One must ponder. Does everyone assume that foster parents have nothing else to do other than work with agencies in the foster system? I mean really, is it a surprise to anyone that foster parents have jobs?
Family visits - 3 times a week - all between the hours of 9-5 and all on weekdays
Sibling visits - 1 time a month - luckily our kids' sister's foster mom is awesome and we do this in the evenings and weekends and nearly every other week
Case worker visits - 1 time a month scheduled and 1 drop in per quarter, preferably during business hours
Medical appointments - okay, yes all parents have to do this during business hours, but it is just part of my list, but really, it takes us twice as long to complete because we have to use the W.I.C. clinic
And now add legal counsel - another appointment that wants to meet during business hours, and by the way, does today work?
Are you kidding me?
I believe from I what I read legal counsel is supposed to be as often as once a month... we have passed our one month mark so maybe he was calling today to cover his own butt. Who in their right mind calls and asks to have an appointment that same day? I have two toddlers. I'm just sitting home twiddling my fingers. In our house we have learned to not only say no to the toddlers, but also the adults. He was quite taken aback and stammered for a minute and said, "well, I'm not available until next week" to which I replied, okay, that works better for me as the kids won't have day care next week. We picked a day, Tuesday, to which he replied, "see you Tuesday"... hold on here buddy... I'm not sitting at home all day Tuesday just waiting for your visit, what time are you coming. Again he seemed surprised. Really, what time are you coming? We settled on 1:30... so next Tuesday at 1:30 my girls will meet their legal counsel.
So that brings me to my original thought... do all these folks assume that foster parents have no jobs? Really, if they wanted us available 24/7 we would be receiving more compensation than $125/week (each child) for all the child's needs. Just this weekend we needed to get two booster seats for them so that we could transport them in both vehicles and that was $80 (I got only what was necessary). Then there are the normal things, food, clothing, diapers, day care... yeap, we pick up part of the day care cost. When it comes down to it, we are spending more than we are compensated, so yes, we work. No, you can not have an appointment today.
Squirrel and I have been so incredibly lucky with our co-workers being supportive, but there is also a limit and we don't want to find where that limit exists. The weekday family visits - our agency now does all the transport and supervision for. Legal counsel - well, we will hopefully get it set that it isn't spur of the moment middle of the day crap. I'm hoping after 4 works because we also have the kids in "school". Lastly our case-worker... I'm not expecting our visits will be more than required and they will be super quick... probably some 4 o'clock visits as she is flying through from one house to another and to and from court.
Yes, If we didn't have to deal with the adults in the system this would be a lot easier.
In other parts of our world...
Sissy pooped in the big girl potty! (man does that girl have the smelliest poo ever)
Sissy and Bug went to their first band concert. They lasted for almost an hour!
The dogs got into the trash (diapers) and shredded them in our room. Just a good reason to finally part with the comforter that was starting to shred.
All in all... a pretty normal day
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