Back to School!

Today is the first day back to school from Spring Break. Can you hear my huge sigh of relief?? Man, it has been a crazy week! We didn't do anything super special, but we got out a bit. Definitely not a vacation week!

We went clothes shopping for Sunshine, Bee, and Bella...this time in a neighboring town with much better shopping options. That was both a fun and crazy experience! It was good family bonding time. Poor Hubby had no idea what he was getting into though. I tried to warn him, but is any man ever really prepared to go shopping with SIX girls and their mother? We had a few rough spots until he came to terms. We did very well staying within budget...he just had a hard time with, well, TIME. I thought we did amazing actually. We covered three clothing stores and the shoe store in under four hours! We found shoes for six pairs of feet in under an hour! Hubby was not impressed. In fact he was very impatient. Apparently I do not take him shopping with our children nearly enough. I have to be fair and add that he did have a good reason to worry about the time as he had to leave for work that evening. He simply failed to factor in the reality of shopping with girls. He is still learning.

We also had a birthday party for our second oldest bio daughter. It was a super fun family tea party with lots of nibbles. The older girls were amazingly helpful getting everything ready. Afterwards my three bio girls left with their paternal grandmother to spend a few days at her house. This has become a family tradition over the last few years and our girls were super excited.

With the younger girls gone the house was a lot quieter over the next few days. Little Mister (our three year old) was delighted to have so much attention! He was much better behaved than normal (methinks he may benefit from more regular one on one time with Mom) and the teens decided they rather like him. It also gave the girls and I time to get to know each other better as well. I am getting very fond of these young ladies!

Saturday we (we = myself, my sister, her two littles, Little Mister, Sunshine, and Bella) went to pick up the little girls and did some yardsale-ing along the way. The pickings were slim though and we only ended up with a few things. We totally wore out Sunshine and Bella. In fact Bella was rather perturbed with us for not heading home sooner. Turns out she was actually getting sick. Later that night she threw up and was pretty miserable. Thankfully it was a fast moving bug and although she stayed home from church Sunday morning, she had rallied by the afternoon.

This morning was the teens first day at their new schools. I took them in to make sure they got their schedules and everything was in order. Bee and Bella were simple to check in. They got their handbooks and schedules, we called my niece up to the office to show them to their classes, and off they went. Easy peasy. The high school was a bit more involved, but thankfully much simpler than expected. We spent about 45 minutes with the guidance counselor getting Sunshine's schedule worked out. We were happy to find out that all her credits are safe and she is only behind by one credit. They gave her a couple courses at the alternative academy on campus where she can work online to complete the classes at her own pace. Those courses will allow her to not only catch up on the one course she is behind in, but also allows her to make up the missing credit she needs if she applies herself. That means next year she will be right on target to graduate with her class in two years. With all the school hopping that happens in foster care that is a BIG THING.

Now I am breathing easier, knowing we are finally going to be able to settle into some kind of an actual routine. The girls will start making friends and will settle in. My kids will settle down and won't have so much emotional turmoil (change makes them very emotional).  I will have a bit of quiet time to recharge. I don't dare hope for smooth sailing, but at least things shouldn't be so chaotic!

Shopping with the girls

After a slow and lazy morning the kids and I embarked on a shopping adventure! Shopping with three teenage girls while keeping track of a 3yr and a 5yr old and fending off the gimmees of my 9 and 10yr old...is exhausting!

To start off we had a couple errands to take care of. We stopped by the vision center to see about getting Bella's (our youngest teen) glasses fixed or replaced. Her frames are cracked above one of the lenses so we need to get them taken care of. Turns out the best option will probably be to get a new pair, but that will depend totally on if CMDP (foster care medical insurance) will cover a new pair. The other option is to possibly get new frames for the same lenses. That will be a long shot and may not work. I will have to visit with their cw about what the options are.

Next stop was the library. I have to say I LOVE how excited these girls were to get library cards and immediately find a book. They all came home with something to read. Even though our library is waaaaaay smaller than what they are used to they were happy to be there and enjoyed checking it out. My kids ran a bit a muck as we got the girls set up, and we had a few whines about just what wii game we were coming home with, but nothing too terrible.

From there we hit the only retail store in town that carries clothing in our price and style range, then  visited a couple thrift stores in search of pants for Bella (She arrived with only two pair). I didn't have super high expectations of finding something that would satisfy the girls, but happily we ended up with two pair while staying well under budget! Turns out that the emergency clothing stipend is only $75! I am just grateful these girls aren't divas who need name brands! We didn't even spend half though, so I promised Bella we would spend the rest the next time we make a trip to our larger neighboring town where shopping is much more plentiful. She was happy with that, and it gives us all something to look forward to.

At that point we all needed a break so we stopped by my mom's house so the girls could visit with my nieces and my little ones could run with their cousins. That is when I got my first lesson in teen parenting.  Bee (our middle teen) left to go hang out with my niece for a bit and my sister asks me "when did you tell her to be home?"...and I realize I didn't. My sister laughed at me. Then she helped me figure a reasonable time and I called my niece and had her relay the curfew. They weren't thrilled to have one, but they were accepting and made sure she was home a few minutes early. How strange it was to start watching the clock 1/2 an hour before that time and to start worrying! That strange balance between trust and fear, letting them make choices but still maintaining authority. Adding CPS to the mix makes it even weirder. I am not sure what the "rules" are for things like hanging out with friends, spending the night, unsupervised activities, etc. I want to just trust my own judgement, but I may have just broke a few without knowing while trying to let her just be a normal teenager. *sigh* I will have to have a chat with my cw before I chat with theirs so we can find the right balance.

After my mom's and before Bee showed back up, we went grocery shopping. We only had half my little ones, so it wasn't quite as crazy as it could have been, and I enjoyed spending the time with Sunshine and Bella. They are some great girls. It was a long list of groceries though and we were all exhausted by the time it was over!

An eventful and enjoyable day. Seven kids wasn't so bad today. I think maybe I can do this.

School Registration

We spent the better part of our afternoon getting the girls registered for school. At least we started the process. Turns out the girls have been out of school for over two weeks (thanks group home) and that is going to cause some major issues for Sunshine, our high schooler. She may lose all her credits from this whole semester. We are hoping the school counselor will be able to help her keep at least some. The two younger girls were easier to enroll and we even got a tour of the school. They were blown away by how small it is. What can I say, we are Small Town USA. Ha ha ha! Their reactions were priceless though. Our school actually still uses CHALK BOARDS for heavens sake! They had never seen one! lol They were funny about it though and still seemed excited to start classes.

I have never seen such "make the best of it" attitudes in teenagers before! I am more and more impressed by these girls. I hope things keep going in such a positive direction (I admit there is a deep down part of me that lives in fear of the stereotypical teen rebellion meltdown) and the girls start to feel at home. They spend a lot of time together in their room with the tv, but I expected that and have actually been surprised at how often one or the other will come out and spend some time with us, and how willing they are to be part of family activities. We are slowly getting to know each other. They have also been very open to meeting other members of our extended family and getting to know and hanging out with our teen relatives.

Our two respite kiddos went home today as well. Boy how that has brought a release of tension! They were good kids, but they were a handful. I am happy to be down to seven! I never thought that sentence would come out of my mouth! ha ha ha!

Welcome to Crazy Town

The teenagers have landed! The girls arrived (not on time) yesterday afternoon. They got here about 3pm, and things have been a crazy hubub ever since. They are super sweet girls and have been wonderful so far! They have been/are going through quite a lot, but their attitudes are remarkable. They are positive and friendly and seem intent on making things work for the best. Having three more bodies in the house has made everything a lot crazier. Mealtimes have been intense. I think things will calm down when our two respite kids go home tomorrow. 

It is amazing how much two little ones can stir things up! I thought having another boy for our son to play with would make things easier...I did not count on the jealousy and competition! Oh my! Big Sis has been a bit of sassy handful up until today. We did a small birthday celebration for her last night and since then she has been a lot less defiant and much more cooperative.

Big changes. Hopefully it won't take long to settle into routines.

Let's try this again...

The case manager for the three teen girls called yesterday as expected, and since we hadn't received another placement we said yes to the placement (again). This time we know an exact time they are supposed to arrive (1pm) and who is bringing them (the first cw we spoke to), so I believe there is a far greater likely hood they will actually arrive. Over the weekend they experienced a great personal and tragic loss, so this is going to be even harder going in than we anticipated, which kind of scares the pants off me. It reinforces their need to be here though. They need to be together, and we are the only home where that is an option right now, so I have to put personal feelings and fears aside for now. There is now also a much greater possibility that if everything goes well this will turn out to be a long term placement. Not sure how I feel about that yet. Hubby thinks it is great and is planning for the long haul already. I think he may be a bit relieved to not be back on diaper duty! hahaha! We just got our youngest potty-trained, and I don't think he is ready to be thrown back into diaper land! I think I would rather be in diaper land than teenager land though. I know diaper land...teenager land is unknown and scary! My sisters with teens are laughing their butts off at me and alternately telling me "you can do this" and sharing horror stories that make me want to run and hide. Sisters are the best. hahaha!
We have a few last minute details to (re)iron out before the girls arrive. We need to run and get a few more new pillows because we used a couple for the respite kids (no kid should have to sleep on someone else's who-knows-what-is-on-it pillow!), and we need to move the little ones (respite) into another room. We put them in the spare room we had prepared for the older girls because after all the shenanigans we really thought we wouldn't end up getting the placement after all. So, I need to clean up our youngest child's room and set it up for a couple extras for the next two days.

It's going to be a crazy day followed by more crazy for the next few days for sure!

???

The girls never showed up. There was apparently a communication gap between their first and second caseworkers. So, we have no idea what is actually going to happen with them. The soonest we will here is Monday. So, maybe they will come, maybe they will not. In the meantime our cw passed on a placement for us thinking we were getting these girls. *sigh* So, we don't know what is going to happen in the next few days. We are getting respite kids this afternoon though, so that will keep us busy this week!

All ready, and waiting!

We got up early this morning to start getting things ready for the girls to arrive, and we have kept busy all day long. Beds had to be rearranged to accommodate three kids rather than two, and the room needed to be changed a bit to make it more teenager appropriate rather than little kid friendly. We bought new pillows and bedding sets last night (because who really wants to sleep on someone elses old drooled on pillow?), and rounded up a corkboard (for pictures and other teenage what not) and a couple mirrors. The room is now all set up, the house is clean, and the kids keep asking "When are they getting here?" We just keep telling them we have no idea. They were supposed to be here around 11:30, but that was a guess based on what their cw said last night. It is a three and 1/2 hour drive from their current location to us, and we have no idea when or if they actually headed our way. Our cw hasn't heard a thing, their cw isn't answering the phone. The weather here has been rainy/snowy all afternoon, so we hope they are safe and just taking their time on the road. A phone call would be nice though.

The Crazy has Started

WoW this week turned into a crazy one. To really get it all in the right order and make it make sense I will break it down into how it happened by day. Otherwise it will get all jumbled and make no sense, because that is what my brain feels like right now!
so...Wednesday:
The day started normal, I talked to my cw and let her know there still hadn't been a phone call. She told me that was very strange as the children's cw had seemed very excited about placing the girls in our home. We talked a bit and decided that she would contact the other cw again, but she would let him know that should another call for a placement come in I would take it.  Turns out the agency policy is "no holding". I guess too many times in the past a family has agreed to take a placement, then not heard from the placing cw for days but still held the spot passing on other placements, only to learn the child/children had been placed somewhere else. SO, they now advise their families to give take any other placements that come along while they are waiting to hear from a caseworker. I was relieved as this gave me a specific game plan and took a lot of guesswork out of the equation.
Then my day went sideways a bit. My preschooler will be starting kindergarten next year, and her headstart had organized a kindergarten preview for around noon on Wednesday. We all met at the elementary school, had a short tour, and then ended up in the kindergarten classrooms to let the kids explore and meet the teachers. Just as we were readying to leave...the school went on lockdown. Scariest. Thing. Ever. In the end the lockdown was precautionary (police action at a nearby home that could have posed a real threat to the kids if things had gone badly) and no one was in real danger. At the moment though, sitting in that room in the dark huddled on the floor with my two smallest, surrounded by kindergarteners, not knowing what was going on outside or where my two other children were inside the school...I was terrified. Up side? Now I know exactly how our school handles a lockdown from the inside. Afterwards I had to calm down my thirdgrader and then leave her with a trusted teacher for the remainder of her lunch time as she didn't feel safe going outside or being alone. I left the school near tears, but I know my daughter and if I had taken her home sending her to school the next day would have been a terrible drama. I went through the rest of the day with heightened feelings. In the evening I got another call. This was another foster parent looking for respite. With a possible impending placement I gave her a maybe, then called my cw again because we still had gotten no call. She advised me to take the respite placement (one to two childeren for 5 days). She said we could also still take the other placement if their cw ever did call. We felt it was unlikely I would end up with all of the kids at once, but she said it wouldn't be against regulations if we did. So I committed to the respite care.

Then Thursday came...
Our dog had been missing since Monday night and we had started to worry. I called animal control. They had found him, but the news was bad. He had been hit by a car and was dead. We picked our older two girls up from school and told them the news, then took them to lunch. We were all broken hearted. Then, around 2pm we finally got the phone call we had been waiting for. The cw wanted to place the girls in our home, and they would be on the way IN THE MORNING. Agh! We kicked into crazy mode and made plans for a run to walmart to get all the last little things we needed to make the girls comfortable. The day left us in a crazy emotional turmoil.

So that brings us to today. My family is waking up and it is time to get busy getting the house in order and organizing the stuff we bought last night. The girls should be arriving around noon today and I want them to feel welcome and comfortable rather than stepping into chaos. We will see how that goes! hahaha! We won't get the respite kids until Sunday, so we will have a couple days to settle in first. Then Monday I get to start dealing with our local high school and junior high getting everyone into their proper classes. I feel like I am about to go on a roller coaster ride...we are locked in and the carriage is picking up speed, about to go up over the first hill!! Wheeeeeee!! It is going to be crazy!!

Caseworker Malfunction

The phone call we were supposed to get today never came...again. Apparently this caseworker is not really very enthusiastic about getting these girls placed in our home. So, everything is still up in the air, for now at least. One more day of just us...and I have to admit I am a little more relieved than disappointed. It just means more time to get it all together before jumping into the chaos. We will see what tomorrow brings.

Nothing is ever what you expected

Our caseworker finally called back. She had been gathering information for us, so while we never did get the call from the other caseworker we now have the information we needed to make a decision. What a hard decision it turned out to be!! Not for the reasons we expected it might be though. Initially we were told the girls were all under 14yrs old. So, in all the scenerios that ran through our heads and filled our discussions we pictured one teenager and a couple girls around our oldest girls ages. NOPE. That is not the case. At all. The girls are ALL teenagers. The oldest is sixteen. Such a different picture!! The rest of the info was all good; teachers rave about them all. Good students. Well adjusted. Not that their history is all peaches and roses (if that was the case they would not be in care at all), but all things considered they seem to be good kids. The huge catch is the idea of taking on THREE teenage girls all at once. I will freely admit that the idea scares the pants off me. While I have some wonderful teenage nieces and nephews I have no practical parenting experience in this area. After lots of prayers and a long phone call with hubby debating pros and cons and weighing feelings and fears we have decided to say yes to a temporary placement. We just cannot let them be separated into shelters when they can be here together. I admit, I have a soft spot for sisters. I was told the goal of their cw is to find a home for them in their home area (we are hours away) where they can all be together, so he will continue to search for a placement for them there. So, unless things go particularly well here the placement should only be for awhile. Of course in CPS terms "awhile" can be anywhere from days to forever. Literally. SO...here is to starting the scariest adventure of my life...jumping feet first into the deep end of parenting teens. Any and all prayers will be tremendously appreciated.

This is just how it goes

The call that was supposed to come today to determine whether or not our big life changing placement was going to happen...never came. Just...didn't happen. Not sure why, not sure what it means. I sent a text to our cw just after noon asking if she knew what was up or when the call might come, but she didn't. She did say she would call the placement line, but then she never got back to me. Now she isn't answering her phone either. I could sit and contemplate all the things the lack of phone call could mean (they found family/another placement, caseworker is busy with another emergency, they don't feel we are a good "fit", etc.), but honestly that won't do much good. This is just how the system works sometimes. Chances are I will get a surprise call after hours or sometime tomorrow asking if we are still interested...or they will wait days to call and tell me they don't need us. *sigh* The joys of a system that fails to appreciate how hard it is to just NOT KNOW. Anything. I don't really need to make plans for the next week or so, right?

Possible placement!

Just got a call tonight from our cw about a possible placement! Not many details yet as they were just calling to see if we were even open to the possibility...of taking 3 kids!!! It is a sibling group of sisters that are currently all in separate homes. The powers that be are really wanting to get them together in one home and our cw thought we might be willing. Without more details all we could say was we would be open to the possibility, but that was all she was looking for tonight. It would mean expanding our license for three instead of two, which she said wouldn't be a problem.  The real question is if we would be able to handle taking on three all at once. That question is really hard to answer without more information than we have right now, so...we will be getting a call from the girls' caseworker on Monday. She will be able to give us more details and answer any questions and we will decide together if it will be a good fit. What a crazy thought though...within a few days our family could go from four to SEVEN kids! Just the idea is a bit overwhelming! We will be doing a lot of discussing and praying tomorrow.

waiting for a call...

This has to be one of the hardest types of "waiting" involved in foster care. Up until now we have been waiting on paperwork, waiting on people, waiting on processing, etc.  Now we are waiting for a placement. Here we are, all ready and waiting and super excited to welcome a child into our home! My kids ask at least once a day when we are going to get foster kids!

Which in all reality means we are waiting for a child to be yanked out of their home and everything they know.  It is impossible to actually want that kind of trauma for a child. On the other side, it is also impossible to want a child to stay in a place where they are being hurt or put in danger. So, you deal with this strange, impossible mix of emotions while you constantly watch your phone both dreading and hoping it will ring.  Hoping to get a call asking you to take a precious little one, dreading the thought of the pain and confusion you will see in the child they bring to your door. Not to mention the upheaval that will come to the entire household when you introduce a new person into the family dynamic, especially one dealing with trauma. This part is HARD! Even if you have a sweet, quiet, well behaved child there will still be very difficult transitions and frustration as you merge into a new type of family.

 When we did this last time, I have to say I was blissfully ignorant and blind to much of the pain of the tiny people we cared for.  Most of our placements were infants and toddlers that we just assumed were little enough and "flexible" enough to not understand what was going on, and we assumed that not understanding meant they weren't traumatized by it. Really?? Naivete at its finest.  (That really was the pinnacle of naivete, because honestly the not understanding has got to be the worst part of all for these little guys!) This time we are going in with a lot better education and a lot more understanding. Which brings the conflict of emotions that currently make my heart jump into my throat or plummet into my stomach every time the phone rings. It takes awhile for my racing heart to calm, and I am sure everyone who calls wonders why I answer their call a bit breathless and somewhat shakily. I have to say the odd combination of disappointment and relief once I see the caller ID has an odd affect on my body, not to mention the surge of adrenaline when I see an unknown number!  (I am not sure yet who exactly will be calling with a placement; our caseworker, the child's, or the "placement coordinator" whose list we were told we would be placed on. Last go round we had placement calls come from any of the above.)

So, we are excited. We are hopeful. I am also scared, worried, and anxious. I also have faith that the Lord called us to foster care and He will be there to help us through all the bumps and bruises that will come with it.