So... on to what has been happening since our post a week and a half ago.
12 weeks passed since the girls have arrived. The 29th of this month is exactly 3 months.
4 weeks have passed since the girls saw their bioparents.
3 weeks have passed since our last court date in which the bioparents were told they had to take care of their headlice issue and visits were suspended.
These have been some nice quiet 4 weeks. Without the bioparent visits we have seen so little regression it is fantastic. Every week though the reality sets in deeper and deeper that even though reunification is a goal in fostering it looks like our girls are more likely to stay with us. Either that or we will have so much time with them that it will be super hard to let go... each week we grow tighter and tighter. Here are some stats on foster care (2013) https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/foster.pdf . Notice that there are nearly half a million children in care and just over half go back to their bioparents. Squirrel and I have had that conversation. A few weeks ago we were unsure, but after these last uninterruped 4 weeks we cannot see disrupting the girls lives and sending them to another home if their bios don't make the changes necessary.
For a recap of the past week and a half...
Friday, August 14 - That morning I learned that you do not leave facepaint on overnight... even if it is "washable" as Sissy was sporting some pink "eyeshadow" for a few days. We did our traditional dinner out for Mexican. Afterward we walked around the artwalk downtown. The girls did extremely well for their first time in a gallery, however, now that they know that there are cookies there we will never be able to pass up the gallery during art walk again. During our walk we went by what may be Sissy's favorite artist. He does spray paint planets. Sissy just dropped right down next to him and watched him do an entire piece. We will have to swing by during next month's walk and secretly buy her one for her birthday in October. After that we were risking it with a storm so we quickly returned to our car and made it just in time. We did get drenched when going from the car to the house however. Bug was also extremely upset when I went back outside to move the car forward and put the truck in the driveway (we don't risk leaving it under our roadside tree). Since it was still early we then were a little risky and pulled out some legos! It went well for about half an hour, but then we had to put them away when Sissy pooped her pants. We have certain things that are only for "big girls" and we loose those priveliges when we blatently have issues.
Saturday, August 15 - Up early we decided to run off some energy and go to the Children's Museum. Last time we visited we got the family pass and the girls were too manic to stay more than 45 minutes... this time we stayed for two hours! It was also nice to allow the girls to play dress up at all the stations and not worry about infecting other children with our creepy crawlies. Later that evening we risked it and went to see The Cat in The Hat at the local theatre. We prepped by reading the book for several days. This was a huge risk considering they are only 2 and 3 and we spent a quarter of our week's allowance from the state on just this show. We allowed the girls to dress up and off we went. The wait to go in was difficult as was the wait for the show. We luckily had second row seats since I bought the tickets as soon as I thought the girls would be able to handle it. The girls did really well. There was laughter, there was rapt attention... there was extreme fear when the lights went all the way down. Seriously? Who turns ALL the lights down at a show designed for children? If I would have expected this at all we would have had glow sticks or something to have ready. We recovered, we did well for the show, and now we are battling the girls wanting to stand on a ball like The Cat. |
| A few days after the show it was raining so Sissy (unprompted) was pretending she was Sally and even saying some of the lines she had memorized. |
Monday, August 17 -
Tuesday, August 18 - Another major milestone. Sissy went to the dentist! What a champ. We chose to take her to our dentist, even though we could have gone with a pediatric dentist. With all the running we have to do we just need a few things to line up with our normal life. Everything seems to turn out in the end, and our hygenist happens to specialize in pediatric. Sissy sat in my lap for her exam and not once flinched, wasn't scared of a thing, and has no dental issues.
Wednesday, August 19 - We have been tossed back and forth between our agencies two caseworkers and this was the first time our current one has been to our house. Even though we seemed to prefer our other one this visit has been one of our more favorable visits. It is hard to meet and talk about the girls in code so they don't get completely what is going on (a bonus as if we had older kids we would have to share with them), but we were able to get some very important things done. Paperwork for DHS Childcare Reimbursement (even the CW didn't know where it goes, but she is going to figure it out for us), Clothing Inventory (we didn't know we don't get our clothing allowance without our inventory until I read the manual), Dental forms and a quick walk through the house. This was also the first time our CW met our girls. Now she understands why we show up in court. We have been pushing for some time for testing for Fetal Alcohol for Sissy. The previous CW didn't really give us a concrete answer, or even a weak one, she just avoided answering. When we mentioned it to the new CW she took a really good look at Sissy (who was at the table coloring) and nodded. She sees it too. Her challenge is that biomom has to give permission for the testing (seriously, we need her permission to see if she willingly, permanently injured her child). Fortunatly we know that the CW for the older siblings is pushing it for their brother and we may be able to tag right on to that request. It was really nice to have some time with the CW, let her meet the girls, hear our concerns and have her answer our questions too. Some things we wanted were: copies of all court documents (our county is so behind she doesn't even have the copies), info on the next court date (she doesn't have that yet either and it should be in 60 more days), and an update on the bios. The bios... well, they aren't responding to any calls. They have been non-responsive since court.
Thursday, August 20 - As if a Case Worker visit isn't enough excitement for the girls in one week, let's have our licensing visit too! This was mostly for Squirrel and I. Every quarter we have a licensing visit and this one is the most formal since our license is new. Probably probational even. We were able to give some good feedback on our process (not very smooth) and even give some hints for better training. Our biggest thing was that new foster parents need guidance through all the paperwork and people they would be working with. All of our training was focused on the mental health of the children. Not once was there even a checklist of offices that you would be having to work with when you get kids. Even a checklist of things to do your first week would have been appreciated. Next up is our training on October 10th and we can move on to our full license in November (which doesn't mean anything new, just a more formal status)
Friday, August 21 - We made it to 12 official weeks. The passing of a week's milestone really makes me sick about their bioparents. If these kids were my biokids and I had to work to get them back I would do everything I could. I just don't think they are doing much of anything. Really, if the biomom was really going to AA I couldn't imagine her sponsor would just let her ignore the case workers calling her. The services the bioparents need would all be pushing them to maintain contact with the case workers and take steps, even little ones, at getting their kids back. We did our traditional Friday event. We went to Mexican. Our 12th Friday in a row. Most times in the same booth. Soft taco, chicken burrito, rice, beans and a lot of chips and salsa for the girls. This Friday we did delay a bit and we took the girls to watch a very special race to us. We all went and cheered on the Special Olympians in their annual races. I was afraid the girls wouldn't understand that it wasn't for them to run, but somehow they understood and they enjoyed cheering.
Saturday, August 22 - Every year we run our local road race. Ten miles in August. This year we were really worried that it wouldn't happen, but our wonderful neighbors took the risk and the girls were able to go to their house for the morning. They are 2 of our 3 certified care givers for the girls, but we really didn't expect two toddlers when we put in for our license and we didn't expect this much chaos so we haven't been able to leave them before. Each week our behavior gets better and better so we and the neighbors took a risk and it was worth it. Sissy behaved wonderfully. A model citizen. She has become like others that are a bit risky at home, but for others they are great. Bug was a bit under the weather so she was super cranky, but did fine. The girls absolutely adore the neighbors so it is an absolute relief to realize we have finally made it to the point where we can leave them with a babysitter. When we got home from our run we hung out for a bit... the girls played in water with the neighbors (they have an almost 2 year old) and had some pizza (I am soooo releaved that they fed all of us). That afternoon we took a nap (some longer than others) and after about a four hour nap we finally had to wake Bug as we had tickets to a minor league baseball game. Squirrel is a huge fan of baseball and we love the minor league stadium near us. I had hoped when we bought our tickets that her family would jump on board as we try to go each year around Squirrel's birthday, but nobody joined us. We bought the tickets in April when her family was talking about a ball game that weekend and while I would have preferred it in July I went for the August tickets instead. Since we were already in the licensing process I bought four tickets and figured we would use 3 of them and take a guest or 2 plus 2 guests. Never thought we would need all 4. Front row seats. Perfect for the girls. We gave them the two middle seats and they enjoyed the game, their large orange sodas, hotdogs, and after the game fireworks. Sitting in the front row we were also able to call the mascot over to give them high fives. Going into it we expected 5 innings... 6 tops. We made 8 1/2 (arrived in the middle of the first) and still did fireworks? These girls are amazing. At one point I thought we were done though. Sissy was putting something in her pocket so Bug decided that she wanted to as well. Unfortunately Bug's pants didn't have pockets so she just started stripping. That is our Bug. Give her the opportunity and she will remove all clothes.
Sunday, August 23 - Family Visit - It is getting late so I will tell you all about this tomorrow.
Monday, August 24 - rest
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