Tears, tears, and more Tears

Buy stock in Kleenex people....our household is using it up. Partly because the kids are all out of sorts and partly because despite my tutorials on how to blow your nose more than once per tissue, it has fallen on deaf ears....

I can't figure out if it's the start of the school year, the one month mark of saying goodbye to their bio parents or something else.

But the crying about everything is getting old...fast.

Did you do your homework?

Tears.

Did you feed the dog?

Tears.

Why is the backpack on the floor?

Tears.

What shoes do you have on? 

Tears.

Oh.my.word.

A reader on Facebook asked how the kids were adjusting. 

I think ok- except the tears. Could be that they are letting some of the walls come down and they are letting us in more. I know the therapists would tell us tears are a sign of attachment. 

But it sucks. 

Everyone seems to like their teachers. The school social worker has been in touch about Sarah's 504 Plan. We've hit curriculum night for the 3rd and 5th grader and next week is curriculum night at the Primary School. (Our schools are k-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9&10, 11&12.) 

Most importantly the kids are talking about making friends. This makes me incredibly happy. 

Holy Meltdown Batman!

We came home from curriculum night to a Sarah who could not stop crying. And of course now we were armed with the information that she has a spelling test tomorrow and she has to read 15 minutes everyday and have her assignment book signed.

Bad combination.

The tears were quick. The snot was spraying. Even grandma when trying to say goodbye managed to make her melt down further. (And I'm over here trying eat my salad and through bites of spinach I'm calmly like- she thinks you are making fun of her when the crying got louder and my Mom's face turned worried.)

Hubby was trying to help her but she just kept crying harder but kept trying to do the work. So I called a time out to try and do guided deep breathing with her.

FAIL- because apparently when I say close your eyes and relax your face that means blink your eyes exaggeratedly and scrunch your face. And when I say deep breath in and blow out that means hyper ventilate- but whatevs.

By some miracle I managed to stay calm and keep working with her. Eventually we got the deep breathing and her rational brain back but it took a good 10 minutes and a lesson on how to blow your nose more than once per tissue- but hey I solved the great mystery of why there is never any Kleenex left, so there's that.

I never did find out what the hell happened that made her go off the rails. And we did manage to get back to studying spelling. I normally would have said forget it but it seemed like she was trying to hide the spelling from us and we are working on that issue so I didn't want to give it any power (as in "your reward for hiding your spelling test tomorrow and crying about it is - No more studying!")

3rd grade is tough. Tears on the first full week of school means we get it out of our system now right? Please tell me it's now....

Fictive Kin

Illinois recently passed some legislation that makes expands the definition of "fictive kin". Fictive Kin allows people who are close to a family but not related by blood or marriage to be considered a placement and adoption resource for kids who come into care. A non-relative God-Parent or step-parent are examples of fictive kin. 

The baby sister, Solana, is placed with a friend Sheila named as a "God parent" and is considered fictive kin. She isn't a licensed foster parent but she is in her 40s and has biological children of her own. I have no idea how they met but I looked up an address for her name and she lives very close to Sheila. (And the Alcoholics Anonymous building is at the intersection. You'd think it would be easy for Sheila to get there...)

The legislation also expanded the definition to include adoptive families of siblings. In fact, because siblings are higher in the pecking order we would have standing to adopt before biological family would. No one at the Department thinks that Solana should go back to Sheila but the judge assigned to the case is a wild card and used to be a defense attorney and tends to favor the parents. (Which is the only explanation I can come up with as to why anyone would give her Another chance.)

Truth be told, I'm worried about Solana. Allowing Sheila 2-3 years to work a case plan and then decide to find another permanency goal just seems ridiculous to me. Might as well diagnose the kid with PTSD now to save time. Sheila is doing the same things she did with the kid that caused her to stop making progress. She also had a dirty urinalysis 2 days after Solana was born. She never did the Aa meetings that were part of her case plan before, I highly doubt she'll do it this time. 

We told Caseworker #3 that we would be willing to be the adoptive placement. We also said if the goal changed from Return Home to Pending Termination that we would accept her as a foster care placement since visits would drop down to once a month. Meanwhile, they are trying to get the case combined with my kids' case since that judge has all of the history.

Time will tell. For her sake, I hope that it's not a long drawn out thing.

Name Update

I sound like a gosh darn owl.  I'm asking "who" said this, "who" did what? All.the.time.

Who, who, who.

I don't know a (fill in the original name here).

We keep checking with the kids. They keep telling us there are excited for their new names.  Its just hard to remember. 

Its especially hard to use their new names when speaking about past events.

We will get there. 

Stella and I had a long talk about being able to tell me its sometimes hard for her to remember her name.  She was afraid I would be upset.  I reminded her I understood, I changed my name when I got married.  I had been Foster Mom R Maiden Name for 25 years. 

Then I shared the story about Hubby sending me a postcard from Europe to my Maiden name a few years after we were married.  And Grandma having my Momagenda personalized with my old initials.  The lesson being that name is always apart of us.  We just need to make space for the new one too.

The school was great.  They added their new names to all of their class lists and name plates.

The hardest has been....family.

We got a lot of flack from the grandparents.  Both sets.  My Mom understood more because she hears more about the process and had time to get used to what was happening. My Dad was grumbly because that's how he is about change.

Hubby's parents reacted the most strongly.  Hubby called to tell them about court and the name change and he got a lecture about their names being their names. Then he was told that Sheila was their "real Mom" and we couldn't take that away from them.

Hubby fired back - "Foster Mom R isn't any less real as their birth mother. I'm not any less real than their birth father.  If anything, we are more "real" because we do the every day stuff that makes you a parent."

I can't tell you how proud I was of him for that moment.

Can I just say its August and I'm already dreading the holidays a bit....