told her that i was not getting any paperwork from mesa county social services. I couldn't even meet with my boulder county caseworker because we were waiting for paperwork! We received therapy papers 2 weeks ago and i have a meeting TODAY to meet with a therapist. It is not me or brian who are dragging our feet and taking our time trying to set up appointments! I have called and called and called, trying to get the paperwork we need. We just received birth certificates, medical passport (another story), immunization records and ieps 2 weeks ago! The boys have been in our house for 7 weeks now. Grrrrr.........i am so incredibly frustrated with mesa county, my new caseworker for boulder county (not at all like my last caseworker) and that damn therapist! Everyone makes light of the fact that we have been waiting for paperwork, like it is no big deal and then we hear this crap? Both the gal and my caseworker said 'well, it's probably better that it is taking so long to get paperwork, it gives the boys a chance to settle in and they don't get overwhelmed by too many people and appointments.' I am so frustrated right now. There is really nothing we can do either. We don't have anyone representing us in court so we don't really have a say, and who wants to drive all the way to grand junction in the middle of snow time? NOT ME!
Now i am getting my information from my husband, who is getting his info from the birth dad, so who knows what this actually means, what was said in court or how it was presented. I just needed to get this down and vent a little.....

a mixture

I have a good friend from support group who is about to adopt. I have such a mixture of feelings about this. I will tell you that first and foremost, I am extremely happy for them and for them to have their forever children is a blessing.........but then there is this part of me that is so sad and i just want this so bad for me and brian. I know that my friend who is adopting soon (you know who you are) will understand that i have these feelings, it has been a long road for her as well. Every time someone announces in group that their adoption is finally happening, i am always happy for them but seeing them get to adopt only reminds me of my loss and makes me miss our lil' love bug even more. It is just a reminder of how deeply i want a child and it brings those feelings of loss to the surface once again. It is the same feeling i have when i find out someone is pregnant. Ultimately i am happy for them, but i feel my loss even deeper. If you have never experienced infertility or had a child leave you to return to their birth family, you will never know how deep the pain is in my heart and soul. It is so easy to develop a friendship with the women i have met who are experiencing or who have experienced the same frustrations and loss. They truly know what is in my heart and soul and i have been so lucky to have them in my life. It has been a long 9 years of trying to start a family. Every year or two, i experience another loss and it is getting hard to keep the optimism and hope. It is so sad that a happy time for such a good friend should bring up all these emotions, but it does.
I will be at her party on saturday and i want her to know that i will be genuinely happy and excited for her and her family. I know what it has taken to get to this point, i have heard her stories and i have felt her pain and sadness leading up to this day. It is truly a wonderful celebration!
I just hope my prayers will be answered and we will have a day to celebrate soon.