Mother May I?

I took a brief break from blogging. The beginning of this year has been busy with life and I didn't have the energy to word vomit all of my feelings. I'm still stuck in a space where I resent trauma and want to pretend we aren't impacted by foster care. But that of course, is not the truth.

I have a bunch of draft blog posts that I started but I'd start to write and just get frustrated. I focused on offering my advice to local support groups and new foster parents instead.  Writing here is often one-sided and I get a high from knowing I helped someone (don't we all?). But hanging out in those public forums, is exhausting as it's a glimpse into the general public and the stunning realization that all kinds of people become foster parents, including those that shouldn't. Do you ever think- Wow that person just wrote that in a public forum, what do they think in the privacy of their own head?

I shared that Sheila took off out of state around Christmas. Well  she is back. And she brought Big Brother to live with her here. And of course now that she is back she wants a visits with Solana and the kids.

I have all kinds of feelings. It ranges from - Oh Hell no, you took off for 3 months not my problem to It's great that my kids could possibly have a relationship with their older brother, that's fantastic. Then it swings back to, oh holy Hell, now we have to decide about a teenage boy with likely the same if not more trauma if/when The Department steps in.

I'm sorry, but this is not a great situation. The Mom who had 5 kids removed from her is all of a sudden healthy enough to parent a teenager who she has barely spent any time with and just moved cross country?

We agreed to a call. And for the first time she violated a boundary I had set and it really ticked me off. Each of the kids take turns speaking with her and Big Brother. We use video chat because it’s easier to keep the kids engaged. The calls are always on speaker and I am always nearby.  In speaking with Sarah, Sheila she said I can’t wait to see you guys! Maybe we can get together this weekend and if not this weekend, next weekend.

She hadn't asked me and we were very clear when the surrender happened that any and all visits were at our discretion. The kids are the ones making plans and me now saying no - make me look the unfair one. I told her very clearly after the call that what she did wasn't okay. And then she started with my favorite response.

"I know but you have to understand....I want.....Big Brother needs....."

Nope. Nope. Nope.

Fast forward to a week later and now she wants another call.  (Because cell phones don't work out of state? Like why all of a sudden? Radio silence for 3 months.) I say she can have a call with Solana because SD said it was fine and its up to him.  And she responded with, well are the other kids going to be there? I was honest. I told her we need to take things slow with Big Brother.  That I was still upset that she violated the boundary. We set up a time for her to call Solana, the same day, 8 hours later.

And then she blew right past the time she was supposed to call, by an hour. I had rearranged my schedule to be home for the call.  Solana was asleep.  And when I told her I wasn't going to re-schedule, that she would see the kids 3 days later at a school function, she told me I was unfair, mean, using her kids against her, judging, making up the rules as I went along, and uncaring.

I said none of those things.  And I've always been really clear that I will re-schedule a missed call if she tells me before the call that she can't make it. If you are a long time reader, you may remember posts on missed calls. Here. Here. Here. Here. She gave me the same story about how her anxiety is so bad that she loses track of time and even forgets to eat.  I reiterated that she needs to be on-time for calls and if she can't be, then she shouldn't schedule them.  I also reminded her that I don't have to supervise anything.  That I do it as a favor, as visitation is at SD's discretion with no set frequency, minimum amount of time, or required calls.

I did offer to meet with her therapist to discuss this incident. To explain how her inability to consistently show up and on-time affects the kids.  But let's be serious, while she says she's seeing a therapist and taking her medication, if she took off out of state for 3 months, she likely wasn't being treated during that time. (Its highly unlikely she arranged care out of state as she didn't even bring her ID with her.)

So of course she was late a nearly missed the beginning of the school function. But the visit went fine. It was awkward with Big Brother because he is a teenager and doesn't know these kids. But everyone survived. She was cool towards me, but that was okay also because I didn't particularly care.  I am worried she is on a downward spiral and what that means for Big Brother but I can't borrow trouble.

It will be interesting to see what happens this week as we have a birthday and Mother's Day.  We've already seen the write-up for bad behavior from school from Smiley and I'm trying to decide if I wan't to attempt breakfast on Sunday or find an excuse to leave the house by myself.

I Should Have Shut My Mouth

So as I was typing: "So far the summer has been fairly quiet in terms of trauma related issues, and foster care." I actually thought to myself, don't type that. The moment you type that, the Universe is going to send some your way. And sure enough, it did. Ugh.

Shortly after I wrote the July update post, I found out that the kids' older brother was coming to visit Shiela. The kids hadn't seen him in at least 5 years. They literally got on a bus and never saw him again. Smiley was around the age of 3. Simon, who was the only one that had lived with his brothers was 4. He remembers his brothers and has talked the most about missing them in the past. When Solana was returning home, this was a big part of the grief and fear he felt. 

About a week after I found out Big Brother was coming to visit, Sheila sent me a message and asked if we could have a visit with Big Brother and the kids. 

Since we had been helping Solana's Dad "SD" out with childcare, I offered to supervise some visits for Sheila and Solana.  I didn't want any family court drama aimed at SD for lack of visitation since he was being so generous with her spending time with her siblings. This came with a predictable amount of frustration. Lack of planning, cancelling, inconvenient visit times. There was even a message exchange where she was trying to draw me in to the trash talking. So I was slightly nervous about a visit with Big Brother because if it fell through, the kids would be crushed.

There was also a fair amount of worry about how long Big Brother was staying.  Was it 2 weeks, a month? Forever? Was I going to get a call because something happened and now The Department was involved? Could we take on a 14 year old if we had to? How did Big Brother feel about a visit? Was he supportive of the adoption? Jealous? Did he have enough emotional support for reuniting with his siblings? 

Hubby and I also felt we needed to prepare the kids for such a big visit so it wasn't as if we could tell them on the way to the visit. we met with our amazing therapist and came up with a "talk track" and canned answers to anticipated questions.  

The kids were excited and very nervous.  Mostly, they were nervous about what to say to Big Brother. We came up with a list of questions of things they wanted to know about him and decided on the zoo as the best place for a visit.  Thank you to everyone who gave us suggestions! They were helpful for planning this visit and future ones!

What was interesting was that they seemed very indifferent to Sheila.  It was a "I could take her or leave her" vibe.  We've seen her more than I expected we would but it is mainly because of Solana.  I think this is fine, but I also try to be cautious as some of the conversations her and I have had were very reminiscent of "your just their foster parent".  It's so hard to know what the right balance is.

Overall, the visit went well.  We spent a good part of the day at the zoo.  We sought shelter during a rain storm and played Heads Up on my phone.  Ice Cream and Sarah broke the ice.  Simon struggled and I don't think he ever worked up the nerve to say more than a few words to Big Brother.  At one point I confided in Big Brother that Simon really wanted to talk with him but was so nervous and had no idea what to say.  And Big Brother replied that he felt the same way.  It was sweet and heartbreaking at the same time. We ended up having dinner together and I was able to exchange phone numbers with him so hopefully the kids will be able to chat and keep in touch.  There were a few mannerisms he and Simon shared and him and Sarah have the same sense of humor. I'm glad we had the opportunity to see him and I am appreciative that Sheila gave us the opportunity.

She Never Cried

Sheila called to wish Sarah Happy Birthday and she shared a story with her that as a baby she never cried. Not when she was hungry, not when she was tired, never. She never cried.

A little later Sarah said to me:

"Mom, my Mom said I never cried. I don't really believe that. That can't be true can it? Don't all babies cry sometimes?"

Oh my sweet girl. The red flag went up for her too. As I listened to Sheila share this story fondly, I felt sad. That was a sign of her RAD. That was because she couldn't count on adults. That was because she cried and no one came so she learned not to cry.

"It doesn't sound right to you, does it?"

"No."

"I know your Mom shared that story because she thinks it's cute you never cried. It made me sad. You are right babies cry so adults take care of them. You know how you had a lot of different adults that were supposed to take care of you as a baby?"

"Yeah, like 10 foster parents."

"Well I think maybe they didn't take care of you like they were supposed to and so crying didn't get their attention. I think it's  connected to your big feelings. You didn't cry because you weren't being taken care of and that makes me sad."

"So why did my Mom make it seem like a happy story?"

"Sweetie, she doesn't know it's not a happy story. She doesn't understand.  It's part of the things she doesn't understand about how to take care of kids the way she needs to."

"I understand now."

How I wish she didn't have to understand anything. However, I'm grateful that we get to hear birth stories and tidbits like the full head of hair she came out with. And I'm pretty proud of my kid for questioning the thing she didn't understand. 

Open Adoption- Visit

I had reached out to Sheila to let her know the adoption would soon be final and to set up a visit so she wouldn't have to ask us. We were a few months away from the year mark of last seeing her and I thought it would be better if she could see all that we are trying to do to keep our children connected to their birth family. She of course put the ball in our court to plan the visit, so we did. 

We picked a garden in her town that the kids enjoying going to. It's the type of place you can only spend a few hours at so there would be a natural break in leaving. It's about an hour away so we also planned on getting lunch at a habachi resturant we really like.

Overall, I think the visit went well. We had prepped the kids at family therapy about things we wouldn't want to discuss (like Solana's permanency) but things that we were sure she'd want to hear about. School, camp, swimming. The kids were really nervous but afterwards they told us it was easier than they expected. Sheila respected our request that she let us parent Solana during the visit and towards the end I asked her if she wanted to hold Solana for a while, which she of course said yes to.

We tried to give her some space with the kids, letting them wander through the paths without us and taking pictures of them together. She also asked me if it was ok if she took their picture and I agreed. I thought is was nice she asked. She brought stuffed animals for the kids and also let each of them pick something out from the gift shop. 

We hadn't really set an end time so when we reached the visitor center we invited her to lunch if she was free. She said she had a prior commitment and we began saying our goodbyes. Then she asked if she could get a picture of us with the kids and I suggested we take one all together. As she hugged the kids she asked if she could hug me as well and thanked me again for letting her have the visit. I told her we would try to do another one before school started. 

I think she did genuinely appreciate the chance to see them. The kids had a hard time conversing with her about anything other than the activity we were doing so there were moments of ackward silence. Sarah was upset about Sheila not coming to lunch. I can't figure out if that's because it felt like rejection to her or if her love language is quality time. Maybe both. Lunch ended up being chaos because the resturant was closed and then other places were busy. So it's better she didn't come with! 

All the kids were happy they saw her. Felt it went better than they expected and we managed to continue on with our day. We even managed to run a few errands with no issues. And dare I say, we've not had any fallout. We've also had a busy week so that probably helped.

Sheila did text to thank me yesterday and also let me know she found lice in Smiley's hair during the visit. It annoyed me but also exemplified the reason why she can't parent. It didn't dawn on her that I would need to know right away to take care of the problem. (Again.) (I actually researched salons that do the lice treatments and not picking for you last night. Either I missed some nits from the last outbreak or there is someone at camp that still has it. I didn't find many big/live bugs so I suspect this is a new infestation. But it was interesting bonding time for hubby and I as he was "helping" me look through her hair.)