Apres le move.

I had no idea how long it'd been since I'd blogged. Wow. Sorry 'bout that, folks. We moved in April, before Pesach (Passover). Lots of endings and new beginnings around here since then. We're hanging in, though. Little Guy and Big Guy are loving having more space in our new home, life is much improved since we are no longer on top of each other.

The biggest news to share is that adoption is looking like it's going to be the plan for Big Guy. Because Big Guy and Little Guy came into care on the same day but Little Guy was sent home not long after and was home for several months, CPS is counting his re-entry to foster care rather than his original entry as his "date of entry into the foster care system" (the date upon which his parents' 12 months of working their case plan will be based). This means the boys are on different timelines in terms of their cases. So Big Guy's permanency hearing was early this month and his case was moved to the adoption unit, meaning that the goal is now adoption (by us) rather than reunification. This doesn't mean parental rights have been terminated yet or that if a family member came out of the woodwork CPS wouldn't have to consider them. But it means that a TPR hearing will be scheduled. It is quite possible we will adopt Big Guy by some time this winter, barring any legal appeals made by Patty.

Little Guy, on the other hand, won't be done with his year in foster care (the year that's required before CPS can file for TPR) until fall. And unlike Big Guy, he has a dad who is fighting for him. Fighting in an ambivalent, flaky way, but still doing some of what CPS has asked him to do for his caseplan. So the possibility of the boys' outcomes being different still hovers above our heads. Unfortunately Big Guy has started picking up on this and it is contributing to the hard time he is having. You have to understand that he is not happy that he is likely going to be adopted. Those stories about kids who are just so happy to finally have a forever family? That is not our story. Our story is one of a little boy who absolutely adores his mom, whose mom is loving to him and never overtly abused him... and who is being told he still cannot go home to her. This is a story of a kid who is told over and over the reasons why he is in care (mom's mental illness, her cognitive limitations, how easily she got overwhelmed parenting them, the normal kid things she wouldn't let them do due to her paranoia, the lack of family support she has, the way she couldn't protect him from getting badly abused by other family members, his behavioral/emotional needs she couldn't meet) and still doesn't really get why he can't go home to her and thinks it's his fault and if his behavior was better he could go home. This is a story of a kid who adores his foster parents but wants to be with his birth mom... but who doesn't get any say in the matter because he's so young and his needs so clearly cannot be met by his birth mom. It's a sad story, to say the least.

So it's probably no surprise when I say that Big Guy, who in many ways has been doing quite well, is lashing out like crazy at us and finding new ways to test us. His goal in his testing/behaviors seems to be to prove that we don't really love him and aren't "real" parents. He will act out intensely so that we are stern with him or ask him to go to his room - And when he refuses to go to his room he will "trip" and "hurt himself" in a very obviously purposeful way, so that when we don't make a huge scene over how he's hurt he can then accuse us of not caring that he's hurt and tell us that proves we're not "real parents." He will tell us he's going to do something dangerous or self-destructive and when we use the appropriate behavioral techniques (since this is truly a behavioral issue, not a psychiatric one) which involves not over-reacting, he will tell us we don't care if he hurts himself and his mom would care and that this proves we don't love him. It is very, very trying. He is trying to push us away. At the same time, he has been telling us more than usual how much he loves us and even told Sarah the other day "you're the best mommy ever!" (Mommy is a term he never uses for us, only for his birth mom). Can you say AMBIVALENCE?!?!

Little Guy is growing like a weed. He has grown almost 4 inches since he's been with us (8 months) and has gone from having not a single recognizable word to being almost on-target in terms of his language. He is 2 and is very bossy and very funny and sweet. This morning he climbed across my lap while I was on my computer and demanded "Snuggles!" He is just a delight. So cute and so loving and happy. Unfortunately he continues to have seizures, which is a challenge. He also is having a lot of sleeping troubles of late, which is not fun for any of us.

As for Sarah and I, we're doing okay. Okay enough to be thinking about Foster Child #3. We got a call last night for an after-hours placement of a teenager and I immediately told Sarah to say no, but afterwards spent an hour trying to fall asleep while I couldn't stop thinking about whether they could find a home for this young lady. I know we made the right choice, however. It's easy to get excited about taking whichever child they call for (especially because we get so few calls) but we need to think of our boys first and foremost and make sure whoever joins our family is a good, safe fit for them.

A Brief Debriefing, And Why The Boys Are Still Here

We are still here, alive, and mostly healthy. A brief update in bullet points:

• The boys are still with us, and it doesn't look like they're going anywhere anytime soon, though with foster care anything can happen at any time.
• Patty got notified that CPS' evaluations have found her incapable of parenting on her own due to her cognitive limitations and mental illness. That means she cannot and will not get custody of her children unless she is living with a capable family member who will be their legal guardian.
• Patty's uncle Thomas, who sounds like one of the more stable members of her family (which is not saying much), moved in with her in hopes that they can get the kids back if he helps with them. However, CPS has doubts about how long-term his commitment is and whether he understands how much work this entails and that he will be signing up for no less than 16 years (until the baby is 18). So CPS could theoretically send the kids to live with Thomas and Patty, but we kind of doubt it will. 
• In addition to issues with Uncle Thomas' commitment, we aren't sure that he has a job, and we don't know what they'd do about their living situation since Patty lives in a 2-bedroom and CPS does not look kindly upon kids and their parents (or uncles) sleeping in the same room, plus if Section 8 gets wind of Thomas living there they may have problems. Please understand I am not saying that I think that how many bedrooms there are should influence whether the children are returned - I'm just acknowledging the reality that while one wouldn't have their children taken away in most cases for simply co-sleeping or not having enough bedrooms, when a parent is trying to prove that they can have their children back from the system those scenarios are generally not acceptable to the Power That Be.
• Patty had been complaining to me that she really didn't want the kids to go to their great aunt in another state. I felt powerless to do anything and I told her over and over she needed to tell her lawyer and CPS who are the only ones who can actually do something. Well, before court last month I reminded her again who she can tell if she wants to make sure that doesn't happen (which she had told me yet again). I'm proud of her because I actually saw her go up to her lawyer and tell him in no uncertain terms that she is not moving in with the aunt and does not want her children to go there. In addition, the great aunt seems to have been discouraged by the whole process of getting the kids. It is likely it would involve her losing the foster kid she currently has because she cannot be licensed by her home agency and our state simultaneously (absurd, right?)  It's doubtful right now that the kids will end up with this aunt.

• The baby had been having seizures. Frequently. As some of you know, he started having them shortly after being placed with us but they went away for a long time. Now he is on medication for them, but it's not fully controlling them. It is slowly sinking in that we now have not one special needs child, but two. Granted all adopted and foster children are special needs in my larger worldview due to the specific attachment issues and grief they will deal with for the rest of their life, but having two kids with major emotional/medical/behavioral needs is different.
• Little Guy is big! He is 21 months and is talking up a storm. He is still delayed in terms of his speech but he's catching up really fast with the help of Early Intervention. His newest word is "diaper." He says it almost perfectly. Between this and his patting his crotch when he's in the bathroom with us (watching us pee, one of his favorite pasttimes) I think he's going to be more than ready to start potty-training when my schoolyear is over in May! 
• Big Guy at 10 is increasingly sophisticated in how he fights with us, tries to get his way, manipulates, and argues. But he's also incredibly loving and affectionate (you should see him when he gets overcome with love and comes up and kisses me 20 times on the cheek!)  He has started calling me Ima in public, which is a huge milestone for him, and let me come into the classroom with him after months of having aggressive meltdowns if I'd even show up at school because he was so embarrassed to be seen with a white woman who people would think was his mom.  He's talking a lot about his feelings with his new therapist. 
• Big Guy is incredibly sad right now about being in foster care and misses his mommy so so much. He's going through a lot of fantasizing about how he could go home - Whether by running away, or by offering to never have behavioral problems again, or by saying he'll help mommy with the things she has a hard time with. It's really painful. The up side is we're finally being more honest with him about mommy's shortcomings and why he's in foster care and he's having to start to deal with the reality of why he can't be with her. This is so painful for him, but so necessary since within a few months the goal could change from reunification to adoption. We want him to have a better understanding of the problems mommy has instead of simply thinking "but mommy didn't hurt me! there's no reason for me to not be with her!" or thinking "but I'm only in foster care because of my behavior problems and if I stop acting out there's no reason she can't take care of us!" We have been carefully finding ways to describe her mental illness and cognitive limitations and asking him questions to help him realize on his own the ways mommy has "problems with how her brain works."
• Overall, as a family, I think we're doing pretty darn well. We're moving to a house with a yard this spring, which is really exciting! We're also talking now and then about theoretically being open to another child or two in the not-too-distant future, though not actively planning for it yet.

Heartbreaking things abused kids say

"I love you, brother. I'm never gonna abuse you."

That's what Big Guy whispered to Little Guy while holding and kissing him this morning. Afterwards he started talking to me for an hour about how confusing it is when your family beat you but you still love them. This kid has the weight of the world on him - He is so convinced the judge is going to send his brother back to family again and he'll end up getting beat like Big Guy did.

Sometimes I don't know how I parent these kids without sobbing all the time or losing all faith in humanity.

Sorry I've been MIA. I have a lot to post about but am overwhelmed about trying to recap the last few months. Especially about the out-of-state relative Big Guy hasn't seen since he was a toddler, who appeared after the kids have been in (or in Little Guy's case, in and out) of foster care for six months and wants to take both children.

Happy Chanukah! And more adventures in Trans-Faith Parenting.

Wishing you a Happy Chanukah if you celebrate.

With the weight of last week's heavy news (re: potential distant birth relative who wants to take the kids) it's hard to let myself fully enjoy the holidays, but I have gotten a kick out of choosing gifts for the boys... even if they are going to bankrupt us ;-P

This is their first Chanukah so I've had to explain a lot of times to Big Guy that no, we don't wake up tomorrow morning to find gifts waiting for us. And no, you don't get lots of gifts every day. And no, you don't just get toys and fun stuff... some nights you will get things you need rather than things you want. He is having a hard time with the idea that he might get some gifts he won't like.. and an even harder time with the idea of only one gift each night. He also seems convinced he will only get one gift for Christmas and it will be something he doesn't like. I think it's the anxiety of having the holidays with someone other than his mom and not knowing what to expect that are what's making him sound really entitled, selfish and spoiled when the topic of holidays and gifts come up.

Challenging consumerism and money obsession in a kid who you didn't raise for his first 9 years is really, really challenging. Big Guy is completely obsessed with how much money we're spending on him versus his brother, how many gifts he'll get, etc. This kind of thing makes part of me wish I hadn't gotten so many gifts for them and was instead doing what my parents always did with us for Chanukah... very small gifts (mostly practical) each night, something really big and fun for the family (an experience, such as tickets to a musical) on the last night, and lots of opportunities for family activities and charitable giving. Instead, I feel backed into the whole "must make Chanukah as appealing to the kids as Christmas" game, which all Jews know is futile and also cheapens what Chanukah and Christmas are actually about. Oh well, it's our first time having kids at the holidays and we'll just have to feel it out, and eventually create our own family Chanukah traditions that are more meaningful.

Lest you think I'm denying my boys Christmas, since they are not Jewish they will do Christmas at the home of some non-Jewish relatives (which is where Santa will leave their Christmas gifts and we will fill their stockings). I really enjoyed doing the stockings - I bought adhesive foam shapes at the dollar store and they sticked beautifully to the Christmas stockings I bought them at the drugstore. I really like buying little tchotchkes to fill them. I never wanted a Christmas tree when I was growing up, or any of the other trappings... But I always thought stockings seemed so fun. Sometimes it's the little things that are so appealing. I do not believe in mixing the holidays or mixing religions with one another, I think it waters down the integrity of the traditions. However, as long as our kids are not halachically (in the eyes of Jewish law) Jewish, I see no reason not to help them enjoy Christmas.

I am betting by the 8th night of Chanukah Big Guy will have the entire bracha (blessing) on the Chanukah candles memorized, by the way. It's really cute how excited he is about a holiday he didn't even know about until a few months ago!

How Do I Write About This?

I don't know how to write about what's going on lately. It just seems too hard to put into words.

How do I write about how after 6 weeks I have finally fallen in love with our 18 month old Little Guy, and how strange it is to find that I fell in love more easily and quickly with a behaviorally challenged 9 year old than an absurdly adorable cuddly 18 month old when once upon a time I had thought what I really wanted was a baby? (We were signed up for ONE child ages 0-5, remember? Haha).

How do I write about how hard it has been to let myself love the baby the way I love his brother, with the constant possibility of him being sent to his dad (who used to beat Big Guy) has been hanging over our head?

How do I write about how scary it is for us to be missing so much work/school because Little Guy has been sick with very little break for the entire 6 weeks he's been here? How I worry every day that Sarah will lose her job because of her excessive absences, and how my grades are suffering just as I am about to apply for graduate school?

How do I write about the complicated feelings I have about Patty, whose sweetness and simple-mindedness I have discovered is also used to manipulate others, and who will tell us she wants us to keep the kids and then hangs up the phone and calls The Agency to report that she thinks it was our fault that the baby was having seizures?

How do I write about how well Big Guy is doing when he also just disclosed about a time a family member threatened (and possibly even tried) to kill him?

How do I write about how Big Guy's has been ornery, argumentative and oppositional since the baby's been here when he a) told the psychiatrist this morning how scared he is of the baby going to (the baby's) dad because he worries the baby will get beaten and b) turned to me yesterday and said "I love y'all to death. Which really means I love you infinity."

Most of all... how do I write about the fact that The Agency just out of the blue dropped the biggest bomb of all: That after 6 months of the kids being in (or in and out, in Little Guy's case) of foster care, a distant aunt that Big Guy hasn't seen since he was a toddler has suddenly appeared... And that she's a licensed foster parent in a nearby state, and says she wants both kids?

How do I write about how I believe in family reunification (and how incensed I am about how the child welfare system destroys Black families in particular), when I also I think this move would be the absolutely the wrong thing for Big Guy after this many months of  being with us, because of his emotional and behavioral issues and strong bond to us and how much he's thriving with us? How do I write about how stuck I feel about finding out if we have any recourse to fight this?

In which things get so much more complicated and nervewracking

Remember how I asked whether Patty knew what she was doing when she called CPS and asked them to take Little Guy and bring him to us? Well, when he got to us at midnight last Monday night, we opened the very small bag she sent with him, and out tumbled his Halloween costume. So yes, she knew this was not going to be a few days of respite after which she'd easily get him back like last time. In our subsequent phone conversations she's expressed some ambivalence and sadness but she also seems to be very aware that Little Guy is going to stay with us for a good long time. She has made it clear she'd prefer he stay with us, and that the boys be together, than for the baby's dad to take him... but she doesn't have any say! Dad is fighting to get him (which would break the boys up for good since they have different dads). Patty doesn't think it will happen because of his record and other factors, but she also might not realize that a criminal record or drug history or history of not being involved in a child's life does not automatically preclude CPS from placing a child with their birthfather.  An aunt is trying to get the baby, too, but the lawyer has said it's unlikely they'd choose her over us. The fact that the baby could go to his dad is definitely a source of anxiety for us. It would be different if they had the same dad who was fighting to take both of them, in fact I'd be happy for them if they had a dad who was stable enough to parent them. But that's not the case. Their dads are both very sketchy (baby's dad has a domestic violence history in addition to other things) and have never parented them, and would be unlikely to maintain their relationship with each other unless it was court-ordered. As is often the case with foster kids, they are probably more attached to each other than to their mom, let alone to their dads, who have never parented them.

It is also sad for me to realize how "wanted" our Little Guy is, while Big Guy is not. His dad is supposedly fighting to get him, but we don't think it's very likely to happen. His aunt has no interest in him, neither do any of his other family members. Little Guy's dad, who he thinks of as his step-dad, isn't interested in him. Nobody wants to take a 9 year old with behavioral issues. He is "damaged goods" to most people, whereas his brother is just a bundle of sweetness and giggles. This hurts my heart.

I am not so worried about these boys leaving us, I'm worried about them losing each other. They have such a special bond. Little Guy toddles around after Big Guy all day long, like a little puppy dog. No one can make him giggle the way that Big Guy does. Having his baby bro around brings out the protective and nurturing side of our big boy. Seeing them together is incredibly moving after the four months they were separated. It breaks my heart that they could be separated again, and it's taking everything in me to live in the present. We only have today, and all I can do is try to make today as wonderful as it can be for these boys. It looks like there's very little chance the baby will go anywhere until the January court date at the earliest, and maybe not even then. So we're going to keep on keeping on and try not to panic. Anything could happen at any time... or nothing at all could happen, and these boys could stay together and with us. The worst part is we won't know for a good long time, and we have to find a way to accept that.

Antidepressants Are a Beautiful Thing

Our boy has done a complete 180 degree turn during the past week. He has gone an entire week without a single tantrum (by which I mean no hitting, punching, throwing things, threatening to hurt himself). That is probably the longest he's ever gone since being with us. He's been happy, smiling a lot, telling us he loves us a lot (unsolicited statements like "I love you, Ima..." or "I love spending time with you, Mama..."), and totally fun to be around. He's earned new privileges, he's talked about his feelings instead of acting out, and he's been pretty much like a "normal" kid with fairly severe ADHD. He's had no aggression or violence or angry outbursts. It's pretty incredible.

Family life has been a total joy lately, which is such a relief from the constant struggling of the last 4 months. There have been difficult moments, things are far from perfect... but they are so, so much better. I think the Prozac is working, and allowing the therapy to be more effective... which is giving credence to our belief that Big Guy's violent tantrums were not just behavioral but instead were due to a combination of anxiety, depression and PTSD. He's only been on Prozac a few weeks, and just this week we upped the dose, so it's possible things will get even better from here. I can't help feeling like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop - How can this be real? How long can it last? But I'm also starting to let go and just enjoy these times... and giving him loads of positive feedback about how awesome his behavior is and how much fun he is to be around.

Big Guy told us last night that he's being good so the judge will let him go home. It broke my heart to hear him say that, because it means he really still thinks he was removed because he was bad and he can go home when he's good. But it was a good opportunity to let  him know that being happy and being well-behaved will help him in every aspect of life, no matter where he lives. Whether he goes home or is adopted, he will have a better life and more privileges if he can behave respectfully and he feels good inside. We reminded him he isn't in foster care because he is bad, that he's in foster care because mommy has problems parenting (problems she is working on right now), and that we can't promise that good behavior will mean he gets to go home.

At first I was worried that raining on his parade like this might make him start acting out again, but my dad reminded me that there's no way that Big Guy was able to keep up such amazing behavior for an entire week purely out of willpower so he could go home. If that was the case, he'd have been on perfect behavior from the beginning of his time here. I think he just had an easier time behaving the way he'd like to behave because he's less depressed and anxious, plus he's been working in therapy on internalizing that hurting us isn't going to make him be able to go home. When he saw his behavior being so positive, it may have renewed his hope that now he can have enough self-control that he can behave well at home so that mommy will want him back and the judge will send him back. So I don't think he's going to regress simply because we are giving him reality checks about his power to make the judge send him home to mommy. He looked so deflated after I corrected him, I wanted to cry.

We knew from the beginning that "Oppositional-Defiance Disorder" and "ADHD" didn't fully encapsulate what was going on with this child. I'm so glad we finally found professionals who agreed that we needed to dig deeper into the psychiatric issues. Big Guy is happier, calmer and so much more focused. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me. Even if it's temporary, it's a huge gift. Times like this remind me that all this hard work is worth it. And you know what? In the (unlikely) change that he does go back home to mommy, who is so limited in so many ways, I think it would be great to send him back as a happier, less aggressive, more well-adjusted kid who is easier for a cognitively limited mom to parent. I finally understand what foster parents mean when they say that they get satisfaction out of reuniting with their families a healthier kid who's done a lot of healing and learned new coping skills.

On a lighter note... Kids and religion, or "Kids Say the Darnedest Things"

Life goes on, despite the way our lives have been turned upside down by knowing anything could happen at this point (see my last post). Things continue to be silly, fun, crazy, and upsetting, in turns.
This post is about something on the lighthearted side of things.

I know I'm not the only one who's wanted to curl up in a little ball and disappear when one hears the things their foster child says to their (birth/first) family about what the foster family has told him or taught him. Or even just implying they've been taught something that goes against what their birth/first family did or believed. Here is a recent favorite. On the phone the other day, Big Guy said:


"Mom, I don't believe Jesus is the son of G-d. It doesn't make any sense."

I wanted to die. Oy vey, just what we need... Now mom is going to think we are brainwashing him with our heathen Jewish ways! He was on speaker phone with mom, as always, so I tried to steer the conversation in a direction that would make it clear that we were encouraging him to think for himself. Mom didn't seem upset, she half-heartedly tried to argue but she didn't understand Christian theology clearly enough to really accurately portray what Christians "should" believe. I don't think she was upset at all, but she told him he should go to church where he can learn about Jesus. Big Guy has never asked to go to church, so we've never taken him.

The truth is when we've been asked we have been very honest with Big Guy about what we believe, which is that Jesus was a real man and probably a very good man but was not the son of G-d any more than we all are. We've also told him it is totally fine for him to believe differently, and we've patiently and without bias (to the extent possible) explained what Jews believe and what Christians believe (and even a little about Muslims and Buddhists lately). He's asked if he can be Jewish and we've told him he can't make that decision until he's older. We've asked him about his experiences going to church and sometimes even turned the TV onto the gospel channel for him. We've taken him to synagogue only for festivities, never for religious services... though we could if we wanted, if he consented (he just does not have the patience to sit through hours of chanting in a language he can't understand so I'd never do that to him). He takes part in rituals in our home as much as he wants, but there is never any pressure whatsoever. We will take him to the home of Catholic family members for Christmas and Santa will deliver his gifts there. We will also give him gifts for Chanukah, so he'll be one spoiled little boy in the month of December!

One thing I live about Big Guy is he has many big, deep, theological discussions with us. He has a lot of thoughts about life and death and G-d and religion. Lots of questions, too. Sometimes when we talk about religion and spirituality, I just shake my head at the "low IQ" designation he was given.

Other embarrassing moments have been when Big Guy tells mom that she does things wrong because we do things differently. We are very careful not to say she did things wrong when we explain to Big Guy why our rules or customs are different, but it still gets portrayed that way when he speaks to her sometimes. I remember the first such instance was when he said "Why did you give me Haw@iian Punch? It's poisonous!" because I had explained that we don't give kids "juice" that has food coloring in it because we think artificial food colorings are dangerous chemicals for kids if they consume too much of them.

Do you have any stories like this? Please share, and give me something to laugh about!

What's goin' on.... and a plea for help.

Oh dear, it's been a while since I've updated, huh?

Did you think maybe I stopped posting because we threw in the towel and our boy got placed in a therapeutic foster home? Rest assured, we're still hanging in there with Big Guy and don't have any intent to stop.

It's partly the Jewish holidays - Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos, Simchas Torah... They have taken up a huge part of my time for the last month. It's also partly that there's so much to say and I know I'll never be able to update you on everything that's going on.

Here is a bullet list of just a few of the many things that have happened since I last posted:

• His team (case workers, etc) decided if this placement fails he will be placed not in a therapeutic foster home but in a Residential Treatment Center. Holy crap, talk about pressure on us! We feel so strongly, as does his therapist, that at this point he does not need an RTC, he needs a family. It's one thing if we adopt him and then he needs RTC, because he'd have a family to visit him all the time and then to eventually come home to. If he went to RTC right now we'd have no rights to even visit him and at most he might get a weekly visit with mom and an occasional visit from a social worker. 

• His therapist asked me "So, how does it feel living in a residential treatment center?" Because he acknowledged what everyone else is coming to realize, which is that we are basically providing a residential treatment center and therapeutic foster home without the training or compensation.

• Big Guy's therapist is excellent and Big Guy is starting to talk about his anger, why he takes it out on us, his sadness, etc.

• Big Guy has been revealing more abuse history. I'm feeling so angry I just want to kill everyone who hurt him. I have to laugh that I told people when he was first placed with us, "He doesn't seem to have any kind of major abuse history, at most maybe a little emotional neglect." Warning to first-time foster parents like us: Never, ever believe that the story you think you know during the first month or when a kid's placed is anything near what the full truth is.

• We found a great psychiatrist who is starting him on an anti-depressant! Hallelujah! She actually gets that it's not just ADHD and Oppositional Defiance Disorder that are happening here, and she diagnosed him with PTSD after we had been increasingly feeling that some of his behaviors are trauma reactions.

• We have been talking to Patty (Big Guy's mom) a lot and learned from her more about her own and her mom's mental health history which has helped us understand the situation better and also helped us inform the psychiatrist. We have an awesome relationship with her...

• ...Which makes it so frustrating that CPS has decided we shouldn't be allowed to supervise visits. Because an outside agency that CPS contracts with is now doing visits at their offices and doesn't allow any contact between birth families and foster families, we cannot see her, and Little Guy (Big Guy's baby brother who we had for the first week that Big Guy was with us), at all. She literally enters through a different door than us, we think, so we can't even "run into her" in the waiting room. It's awful. So much for our dream that we could help mentor and support her. Basically CPS has made it clear they want to build a case to terminate her parental rights, even though she is parenting her baby and her older kid has only been in foster care 3 months with us. They have a foster family who is very competent and has a good relationship with the birth mom, a birth mom who never hurt her child directly, and a foster child who isn't traumatized by contact with his birth mom... The perfect situation to allow a mentoring relationship between foster and birth family or at least to allow more casual visits outside a clinical setting. Yet they don't want to make more work for themselves or risk her actually getting help from us, so they're screwing everyone in the process. Nice.

• School started and life became much more manageable because of everyone having a set schedule, so we no longer feel we're living in constant crisis mode...

• ...However, around the time school started Big Guy stopped sleeping through the night. He woke us up no less than seven times last night. He simply cannot and will not sleep without a grown-up in bed with him (please, spare me the lectures and horror stories about how foster parents should protect themselves from abuse allegations by never ever laying down with a child. It's the only way to keep from multiple violent meltdowns at night right now, and if those meltdowns are hard to deal with during the day they are impossible to deal with when half-asleep). His anxiety is so out of control. Usually I go lay down with him when he wakes us up, but end up falling asleep and waking up hours later in horrible pain because his bed sucks and I have a bad back. If anything is making my life feel unmanageable right now, it's not his tantrums or violence... it's the lack of continuous sleep and how we're held hostage by him at night because he wakes up multiple times and is terrified to go back to sleep without us with him. Have I mentioned I have idiopathic hypersomnolence, and am therefore supposed to get 9 hours of sleep a night in order to safely drive? Haha.

Any suggestions on how to deal with the sleep issue, experienced mamas and papas? He's already on 3mg of Melatonin and is taking his Risperdal at night as well. He has nightmares but frequently he wakes up without having nightmares. I hope the SSRI will help. I feel like the parent of a colicky infant, who feels ready to kill someone due to weeks and weeks of interrupted sleep.

Dear Big Guy

Dear Big Guy,

You are fast asleep after a night of anxiety attacks that woke you out of a sound sleep. You have been asleep for an hour, though I keep expecting you to wake up any minute. I don't know if it was the Chamomile Calm drops I gave you at 5am (I am still amazed at how well they work) or the imaginary circle I drew around you to keep the bad dreams away or the guided meditation I did with you in the middle of the night as a last-ditch attempt to get you to sleep. All I know is your skinny little body is curled up in your massive bed and you look peaceful, finally. You are so handsome, so little, and so angelic when you sleep. You look innocent, not like the wild creature that tears apart the house and tries to punch and kick and bite us. Mama and I know you are a creative and kind little boy, no matter what your behavior might look like someitmes. You deserve to feel good, not to suffer. You deserve to be happy, well-rested, and calm. One day you will know what it is like to not be so fearful or angry, I just know it.

I love you deeply, honeyboy. I wish I could sneak in there and give you a kiss on your silky-smooth cheek (the most kissable cheek I've ever encountered!) but I'm afraid I'd wake you up.

Dear G-d

Please let the new psychiatrist we are taking Big Guy to today be kind, good at listening, and full of ideas. Ideas about what is going on with him and what to do about it. Please let her take seriously the fact that he was up for 1.5 hours last night afraid that he was dead ("can kids be half-dead?" he asked my partner), that he'd have nightmares if he went back to sleep, and that we were going to die (he kept saying "I love you, mama. I really love you, mama" in a scared voice over and over to my partner... which is not normal for him). He said his heart was pumping blood really fast and "beeping" really fast (he thinks his heart beeps, not beats). He was a wreck. Please let the new psychiatrist take seriously the fact that our house is in danger of being destroyed during his rages and that we are in danger of being hurt. Please let her understand that he has a gentle and sweet soul, which is why he gets so depressed when his behavior is out of control. If she has more clarity about diagnoses, great. But I care less about diagnoses than that she can do something to help take the edge off for him so that he can work more productively on changing his behaviors and coping better with his feelings. A kid who is so anxious they are refusing to go to sleep (or waking up 10 times during the night like he did Sunday night) and is so out of control that they fly into physically violent rages is not in any place to be doing productive work in therapy. We aren't big on medicating kids, but this child is clearly not on the right meds right now and he is suffering. So please let this woman be compassionate and insightful, and have some idea of where to go from here. My sweet boy deserves this.

L'Shanah Tovah! Happy New Year!

L'shanah Tovah (Happy Rosh Hashanah / New Year) to everyone.

I know I'm way overdue for an update post, especially after my last post which was written amid a major crisis. Suffice it to say, we are still holding in there with Big Guy (though just barely). We are more in love with him each day, and he is more and more bonded with us... and the tantrums continue to be out of control and sometimes real violent. The Agency continues to be unable to give us any real support, I'm starting to wonder if they're secretly hoping we'll "give up" so they can send Big Guy to a residential treatment center and transfer his case to another agency. But we're trying. We're still trying... with all our heart and soul and blood, sweat and tears (literally).

My prayer is for this new year to bring peace and calm and self-love into this sad, angry, hurt boy's heart. And, while we're at it, I hope this new year brings us a good psychiatrist with some new ideas about meds; a continuation of the good work that's finally happening in therapy; a lot of fun for Big Guy riding his new bike; increased trust in ourselves and each other; and a greater percentage of family time spent doing fun things and just loving and enjoying each other instead of spent managing violence and rage.

We are off to spend the holiday with family and friends for 3 days (two are Rosh Hashanah, the third is shabbos [the Sabbath]). I'm hoping Big Guy can handle it, and maybe even enjoy it.

From bad to worse.

I love this kiddo so much. But we are this close to giving up. We feel like we're in way over our heads right now. I feel resentful at The Agency for putting a kid who needed a therapeutic foster home in with non-therapeutic first time foster parents. I am angry at the people who caused this beautiful little boy to have all these problems. I am sad that we have to worry that we can't do this any more. The bottom line is, we cannot keep missing this much work. This child requires two adults to keep him (and the house, and us) safe when he is having a tantrum, and we cannot provide that when we both go back to work. I am so terrified. I love him more than I've ever loved anyone, in a way I've never loved anything. I want the best for him, he deserves only good things in life. But this child's violent rages are so much beyond what we "signed up for" (a joke of a phrase in the foster world) and are putting our jobs, our home, and our bodies in danger. I called The Agency today and said they needed to find a way to provide more supports if they want this placement not to disrupt. I never dreamed I would even be saying the word "disrupt." But if we cannot keep him safe, then we are not the right foster family for him. We are not giving up - We are keeping trying. We are giving all the professionals and opportunity to put a better support system in place for us. I just don't know if they can.

In the past few days:
-I got punched in the eye (thank G-d for glasses, and 70-pound weaklings), on purpose but I don't think he really wanted to hurt me
-I got kicked in the shin, on purpose
-I got hit repeatedly with pieces of plastic, on purpose
-The crib and the changing table have almost been broken, on purpose
-The fan and overhead light have almost been broken, on purpose
-A lightbulb was shattered, on purpose
-The screen in his window was almost pushed out
-Dents were made all over his walls, using the plastic top of a humidifier
-Sarah's been hit hard in the middle of the head with a piece of metal
-Sarah's been cursed at over and over and over
-I've hurt my (already bad) back trying to drag him into his room when he's refusing to stop breaking things
-We've had him threaten to tell The Agency we're abusing him, over and over

And so on, and so forth. This is just a part of the list. The hardest part to wrap my head around is the sweet, angelic, lovely child he is when he's not raging.

I want this to work.

I want this to work.

I want this to work.

But I don't know if this can work.

When foster kids threaten false abuse allegations

This one's to throw out there to the foster-blogosphere: What do you do when your foster kids threaten to make false abuse allegations against you? It seems to come with the territory with older foster kids, from what I hear. I want to hear how you deal with this.

I have to say that it really freaks me out when, during tantrums, Big Guy threatens to tell CPS we're abusing him. This only happens when he gets mad at us and has a massive tantrum (he becomes like a totally different kid during these tantrums). He learned some time before he entered foster care that you could theaten someone by saying you'd report them for abuse. He seems to understand that CPS is who you should tell. He's so naive and immature, and didn't come into care due to an abuse allegation, so it's pretty clear to us that someone must have told him that he could get grownups in trouble this way. Being a foster parent to an older kid is scary. It's scary partly because you hear warning stories about how it's a matter of when you'll get an allegation made against you, not if.

As much as I know that Big Guy's therapist, caseworker, etc. think we're doing a great job and respect us and don't suspect us of abusing him... if he made an allegation they'd be obligated to investigate, and that investigation alone could be very traumatic for all of us. I know people it's happened to, and even when they discover that the allegation was BS, it turns peoples' lives upside down. We had to have a conversation tonight with Big Guy about how lying is not okay, and I finally let him know that if he lied and told someone we were hurting him, he might be removed and never allowed to see us again... and reminded him he wouldn't be sent back to mommy, which when he's mad at us is probably what he'd like. I had tried for so long to not say anything like that, but I think it's time he understand how serious it is for him to lie about something like this. He is not a liar. This kid really can't seem to lie. But you never know what he might say when he gets mad enough at us, and it's just so scary to think that not only we would pay the price... he would pay the price. We reiterated the importance of honesty. We emphasized that we would never hurt him and we don't believe in hitting children (and reminded him of our anger that he was beaten by relatives) and told him if we ever did hit him he should tell somebody, so that he'd understand that we're serious about kids being safe. I hope we dealt with this the right way. I can't ignore it any more. As usual, we are writing e-mails to caseworkers and therapists to let them know what he said - I make sure to constantly have them document his threats.

By the way, when did Big Guy make the most recent and by far the most serious threat of making a false allegation? Mere hours after he told us for the first time, out of the blue, "I want to stay with y'all forever. I don't want to have to leave."

Yup, that just about sums things up

After Big Guy calmed down from a horrific tantrum this evening during which I got kicked in the shin and both Sarah and I had various items thrown at us, he sweetly pointed out "But I didn't break anything during my tantrum. I tried really hard not to break anything." He clearly wanted a pat on the back, which Sarah had to give him because my shin still hurt too much for me to feel charitable. We suggested that maybe now that he's had a tantrum that didn't involve breaking furniture or lamps, we could try stopping hurting people during tantrums.

That basically encapsulates how things are right now. Tantrums are still intense and violent, but progress is being made with the help of a wonderful behavioral therapist. We have adopted a zero tolerance policy towards whining, which is helping us get him to use his words (and a non-whiny tone of voice) to ask for what he wants and teaching him that when he asks nicely, he often gets what he desires. We have been much more "tough love" (not in a mean way, but in a boundary-setting way where we don't give him attention if he's doing undesirable behaviors and we don't try to over-explain why we're saying no when we say no). It seems like a little progress may be happening. Then again maybe I'm being overly optimistic because he's only been home for a few days so I'm not exhausted from his constant tantrums yet.

In which I become a complete hypocrite

We are big on scrapbooking in this family. While Big Guy was in the hospital we printed extra photos of Little Guy and Big Guy that we've taken over the past two months so that we can help Big Guy make a scrapbook of his own when he comes home - Before he went to the hospital we took him to pick out a scrapbook and he picked one that is light pink with roses all over it!

I felt a little uncomfortable. A small, hypocritical part of me wanted to steer him towards something less girly. I thought to myself: What will mom think? What will other people think? What does this mean? And then I realized how ridiculous I was being. Who am I to be the gender police, after all? I'm a tomboyish, queer woman who likes boy things much more than girl things (generally speaking). Though I follow a religion that is highly binary in terms of gender, and I'm comfortable with that for the most part, I do not believe in overly enforcing gender roles in young children. Yet maybe it's partly because I'm gay that I feared him buying the pink flowery scrapbook. Same-sex parents are under much more scrutiny in terms of our childrens' "gender performance." If your boy is too girly, it's probably because you're a "man-hating lesbian" or you're trying to "turn him gay." If your girl is too boyish, it's probably because you "hate all things feminine" or she's "confused about gender roles". Much as I know these things to be false (the majority of gender non-conforming children have straight parents, after all) I still fear making Patty uncomfortable, making The Agency question our judgment, etc. 

Ultimately, I said "screw it" (in my head, that is) and chose to not care. Big Guy needs to feel proud of his things, to feel ownership, to express himself creatively. If a tacky rose-covered scrapbook is going to help him with this, then more power to him. When he was first with us he asked us, "Can I take dance classes? And would they let me wear purple lipstick there?" One of the things I've missed most while he's been in the hospital is all the ways he makes me laugh.

By the way, I printed some extra photos for Patty but now I'm actually thinking I'd like to just print out one of those photo books they sell at W@lgreens and Sn@pfish and the like, when I see a coupon for one again.

My baby's coming home!

Hoo-boy. I haven't been updating because life events have felt so overwhelming and huge and I've needed a break from being submerged in Emergency Management Parenting (I should trademark that) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week... a break I've had because Big Guy's been in the hospital. That hospital stay they said would probably be 3 days? Well, it turned into 2 weeks. Baruch HaShem, he's coming home tomorrow. I think they probably kept him there longer than they needed to, but ultimately I think he did really well there and the psychiatrist and other staff seemed really good. He's had a med adjustment and everyone feels he's ready to come home. I'm finding that I'm nervous about him coming home - Will he be angry with us? Will his behavior revert? Will the bonding that was happening before he left be erased and we have to start from scratch? But we've stayed a very active presence in his life, visiting whenever we can, talking to him about what fun things we want to do with him when he comes home, telling him how much we miss him and trying to get him to acknowledge the behaviors that led to his hospitalization since he still seems to be in denial about them. We've done everything we could to reassure him that hospitalization wasn't a punishment for bad behavior, and that we were eager to have him home with us again.

I've missed Big Guy so much and I'm glad he's coming home despite a little bit of fear. The plan is to pick him up tomorrow evening and then take him out to dinner, then come home and do the bed routine. We'll see how that works. Often he does better in environments that are not our home, so going out to dinner seems like a good way to ease him into being with us and being out of the hospital. Friday we're going to the beach with my sister, her girlfriend, and my parents. I'm really looking forward to that. I tend to hesitate to tell Big Guy what we're doing the next day in case he a) sabotages it purposely or b) unintentionally acts out to an extent where we can't take him to do that particular activity. So most plans remain a surprise until the last minute. However, I think tomorrow night I'll let him know we're going to the beach Friday because he's been looking forward to it all summer. He's never been to the beach! Besides, it's not a "privilege" that I would take away from him - It's something we've already planned to do, and he behaves really well around my parents, who he adores. So (famous last words) I can't imagine anything happening that would get in the way of us going. 

Things we've done while Big Guy has been gone:

• Scrapbooked all day with Sarah - What a gift! I thought I'd never scrapbook again after the insanity of the last 2 months
• Taken a late-night trip to the huge WalMart that recently opened near us (I hate WalMart as a company and dislike giving them my money, but being broke will make you do crazy things sometimes)
• Cooked tasty food from scratch
• Slept late... sometimes very late
• Gone pee without worrying about closing the bathroom door at night - Funny how one notices the littlest things!
• Went through the house getting rid of books and other stuff in order to make the house look neater and to make more room for Big Guy's toys
• Lots of cleaning
• Paid a lot of bills and done a lot of paperwork that I wasn't getting done when Big Guy was home
• Did a lot more work (for pay) than I got done during the entire rest of the summer
• Bought Big Guy some cute clothes for school
• Slept in some more
• Did those things that couples struggle to find time to do when there's high-intensity kids around
• Got taken out on a really lovely date for my birthday

Big Mama & Fat Mama

Remember this post about how Big Guy couldn't decide what to call us? Well, I just remembered I hadn't shared here about his most recent idea of what to call us. A few days before he went to the hospital, he asked me, completely seriously... "Can I call you Big Mama and Fat Mama?" He wasn't joking, nor was he attempting to be offensive. I burst out laughing. No, honey, you cannot call us Big Mama & Fat Mama.

I asked him which one of us would be which, but he couldn't decide. And I'll readily admit, after all, we are both big and fat.

One of Big Guy's biggest obsessions when he was first with us was talking about how we were fat. We taught him the word chubby, which he didn't know (he's 9 but has a very limited vocabulary for a child of his age and intelligence level). We tried to teach him that fat is not a bad word, just like gay (another word he used as a pejorative) is not a bad word. It's just an observation, and though we shouldn't tell someone they're fat because it might hurt their feelings, it's not really an insult. We made it clear it doesn't hurt our feelings and that we're comfortable talking about the fact that we're fat and he's skinny, which is a topic of serious fascination to him. He loves science so we've talked about what calories are, why peoples' bodies are different, etc. Sometimes it's just as simple as saying "G-d makes people with all different kinds of bodies, isn't that cool?" Other times he wants a science-based explanation of why he's not fat. Good thing I'm in the healthcare field!

Signing off,

Big Fat Mama

This love.

The love I have for this boy is so overwhelming sometimes. We've been bringing Big Guy food from (blech) McD*nald's or B*rger King when we visit. He knows that we don't eat at McD*nalds or B*rger King because we keep kosher, and we don't take him there. We take him to a kosher fast food place sometimes, and we have our relatives and his mentor take him to eat non-kosher fast food now and then. So when I brought him a Kids' Me@l from BK at the hospital, he was shocked. He said "But you're not allowed to go there!" He was horrified at the thought I had gone there - LOL! I didn't want to tell him I had actually bought the food for him, because I had a feeling that would mean when he got home he'd expect us to take him there. So we told him his grandma and grandpa (Sarah's parents) bought it for him. This made him very happy. He was equally thrilled when I told him his other grandma and grandpa (my parents) missed him a lot. "They miss me a lot?" he repeated, with an eager look in his eyes. "Yes, baby, of course they miss you! They love you!"  He is so impacted by the unrelenting love and positivity he's been getting since moving in with us. His self-esteem is very low and he doesn't really believe he deserves to be loved, but when we deliver a hand-written note from one of our friends or relatives each time we visit, telling him how much they miss him... you can see how happy it makes him. When we tell him how much we love him, or that grandma and grandpa can't wait 'til he comes home so we can go to the beach... his eyes light up. He's just so, so lovable. I pray one day he will know that and feel that.


Yesterday's visit went swimmingly. Big Guy was hilarious, sweet and funny the whole time. He made us laugh so hard with his running commentary while we played cards. We called my dad and he spoke to him for a little while. He let me stroke his back while we talked, whereas last time he wouldn't let us touch him at all. He even let us hug him goodbye, though he was constantly worried someone was looking through the window and would see him hugging us (horrors!)  He seemed happy and calm. It doesn't feel as scary to have him in the hospital now that he's telling us he's happy there, now that I see that he's doing well, now that we've talked to the psychiatrist and feel that he's sensitive and competent. The gut-wrenching fear I had on Thursday night when we brought him to the hospital has been replaced with something calmer and more hopeful. But I miss him. I miss him so much. Who knew that after two months you could be so in love with a child that it hurts to be away from them and all you want is for them to come home, even though the day you brought them to the hospital they'd hit you hard with a wiffle ball bat?

The good bad news

Today's "good bad news":

The psychiatrist finally returned our phone calls. Sarah spoke with him and said he sounds good, was respectful, took our concerns seriously, and said that he is absolutely not discharging Big Guy this week and without any med changes, contrary to what the social worker had told us yesterday. He thinks Big Guy will probably come home towards the end of next week. This makes me really sad because I miss him and don't want him to have to be away from us for that long. But it is also a HUGE relief because the idea of them sending him back home with nothing having changed whatsoever was terrifying, and I couldn't believe they weren't taking seriously our concerns about his depression (which he's not being treated for currently), his dissociation, etc. Sounds like they are now taking those concerns more seriously, and they do indeed plan to start med changes today or tomorrow. Some of what happened yesterday was likely miscommunication - Social workers are often not filled in by psychiatrists on what their plans are. But some of it may also be the additional info we provided the social worker yesterday about the abuse history that Big Guy has been talking about increasingly, the dissociative-seeming episodes he has after some of his meltdowns, etc.


I'm sad Big Guy will be in the hospital for so long, but I'm glad there's some hope that some change can happen while he's there. In particular, they'll have time to see if med changes make any difference for him. Explaining to him each time we visit why he's not home yet despite his good behavior is going to be hard.