The Wild Animal Park (WAP) is more manageable for us.  It is about 10 minutes from our door, there is rarely any crowds there, and its overall a much more relaxing environment.  Its really spread out so if you want to see everything in a day you do have to do a lot of walking, but you could just go there for a picnic near the animals, or only see half the park in a day.  Its a very pleasant experience.  Since we’ve had the kids, we’ve been more times than when we didn’t have them, and on a day when I only had one child, I have taken them to the WAP had a such a great day with them.  (although I must point out that D is much better company than E is).  I know that we would go more often if the weather would just cool down a little.  But it is kind of hard to walk around with small children through a huge park in 90 degree weather.  And yes, that wasn’t just what it was like a few weeks ago.  That’s what it is like now.  In November.  And yes, you friends with all the rain, that’s right, I am complaining that we’ve still got such hot weather because I’m not really sure I am going to be able to have Thanksgiving with the AC on.  It will just be too depressing.  

Annywaaayss…

So on Tuesday when S didn’t have school (Veteran’s Day), and the kid’s visit with their mom was moved to another day, my day was suddenly empty.  So what did I do?  Filled it.  The weather was supposed to stay cool (as in low 70’s), and my friend Elika who didn’t have to teach that day offered to help me take the three kids to the WAP.  I have never have done it alone with all three, and judging by the way things went even with a great friend and helper such as Elika, I’m not sure I ever will.  Not that they were terrible, it’s just a lot of small people to keep track of, especially when we only have one stroller.   And through out the course of the day each child managed to make me turn red with embarrassment in one way or another.

For instance, it is no secret that E has some issues.  We find that she is much easier to handle when we’re at home than out in public, and most of that has to do with time-outs and discipline. With D, and I think with many other children, if you tell him to stop doing something, he might cry a little, but you can also tell him to stop crying and he will.  For E, the more you talk to her and tell her to stop, the more she cries, and once she reaches that line (which really doesn’t take much), the only thing you can do is wait for her to cry it out and compose herself.   For example, at home, if E is misbehaving, we can tell her to stop.  If she doesn’t after like three tries, she goes to time out where she cries and we wait for her to get herself under control.  It works for us as a family.  However, when in public, we try to limit correction to a minimum, but if we have to, or if she just isn’t getting her way, or if she gets overwhelmed, or if she is frustrated by life in general, she’ll burst into tears and there is nothing we can do to console her, nor do we really want to try since that would be catering to bad behavior.  So, we try to find a place to take her away from the situation so we can let her cry it out, preferably outside, but people still give us the evil eye that we are letting some sweet little girl cry like that, or that we are terrible parents for having such a disruptive daughter, or, my favorite, they try to comfort her.  One lady even stood there playing peek-a-boo with her and then offered her a cookie!  I was sooo annoyed.  But we have learned not to be so embarrassed because we know what’s going on, and we don’t need to impress any one else, especially not strangers.  Or so I keep telling myself.  Actually, at home, and especially when the other two are with their mom, E is a delightful, sweet, wonderful girl.  It just feels like some of that gets thrown out the window when we go out in public.  But it’s improving, it really is.     

So, throughout the day at the WAP, E would have little melt-downs.  I was okay with that since I knew we were not the only people there with a crying 2 year old.  But what really got me was when we would let her out of her stroller and she wouldn’t stay with us.  I know that’s only to be expected; combining stubborn 2 year old wills with too much freedom, but at one point when we were telling her to come, she displayed a now rare form of tantrum, plopping herself down…in the mud.  Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.  She had a whole field of dry grass to tantrum in, and she chose the one patch of mud in the whole thing.  Her beautiful white sweater, muddy.  Her cute jeans, muddy.  And we had no choice but to put her back in the stroller, muddy and all.  I know I’m lucky, it could have been worse, but I was still frustrated.   

And then, on our way out, D was holding a stick while he was following us, and when I turned around I saw him pretending to shoot people!  Ah!  I know he’s a boy and it’s his job description to destroy and protect us, but seriously?  I know that I would have been annoyed if a little boy was pretending to shoot me.  And finally, as we were leaving and crossing the street to get to our car, we were all crossing nicely, until I noticed that we were missing one.  I turned around to see sweet little S halting traffic.  She was standing in the middle of the road, the same road that we had had plenty of time to cross, with her hand in the air forcing an SUV to stop moving and wait for her to be done.  And she had no reason to halt traffic, she just felt like making a car stop and wait for her.  I was mortified at the time, although I can kind of chuckle at it now.  Such a princess.  

Well, to be fair, our foster agency did warn us in training that we would be embarrassed more times than we would care to remember.  I don’t think that’s unique to fostering kids, though.  I’m pretty sure that’s just what goes with having kids in general.  And really, I have nothing to complain about, I am well aware of what tame, well behaved kids we have.  Which leads me to another perk of fostering.  If the kids are bad, everyone blames their old life and how hard it must have been for them.  If the kids are improving, or just well behaved, the foster parents get all the credit.  Really it’s a win-win situation for us!  

To set this story up, I must make note that I often, especially during the summer, comment to S how jealous I am of her dark skin and how much I want to look like her (especially when I am sitting out by the pool).  She loooves that I want to look like her, and well, you would too if you saw her.  

This morning, after her breakfast, I was playing with E, you know, flipping and spinning her around, and pretty much doing anything for a giggle.  

After a successful flip, I commented, “Wow, E is really light.”  

S, who was still eating her breakfast in the next room said, “oh, just like you, Mommy.”  

Touched by her flattery, I began to thank her when she continued, “but, you want to have dark skin like me, don’t you!?”  

Hmm, never mind.  

And yes, she’s right.  

And today was no exception.  On our way from the English church to the Spanish church, I knew I was going to need a peppermint mocha, so as we were driving 20 minutes out of the way to the nearest drive thru Starbucks (passing many other regular ones on the way since there was no way I was going to take three kids out of their carseats in the rain and in a crowded Starbucks by myself because that would totally take the treat out of my special treat), this long drive lended itself well for us to start singing all of the fun little Bible songs we all have swirling around in our heads.  One of the kid’s favorites is “What can wash away my sins.”  They like the part that goes, “oooh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snoooowww…” you know, that part.  It’s just really fun to sing at the top of your lungs in the car on the way home from church.  

So, tired of hearing us sing the same thing over and over again, S starts breaking into her own little ditty, to the tune of the aformentioned song.  It started out sweetly, “I love Jeee-sus, he died for meeeee, He loves me, I love him, he will never stop loving me….”  And then things took a turn for the worse,  “He loves us no matter what, I love him sooo muuuch, but he will send you to HELL if you are really baaad”  

I’m pretty sure we’ve already told her about the doctrine of Grace, but I think we may need to review that one a little.  I was laughing too hard at the time to really correct her theology, not to mention that the word hell probably shouldn’t be a fixture in her song writing.  

But now, he’s compiling all of his “fun loot” for the general public to enjoy on his website called “Flootlog” (fun loot blog).  You can click on the link to the right (N’s blog), or you can visit www.flootlog.com  You won’t be disappointed that you visited, and you might even score some fun loot for yourself.  

Things have been slowing down a little around here lately.  Okay, not really, but they are improving.  I am feeling better, although I did pick up some pesky cold that has parked itself in my nose, but other than that we all seem to be on the road to recovery. 

I think one of the things that has been on my mind most lately is the fact that that S and D are so close to going back home.  It is interesting because a few months ago we were still holding on to the dream that they may be adoptable, and that these children just had to be ours.  I guess I had this fear that because S and D are so perfect, so loveable, so attractive, we, and others, would find it hard to love any other child that came into our lives.  I just couldn’t see myself taking in any other children, and if we were able to adopt S and D, we would be able to “quit while we’re ahead” and have had one of the most successful foster/adopt situations out there.  

And then E was placed in our home.  And I really had a hard time with her those first few days.  I mean, I wanted her to go back.  She was difficult, she threw lots of temper tantrums, she didn’t get along with the others, and she really disrupted the perfectly steady routine that we had finally gotten ourselves into.  She was placed in our home on a Thursday night, and that Saturday (after a melt-down)  Nathaniel told me to go out by myself for a few hours.  I spent the time shopping for clothes for E, and buying her a few little things for her bed.  Maybe this is why mothers have that nesting instinct, but it totally changed how I looked at this little, helpless girl living in our home.  She was no longer a nuisance or a stranger, she was one of us, and she needed to be provided for.  I feel a little shallow that I had to go shopping before I could feel connected to her, but something in me needed to make me feel like she was my child, wearing those special outfits that I bought for her, and sleeping in a bed that I had taken the time to make pretty.

 But all of that to say, since being placed in our home, E has continued to bring us more and more joy each day.  Every day I see her smile more, and bond with our family as if she was always one of us.  She prays with us now, she sings “Jesus Loves Me” with the kids, she knows our rules and routines, and she is by far the best cuddler I have ever met.  I, without hesitation, can say that I love this little girl.   She may be more work than S and D combined, but she is my little E, and our home just wouldn’t be the same without her.  

And that has given me more encouragement than I knew I needed.  Just because she isn’t perfectly behaved or as strikingly beautiful as S, or even has as much personality as D, I still love her.  I still want her to be a part of my family.  All of those fears that we would never have as great of a child (or children) are not erased, but the fear that I could love a more difficult child is completely gone.  Not that we won’t have trials in this journey, whether it is with E or with other children, but knowing that our hearts can handle it puts my mind at ease a little.  

So now, for whatever reason, God has given me the grace to let S and D go.  I think the foster care system is set up in such a way that you can’t help but begin to detach when your child starts spending more time during the week with their parents than with you, but there is also something in the very core of my heart that wants to see their mom get her kids back.  I really do.  I’m ready.  She’s done a lot of work to get herself in a good place, the kids adore her, and honestly, it’s just really getting difficult to accommodate so many visits during the week, plus undo some of the bad habits that the kids come back with after overnight visits.  But as exhausting as all of this is, I do appreciate the slow process that the system has for reunification.  I was always the kind of person who takes off the bandaid slowly rather than one painful rip, and that is how I feel right now about this situation.  If without warning the kids were just ripped away from our home, it would feel like a death.  But easing everyone back into this helps us prepare ourselves for the upcoming changes, and gives the mom some good time to prove herself to the state, and gets the kids all confused, but at least it isn’t some kind of traumatic change like the one they’ve already had.  

That’s not to say that I won’t grieve when the kids go home.  That’s gonna hurt like heck.  And I want to emphasize that I don’t love them any less than when I was hoping to adopt these children.  I love them more.  But I feel like it is a love that is willing to let them go, and be happy for them when they get to go back to the life, and mommy, that they love.  Some days my heart aches at the thought of them not being with us anymore.  And other days I wonder if we could just get this show on the road and reunify already.  But every day I am committed to caring for them, and treating them as if they have every benefit and privilege that a Gutierrez child would have.  And the only thing that we can hope for is that at the end of it all we provided a safe, loving home that they may or may not remember, but that when they needed love the most, that is what we gave them, and somehow it will resurface and manifest itself in their life down the road.  

So, that is what has been on my mind lately.  A few weeks from now, I may look back at this post and laugh at its optimism.  Hopefully though, our hearts will continue to love, and even if the kids begin to detach we will be given the grace to treat them like they will be ours forever.  We are likely to spend Christmas without them.  We are actually likely to begin having D for one night a week if the visits continue to increase like they are supposed to within the next two weeks.  But we know that God is sovereign, and no matter what the outcome of this whole journey is, we can honestly say that this is what God had in mind for our family, and there was nothing we could do but obey.  And what a joy it has been so far.  Really, there is nothing more wonderful than a full and lively home.  We are so privileged to be able to do this.  

And we’re gonna try and get as much of this in while we can…

Whew, what a week!

Well, Sunday night (not too long after I wrote my last post) I developed a severe headache that would just not go away.  I tried everything.  Tylenol (but my headache laughed at the medication).  Sleep (but all I could do was lay there imagining that I was floating towards that bright light).  And finally, googling to at least put my mind at ease that it was nothing.  But, and please don’t laugh, everything we researched pointed towards the fact that I may have a brain aneurism, or at least something equally as serious.

So, at midnight, with no one to call for advice, Nathaniel called his dear friend Brian to come over, and without hesitation he was here to watch the kids, and we headed over to our friendly neighborhood ER.  Now, the Escondido ER at midnight is not quite as entertaining as you would imagine, or maybe I was just not in the mood to find humor in anything, but it was mostly filled with scared parents holding their tiny feverish babies.  Oh, and the homeless man, who we were pretty sure put a joint in his mouth before he left.  Gotta hand it to him, gutsy.  It is always interesting to figure out which people are sick and which ones are waiting for a friend or loved one.  And I appreciated the receptionist who tried her best not to offer medical advice to those who came in, even though she really wanted to give it, and the people really wanted to receive some kind of feedback as to what they were feeling.

So, when they finally called my name, I was pretty excited to get out of that room and get myself onto a gurney.  I faintly passed through a hallway of sick people, resisted the urge not to look into the rooms where they were treating a trauma, and pretended not to notice those whose gowns were clearly not done up in the back.  At first, the nurse guessed that it was just a sinus related headache.  But since I described it as an axe going through the top of my head and not coming out, they decided to do a head CT.  When that came back clear, they decided to do a spinal tap.  The doctor said it wouldn’t hurt.  I can still feel the pain in my back sometimes.  That and, let’s just take a moment to reflect on how gross it is that they squeezed spinal juice from my body.  Shiver.

A whole night in the ER later, the doctor came back with the prognosis: I most likely had viral meningitis, but since there was a chance that it could be bacterial, I needed to stay in the hospital until they knew for certain, and get myself all rested up.  For most people, that would be sort of a sad thing to hear, but for me, I practically jumped up and hugged the doctor.  I still felt like death since the pain meds weren’t really working, and all I could visualize was coming home to the messy house with three half-sick kids running around.  This was gonna feel like a spa getaway in comparison.

The first day all I did was sleep.  Nurses came in and out, put things in my arm, did a procedure to get a turbo IV line put in rather than that pesky hand one, and I also discovered that I was on some kind of quarantined contagious status.  I never saw what any of my nurses’ faces looked like.  They always had masks on… and some went a little too far donning an entire trauma/surgical gown whenever they came in the room to see me.  I have always been a little sensitive to people’s reactions around me when I tell them I am sick.  You know the reaction, the one when you tell someone that you are fighting a cold and they physically jump back away from you.  Trust me, I too am guilty of these actions, only I try to think that I am a little more discreet about them.  Like for instance, one time this lady was complaining that she just couldn’t shake the stomach flu she had, and in the next sentence wanted me to take off my necklace so she could look more closely at it (yeah, one of those kinds of people).  I obliged, and then when she returned it to me I went to the bathroom and doused the necklace in as much anti-bacterial product as I could get my hands on.  But see, I would never have done that in front of her, that would be just so rude.

So, as I was saying, I was feeling a little hurt by this treatment.  That is until I realized that this was kind of a blessing in disguise.  I mean, what were those nurses touching and sharing oxygen with all day?  Sick people.  And what didn’t I want to be more exposed to while in the hospital?  Sick people.  So, really, they were doing ME a favor by keeping all of their germy germs away from me, only they thought they were the ones being protected.  Paradox.

All in all, it was a pleasant stay.  I mean, its no secret that the sick part of the hospital is nothing compared to the baby part of the hospital.  And since most of my visitors had only ever been to the baby part of the hospital, they made it very clear that I was at a disadvantage and my room was just not as nice as the other ones they had seen.  Also, I was sort of stuck in this corner room, that if you went to Covenant College, you will understand when I compare it to those small one-man rooms in Carter Hall that are sort of forgotten.  This was further proved when in the course of my stay there they forgot to give me my meal.  Twice.  Once, I kind of understood, but twice?  And they happened to be the meals I was actually kind of looking forward to because I had made some nice selections on the menu.  But, when they forget your meal, you are kind of forced to have whatever is left, which is always the yuckiest of the yucks.  Which brings me to my other question, how hard is it to prepare decent food in bulk?  I’m not asking for steak or expensive meals, but seriously?  Does the fruit really have to taste like formaldehyde?

But the staff was really sweet and caring, I got to watch a LOT of tv, and some really great people came to see me.  I think one of my favorite things was when the nurses would see the kids come in, ask what their ages are, and then watch the wheels in their heads turn when they tried to figure out how we had two-two year olds (who clearly are not twins).  I do enjoy those moments.

I was released yesterday afternoon when they confirmed that it was not bacterial.  The bad news was that there was nothing more they could do for me since the virus just has to run its course, and they sent me home with the same instructions they would have sent me home with if I had a cold.  Nice.

But we’ve had some WONDERFUL support since we’ve been going through this.  First off, my dad flew all the way down here to help Nathaniel with the kids, especially since he had to be a student, daddy, and foster parent with the aforementioned schedule.  He’s been a great help, especially with transportation and watching the kids.  Both of our churches have also stepped up.  Our pastor and his wife have been so supportive and helpful, we are going to have free meals for the next two weeks (yay!), and Nathaniel’s professors have taken such an interest in how they can help and given him so much grace with classes.  Plus all of you who left such encouraging notes that you were praying and wishing me well, it’s really quite overwhelming.  It’s amazing who God uses to build you up when you’re down, and how He brings others around you to lift you up and dust you off - as if he himself was physically doing that.  It is so encouraging to see those who are used to be a blessing to you, even in the most unlikely of places, and this is a week that I’ll look back on not as a week of being sick and miserable, but of being more loved and encouraged than I have ever been.

Alright, so last Sunday night S came to me looking very sad (and kind of dramatic) that she didn’t feel good.  So I sent her to bed, kept her from school the next day, and gave her the royal princess treatment (only not as much as the last time because a. she wasn’t as sick as the last time and b. I was kind of over it — although I did bring her home some flowers, which are still in her room, come to think of it, and probably really wilted.  And if you want to know why I haven’t really been in her room lately, read on)

So, Monday night after her bath, S was still in so much pain from her headache that she was in tears.  So we kept her home another day.  Did you know that a school won’t excuse your child three days in a row without a doctor’s note.  How controlling is that?  But that was fine because by Wednesday, she was ready to go back to the land of germs, from where I am convinced her sickness came from.

I felt like I was pretty careful while taking care of her.  I mean, I was super nurturing with hugs and kisses on the forehead, and maybe I watched a movie with her next to me, but I always washed my hands, I was careful not to get too close, etc, however Tuesday afternoon it started to hit.  It was the worst I have felt in a long long time.  I was bed/couch bound until Thursday morning when I felt well enough to go to her parent/teacher conference, and that night, it struck again with a vengeance.  I think it might have been Friday night that I burst into tears feeling very sorry for myself that I was still so sick.  I mean, we’re talking every part of my body hurting, the chills when my fever was climbing to 103, then the sweats when it was coming down, the head fuzzy-ness, and the aching throat.  I had/have it all.

So, yesterday when the two-year olds started acting all sluggish and grumpy, I knew the inevitable had happened, they had caught it too.  Since I was immune to it by now, and since I figured you can’t already catch what you have, I was extra loving.  Letting them cuddle, giving hugs, etc.  In fact, last night while I was all laid up and watching tv, E came up to me for a cuddle.  She was all snuggly and sweet, curled up into a little ball on my chest and just so content and comforted to be there.  She was feeling yucky, and I was the one she needed.  And just as I was relishing in how wonderful it is to be a parent, she looked at me with her big brown eyes, lifted her head, and deposited her lunch all over my neck and chest.  Twice.  I was paralyzed with grossed-outness.  Nathaniel came to grab her and put her in the bath while I showered (something I knew I needed anyways), and just as we were all settled back into life and thinking maybe something just didn’t agree with her stomach that day, I hear from the living room, “we’ve got number two!”  D had also lost his lunch, while trying to eat his dinner, next to S.  The amazing, and probably too disgusting-to-share- thing is, she was totally unphased by it and continued to eat her dinner while the you-know- what was right next to her (and yet every time Nathaniel makes a fake vomit sound she almost loses it…go figure).

So, now we know that this wasn’t just something they ate, and we are all just waiting for when we get it. Not sure how what I had mutated into this, or maybe its just a cruel joke from the virus fairy, but this is not going to be fun.  I am not joking when I say that the stomach bug was one of my biggest fears about becoming a parent.  You always read those blogs where whole families are hit and when everyone is down and needy, the mom gets hit the hardest, but still has to keep the family functioning.  Help!  I don’t want to get hit.

So, here we are, Sunday morning.  No one really feels like eating because we don’t want to see it again.  No one wants to do anything because we are too tired and achy to do it.  I still feel fuzzy, sore throated, and weak.  The kids still feel blah, and Nathaniel, who has kept this family together like glue, is loaded with so many responsibilities at church that he simply can’t miss it.  Thankfully he hasn’t been hit, yet.  But, let me just give a quick shout out to him for how amazing he has been this week.  Completely putting his needs aside to help me with the kids, transporting them to visits, supervising them, buying groceries, making the meals, bathing, feeding, loving the kids, cleaning up the kitchen until the wee hours of the morning.   Getting up in the night when the kids are scared.  He’s simply amazing.  And he hasn’t grumbled once.  Can you believe that?  I’m a lucky lucky girl.  In fact, when the kids need something now, they call for “daddy,”  that’s how great he’s been.

So, this has been another hard week for the Gutierrez gang.  It’ll pass, right?   I mean, we won’t be sick forever, and come a week from now, I’ll be totally normal, and laughing at this week.  Please tell me I’ll be laughing.  And our house will be clean, and put back together.  And I won’t be on a regular dose of tylenol, and we’ll just be fine.  As a side bonus, I have lost 5 lbs this week.  That oughta’ count for something.  Even if its sick weight, it has to count. So, yeah, homeschooling, where viruses are not spread.  That sounds quite attractive right now.  Of course, we’d probably have to keep the kids out of the nursery at church too, and that just won’t do, so I guess we’ll just suck it up and send her to school on Monday…if she is well enough to go, that is.

So, without further ado, may I present to you the Gutierrez Gang’s Weekly Schedule (not including Nathaniel’s classes)

Sunday:

9:00am - leave for English church

11:30am - leave for Spanish church

2:00pm - drop D off to see his dad (all pick ups, drop offs, and supervised visits are at a “neutral” location)

5:00pm - phone call from S and D’s mom

Monday:

9:00am- take S to weekly support meeting

10:30am - take S to school (that means find parking, take out all three kids, walk to her class, take two kids back, buckle them in the car, and drive home…in the heat)

2:00pm - pick D up from his dad

2:20pm- pick S up from school (same awfulness as dropping S off, only worse ’cause there’s less parking)

5:00pm - phone call from S and D’s mom

Tuesday:

8:30am - weekly visit from social worker

10:30am - take S to school

2:20pm - pick S up from school

4:00pm - take S and D to see their mom

8:00pm - pick S and D up from their mom

Wednesday:

10:30am - take S to school

11:30am - Drop D off to see his dad

11:30-12:30pm - Supervise E’s visit with her mom

2:20pm - pick S up from school

3:30pm - pick D up from his dad

5:00pm - phone call from S and D’s mom

Thursday:

10:00am - take S to school

1:00pm - pick S up from school

5:00pm - phone call from S and D’s mom

Friday:

10:30am - drop off S and D to be with their mom

(nothing the rest of the day, and it’s sooo nice to just spend time with E for the day, even though we miss the other two a lot)

Saturday:

9:30 -10:30am - Supervise E’s visit with her mom

10:30am - pick S and D up from being with their mom

5:00pm - phone call from S and D’s mom

So there’s our week.  That doesn’t include doctor’s visits, school meetings, time with friends, etc.  I stay pretty busy through out the day, and I am really looking forward to when the weather stops being 80+ degrees so that transporting the children back and forth is a little more bearable.  I guess this may not be the best advertisement for foster care, but really, up until this month, our schedule was very laid back and easy.  I think we have a unique situation where S is in half day kindergarten, S and D have different parents who are both getting close to having them back, and we have three kids, which means three sets of bio parents.  Its a little overwhelming, especially as I tend to be a homebody, but it is totally worth it because we LOVE these kids, and we LOVE being foster parents.  Anyways, so if I don’t answer your emails, or I don’t blog too often, now you know why.  I’m probably in the car.

A few minutes later she returned with a small object declaring, “I found this in the fire.”

“The fireplace?  What were you doing in there?”
“Nooo, the FIRE… In my room.”

Her “house” had caught on fire since she’d left the stove on.  Where does she hear these things?  Is Dora teaching her these vital safety rules?

Well, we’re still having a good time with these three little ones.  Everyday E is becoming more and more a part of our family, and more significantly, one of the siblings.  She plays well with the other two, and she is more and more comfortable with both of us and our home.  We’ve tried to settle in to a good routine, but I’m learning that with 3 kids, there is no “set” routine that can happen every day like clockwork.  Some nights I think to myself, “wow, that went well, hope we can copy today again tomorrow.”  And other nights I think, “I’m just so thankful that every day is not the same.”  Also, I’m happy to report that her tempers are going down significantly and she will even catch herself before a tantrum and stop!  There’s still some kinks to work out with her, like when she throws a tantrum in public.  It’s very tempting to look around and point to to her and mouth, “foster kid, not our fault” but we’re supposed to treat her like she’s our own, including taking the blame for her tantrums in front of strangers.  It is interesting learning how to deal with her when she’s like that.  There’s very little we can do except just put her in a different spot to sort of make her feel like she’s in time-out and then just ride it out.  I’ve totally stopped judging the parents of “bad kids” in stores now because, well, I sometimes am one.  I guess you just never know their story.  She’s got a long way to go, but we are very pleased with how far she’s come.  We also met her mom the other day.  I think the saddest thing about this whole story is that her mom was a foster child for 18 years and never lived anywhere for longer than 2 years.  I know the rules have recently changed about how long a mother has to get back her kids, but this is a classic example of when the system can fail a child.  Again, it was like 20 years ago, so things are different now, but it just breaks my heart.  Hopefully E will be rescued from this cycle and either her mom will get it together, or she will be placed in a permanent, loving home (hint, hint).

As for the other two, well, their mom had a trial the other day and she went from having 2 supervised and 2 unsupervised hours a week with her kids to 4 hours a week unsupervised and then another 24 hours on top of that.  It’s a lot of time — 28 unsupervised hours, plus D’s dad got the same amount, so this poor boy is looking at having 56 hours a week with different parents.  We’ll see if that messes with his little head too much.  Hopefully it will be a happy time rather than a hurtful one.  E also has two one hour visits a week that we supervise.  Let’s just say we’re at McDonald’s a lot during the week — mostly dropping off and picking up, but it’s quite a routine.  I feel as exhausted as a mom who has her kids in a whole lot of sports and musical lessons, but really I’m just carting them around to see their parents — weird.

Well, that’s our update in short.   To summarize: three kids, lots of visits, no time to blog, always cleaning up after someone/something.  But I haven’t loved life this much…ever!

Unfortunately, in most cases, you get what you pay for.  

For instance, when I take the kids to the dentist I am often stunned by the conversations that go on in the waiting room.  Although this office serves mostly children, the occasional adult will slip in there, and boy do they have a story to tell.  And they’ll tell it to anyone who’ll listen. And they’ll spare NO details.  And they won’t edit it for little ears nearby.    

So you can imagine my hesitation when it was time to find the kids a decent pediatrician.  Although free, I didn’t want us to walk away from the doctor’s office with more diseases than when we came in.  Not everyone takes mediCal, so my hunt for a decent place was going to be no small feat.  

And then I remembered the newly built children’s medical center right next to our church.  It’s gorgeous, and new, and well, those two things right there qualified at least a phone call.  To my delight they did in fact have a regular doctor’s office that accepted mediCal, and they were an easy office to make an appointment with!  

So, over the course of the last few months we’ve made regular visits to our friendly neighborhood mediCal center.  D’s boil, S’s 5 year check up, D’s 3 year check up, and I think a few other things, but they’ve always been so pleasant, the facilities have been beautiful, and my favorite thing of all, they have separate entrances for sick children and well children.  Better than that, they have completely separate waiting rooms.  No longer to we have to have our perfectly healthy children sit next to the hacking/vomiting child, no longer do we have to sit in chairs that have been sneezed on, and no longer do we have to talk to the receptionist who has just been breathed on by all kinds of germy people.  I can take my well-child and confidently walk in and out of the waiting area and not fear that they will pick up some kind of nasty bug.  I can even let them read the books and play with the toys and not give them an antibacterial hand soap bath on our way out.  It is delightful and fully appreciated.  And much to my shame, I actually snubbed my nose at people who had to use that sick child waiting room.  It was a mixture of feeling kind of sorry for them that they will end up with all kinds of other sicknesses when they go home, and really just very thankful that they were all quarantined to their sickly side of the doctor’s office.  In fact, when someone on the good side coughs or sneezes, everyone in the waiting room glares at them as if they have contaminated us all and we all secretly hope that they’ll get the hint and head on over to the side they really belong to.  

So you can imagine my sadness when I had to open for the first time in my short lived parenthood, the SICK CHILD ENTRANCE!!! 

I cringed as I opened the door, expecting a flood of coughing and sneezing.  I pictured old haggs grabbing for our clothes as we walked by and people lying all over the waiting room just short of dying from the bubonic plague.  I knew I just needed to keep my head down as we booked it to the receptionists’ desk.  But when we walked in, there was no one there.  The only germs flying around that waiting room were ours!  We had the whole place to ourselves.  Of course I wouldn’t let S touch anything, and I was a nervous wreck sitting on the previously contaminated chairs, but overall, it was still as pleasant a waiting room as the other one was, if not more so.  Hmm, so people who walk into the sick child entrance are people too??  

Really, we did have quite the day with little S.  Poor thing.  She woke us up in the middle of the night hysterical with the worst nightmare she could have had (that she was being taken away from our home).  Nathaniel calmed her down and put her back to bed, and a few hours later she was back.  We calmed her down again, this time noticing how warm she felt.  This morning we kept her home from school, stuck a small tv in her room and gave her the princess treatment.  Around noon her fever had gone from 100 to 104, and we got pretty scared. We don’t know much about parenting a sick child, but we do know that high is bad.  So we made an appointment and by the time we got in, I was picturing a dramatic scene when they checked her temp. and was fully expecting them to put her on some serious medication and really let us know how smart it was of us to bring her in when we did.  Of course when they checked her temp it was at 98.  Common’ you’re killing me!   The doctor ran a strep culture and was disappointed when it came back negative.  (was he bored and needed something exciting today, I mean, what!?)  He wrote a list of things we can do to help her virus go away, and at the bottom of the list wrote “TLC.”  Kind of warmed my heart but I was kind of like, “Okay, what do you think we’ve been doing all day?”  

Actually, although he’s an excellent doctor, he is a little off.  For instance, today he gave S a sticker for being so good and she sweetly and politely said “thank you.”  He was very impressed and told her how sweet that was and then looked at me and said, “wasn’t that sweet, MOM??”  as if to say, “why didn’t YOU ooh and awe over this child like I did.”  I smiled and agreed with how sweet she was but inside I was thinking, “okay, she’s like this all the time, and just because I didn’t jump up and down with glee over the fact that she’s being herself doesn’t make me a mean mom.

So, our little patient is okay.  Still sick, but probably more sweet than normal, if that is even possible.  She’s enjoying the extra TLC and lollipops and ice cream we were ordered to give her, and she’s looking forward to another day in bed.  Actually, I think she’s a little bored, but the Cinderella color wonder set we bought her tonight seemed to alleviate some of that.  She is a picture making machine.  

Oh, and for the record, apparently the doctors care more about how your child is acting rather than how high their fever is.  He said he would even be okay with a 105 fever if the child was fairly normal.  Good to know.  Thanks.  Maybe next time we can avoid the sick child entrance and the TLC prescriptions.