Cuz I know you're all wondering....

Here's how the visit with Joy's mom went.
Good and bad.


Joy was ecstatic to see her mom. She was smiling, babbling, playing. She'd had a good time at daycare, too, and was just so psyched to be with mom. Her mom said she was even more animated and talkative than she is usually.

Her mom is young, early 20s, and lacking in much common sense. We met at McD's and Joy happily ate a bunch of fries, 2 mcn*ggets and chocolate milk. So maybe if we get her healthy chicken nuggets, she'll eat those? Her mom said she pretty much doesn't worry about what she eats except at dinnertime when she "has to have some real food". She said that Joy liked the Tuna Helper she made one time and that she put green beans in it and she ate them. And that she likes the toddler entrees (she pronounced it "entries") from the supermarket.

My thought is that she likes to eat in social situations. Cuz she ate some at daycare while the other kids were eating. Now, there's nothing particularly wrong with chicken tenders and toddler entrees, except that they're wicked expensive. But we're health nuts. We shop at the food coop, we eat vegetarian, our meals are mostly beans/grains/veggies. We're happy to buy meat for a foster kid if that's what they'll eat, but I'm just not feeding a kid McD's on a regular basis! So hopefully we can find some stuff that isn't very expensive and that she'll eat.

Joy's mom said that she usually lets her stay up until very late at night and then lets her fall asleep in bed with her. So, basically, Joy has never had to fall asleep by herself in her crib. Which is exactly what we had been expecting of her. Which is why she was flipping out and crying so much. I feel really bad about it, but really, if the cw had set up visits or phone calls BEFORE Joy came into care...or even let us talk with the mom the day we got her...then we would have had this information and we could have taken better care of her from the beginning. Last night I stood by her crib for 45 minutes while she got up and down, drank milk, cried, relaxed, cried, and then finally fell asleep. It wasn't too bad.

But the last straw? Bruises.
Yep. Joy's mom went to change her diaper in the well-lit bathroom and came back to get me and show me these pretty big, really weird bruises on the sides of her legs.
Did I freak out? Yes. But not outwardly. All I was thinking was, well, there goes our foster care career, down the drain due to unexplainable bruising. The mom said she wasn't blaming us, but that they were weird and "if it were me, I'd take her to the doctor". (Um, it's your kid.)

I know she didn't have them when we got her, because I gave her a good once-over. But I had no idea where she got them. To make a long, stressful story short, I did eventually figure it out.

Seems that, while she was crying in her crib, she was trying to climb out and kept getting her legs through the bars of the crib. Her thighs aren't quite thin enough to slip through easily, so she'd get up to her thigh and then pull her leg out. and then try the other leg. We never knew she was doing this, because whenever we'd go in to give her another hug and lay her back down, she wasn't doing it. While I was with her last night, she did it a few times while she was trying to get me to take her out.

So, of course, we called her mom to let her know. We called the case worker to let her know, and to ask if we should still bring Joy to the doctor, and we emailed our social worker so that she's in the loop in case the cw freaks out anyway and says we are bad foster parents.

Those bruises are physical evidence of how f'ed up the system is. If they didn't have their 3-step plan for creating RAD, this child would not have these bruises.

Update

fostermama called our social worker and told her that the case worker hasn't set up visits yet. She was kinda surprised and thought it was ridiculous, so she gave us the mom's phone number and said to call her directly. fostermama double-checked that this wasn't going to get us into huge trouble, and the sw said it would be fine (which basically means she'll handle it if the sh*t does hit the fan). So we have a meeting set up for this afternoon.

I'll pick up Joy from the daycare and bring her to the local McD's where we'll meet up with her mom. She'll have about 30-45 minutes with her mom and then we'll go home and the mom goes to some class she's taking. The mom didn't feel comfortable having me come to her house, so that's why we're meeting at McD's. I totally understand, except, um, we have her kid. How could she feel fine giving us her kid, but not want us to see her messy apartment, or whatever? Anyway....

I know Joy's going to freak out when we have to leave her mom, but it'll be good for her to see her, anyway. I'm going to bring our camera so we can get a picture of mom and print it out for Joy to have.

Additionally, our SW was saying how there was talk that the placement might be for 6 weeks. Um, no. We signed up for 3 weeks. I would be fine doing 4 weeks, but more than that is ridiculous. It's not any good for Joy to be with us and longer will just make it worse. If a couple weeks post-partum isn't enough recovery time, then the mom needs to place one or both kids for adoption because she just can't hack it. And, realistically, it would be better for her to place the newborn and keep Joy because Joy needs her mom.

I just hope the visit goes well and I get some info on Joy so we can take care of her better.

DSS - Creating attachment disorders in 3 easy steps!

1. Take a 13-month-old child from her mother and place her with foster parents with no transition at all.
Even though the county has been working with the mom for over a year and knew exactly when her due date is and probably knew a while ago that it would be a good idea for her to "voluntarily" place the child while she recovers from giving birth, they made no motions at finding foster parents until the due date. and then, once found, made no motions at any kind of transition.

2. Don't allow the mom and the foster parents to contact each other.
We told them to give her our phone number. We asked if we could call her in the hospital. We need to know her routines, her likes/dislikes. We need a picture of her for the baby to look at. The mom hasn't done anything wrong and should still be intimately involved in her daughter's life.

3. Don't set up a visit right away and delay doing so until it looks like the kid is going to go at least one full week without seeing her mom.
The mom asked, yesterday afternoon, when there would be a visit. The cw didn't just pick up her cell and call us. Instead she said she'd "call tomorrow", which most likely meant she'd call Friday. And I bet she'll want to be present at the visit, which is completely unnecessary, so it won't get to be until Monday or Tuesday.

This poor little munchkin, who I'll call "Joy" (because she's completely lacking any joy in her life, so I'd like to put a little bit into her via this blog), is in full-on baby depression. She doesn't eat, she doesn't smile, I haven't heard her laugh. She cries unless we're holding her and cries occasionally even if we are holding her. We had to put her in daycare part-time because we can't rearrange our schedules for such a sort period of time. She was fine at daycare yesterday, but cried when each child left. She doesn't understand what's going on and doesn't want anyone to leave her. Hopefully this won't scar her forever, but I don't know how long she (and we) can handle it.

The house, she ain't empty no more.

On Friday, we got a call from The County asking if we'd take a placement of a 13-month-old for 3 weeks. Seems that her mother is 9 months pregnant and has no family or friends to help her out or watch the older child, so she's voluntarily placing her in foster care for the first 3 weeks so she can recuperate and get settled in with the new baby.

We said yes, obviously.

It wasn't certain when the placement would begin, but her due date was this weekend.

So on Sunday we had Niblet over to play, which involved us not getting a lot of sleep because she still wants us to give her a bottle and snuggles when she wakes up at night. Monday we went to work, but both planned on taking a nap the second we got home. fostermama picked me up from work and said "so now we go home and wait for the baby!" (She hadn't even gotten there yet and we were losing sleep over her!)

We went home, cleaned up a bit, started some laundry and muffins, and waited.
Finally the call came that they were on their way, and there they were!

fostermama and I had been taking guesses as to what race the little girl would be, as they hadn't mentioned it to us on the phone. That fact, alone, led us to believe she was white, because when it's not a white baby, they usually say "is that okay?" or something else stupid like that.
We're just used to our babies being not-white. But, anyway, when I saw them getting out of the car, I saw her little hand poking out and, sure enough, she's white.

She was a little hesitant at first, but once we got her interested in the cats and the toys, she didn't even notice when the case workers (one of whom she's known all her life) left. It didn't take her long, though, to start objecting if we got out of her range of vision. She figured out that we were "her people" and, though she doesn't know why, she's okay with it.

The evening went pretty well. She worked on getting to know all the toys. She drank her sippy cup like it was going out of style. She wouldn't eat much food, but we got a little bit into her. Then we decided it was time for her bath and bed. There's where the fun ended. She saw the bath and started crying. She didn't seem to dislike the bath, actually. I think it was just the "hey! where's my Mom! Why are you doing Mom things?!" She became very clingy after that, and developed a slight preference for fostermama, so she put the kiddo to sleep. She went down really easily, with slight fuss, and was out like a light.

Then, an hour later, she was up and screaming and there was no calming her. We brought her out with us and she lay on fostermama, sipping her cup and occasionally crying a very angry cry. Poor little chicken. There was really nothing we could do. She wanted her mom. She doesn't understand where her mom went or why she's with us. She was willing to be comforted and would start to fall asleep, but then she'd come awake a little and scream anew.

It went like this for about an hour. Then, after standing by the crib, rubbing her back while she cried, I left the room again. It seemed that having me there was possibly unhelpful because she would look at me and scream louder.
She cried for what seemed like an hour (but was probably more like 15 minutes) and finally fell asleep. She slept straight through until a little after 8am.

I feel so bad for this little girl. She likely has never spent the night away from her mom and isn't old enough to understand in the slightest. We're hoping we'll be able to visit her mom in the hospital soon, and then there will be frequent visits home during the rest of the time, but I suspect that each night will re-open this new wound and she'll have to go to sleep without the one kiss and hug she really wants.

AA Culture Question

I'm shy, but I'm going to try to get up the nerve to ask around about this more than just online. I love our group of friends in this area, it's the strongest I've ever had. But we're all white. I'll probably ask this of a co-worker, but I'd like to get more than one perspective so I'll ask it here as well in case anyone has anything to say:


Niblet's dad is a Northeastern African American man in his late 60's. When I drop her off after a visit, as I did this morning, he asks, "How did it go?" or "How was she?"
I tend to say something like, "Oh, she fussed a little yesterday, I think she's getting a new tooth, but she did fine and she had a fun time."

In Jewish culture, if you don't complain a little then something is wrong.
In mainstream Midwestern culture, even a small amount of complaining is quite taboo.

So, obviously much is personality, but if I say the above to him - what is he likely hearing?
We have never had friends from Niblet's family's background(s) before. I suspect that having a personal relationship with folks like us (white middle class lesbians) is pretty new to them too. And we're all shy. So things can be a bit awkward and we almost always feel like we don't really know what they're thinking or what they want. So while this appears to be a pretty inconsequential conversation, it's a good 1/3 of our total communication with them and I'd like to make sure I'm coming across as saying what I really mean.

Thanks for any input.

Here they are....

Cute Niblet stories!

Niblet was with us this weekend for a bit, including an overnight. We haven't seen her in 3 weeks and WOW did she mature! She's way more interested in looking at the actual pages of books (instead of just listening to the story and flipping the pages as quickly as possible).

Two of her new words this time?
"WOW!"
"Oh ge ga!" (translation: Oh my god!)

She's still the kissingest, cuddliest kid on the planet. You ask for a kiss and she puckers up and plants one on you, complete with kissing noises ("mwah!")

And, as I predicted, she is full-on into "NO!"
As of last time we saw her, she would say "no" when she was about to do a "no-no" thing and she would shake her head when she didn't want something. Now she knows she can say NO and she says it!
Of course, she doesn't always mean it. She just really likes the way it sounds.

Luckily for her, one of her favorite books has the word "No!" in it. She already has a few parts of the book that she "reads along" with, and now she's added this part. She loves it.
Reader: "Shall we stay in and play?"
Niblet: "NOOOO!"
Reader: "No! It's sunny outside, follow me!"

A lot of things have been clicking for her, language-wise, it seems. I'm totally psyched for her to learn more words and be able to communicate with us even more.

She has matured a lot in other respects, as well. I don't know if it was the 3-week-lapse or what, but she no longer freaks out when one of us leaves the room. Or even if we both leave the room. We're even working on getting her to sleep through the night for us, and our first night went very well!

I really think that it just takes a long time for a child to adjust to a transition like she had. She's 20 months old and she's only been back home since October. It's definitely a good thing that we're still in her life (she was sooo excited to see us), but I think there was a lot of confusion in her little brain. It's not suprising that, on some level, it freaked her out whenever we left the room. Of course, she was like that before she started transitioning home, soooo.....

More likely, her parents took a harder line on that kind of behavior and ended up teaching her that the world won't collapse if your caretaker pees alone. We were the suckers who would continue to take her in with us, so she helped herself to our hospitality for as long as she could.
*laugh*

Either way, I'm glad that she's so secure in her world. She's growing up, but the same smart, loving, strong personality is still there.

The waiting game

I know you're waiting for a post, but really I have nothing to report. That's the way it is when you're on The List. And we're on 2 lists! We're waiting, ultimately, for our adoption agency to call, but we're also waiting for the county to call. Honestly, I could do with a foster baby to take over my life and help the time pass more easily.

Shouldn't I be enjoying this time to myself? The time to reconnect with fostermama, deep clean the house, have adult conversations with friends, see movies...shouldn't I be relishing this break? Well, I'm not.

I'm probably preaching to the converted, but let me tell you - I'm bored! I don't do all those other things because what I really want to be doing is parenting!

We took ourselves on a little vacation to try and get our minds off of babies and all that. But it didn't really help. And since we're doing adoptive breastfeeding, and had to keep pumping on vacation, it was a daily reminder that we don't have a baby.

Anyway, all this to say that there's no news.
We haven't seen Niblet in 3 weeks, and are planning on seeing her this weekend, so I'm assuming she's talking in sentences and gained 10 pounds. We're going to have to ask her parents if she has any new words, because we won't necessarily be able to figure out what she's saying if they don't tell us.

Oh, one cute thing for you:
We used to teach Niblet ASL signs. She recognized a few of them during her time with us and actually used a few on and off. She's a big fan of the sign for "more". We're pretty sure her parents don't use signs with her at all, but we still use them with her when she's with us. Last time she remembered/learned the sign for "milk" and the next morning, when I went into her room to get her from the crib, she sat there signing milk at me. It was super cute, and of course I immediately got her some milk. She just looked at it like I was crazy - she didn't want milk, she just wanted to show me her word!

She actually does a good job of remembering signs from one week to the next. She has 3-4 signs that she uses regularly with us. She has forgotten the finer points of the signs and mutated them to her liking, but we know what she means.
I was worried that her language skills weren't "up to par", but when we counted up her signs and her english words, she has about a dozen and her receptive skills are really good, too. So she's fine.

Hopefully I'll have a cute Niblet story for you next week. All in all, this waiting game would be much worse if we didn't have her to fill in the gaps.