Foster Parents Online

Any foster parent will tell you that planning a meal for a large family can be daunting. We are a family that has a large meal every Sunday, and each week it’s a new ordeal. Lately, we have taken to respite care which means that each weekend we have a new set of kids sitting down to the table, rejoicing in family and enjoying a good meal. Or not.

Last Sunday, we had J and E in addition to our own brood of 6. J is 8, E is 6. I planned a typical Sunday dinner: barbecued chicken, macaroni and cheese, cabbage with corned beef, cornbread, rice, potato salad, and apple pie. After church the meal was started. I cooked while doing laundry, refereeing arguments, dusting, and entertaining family from out of town. I was exhausted by the time the serving platters hit the table and I was none-too-pleased to hear the barrage of “I don’t like” “Please don’t give me” “That’s yucky!” and “Eewwww! WHAT is THAT?!” Most of those pleas came from our weekend guests, J and E, who hadn’t been with us long enough to know or appreciate our etiquette rules of the table. In the end, J ended up with a plate full of potato salad and a tablespoon of everything else (just to try) and E, following suit, feasted on a meal of chicken and rice. Yummy.

Foster parents are in a unique position when the holidays come around. Inevitably, our traditions are pressed on our foster kids as if ours were theirs, our meal tastes and ideas imposed upon them seemingly without thought as to what their preferences or traditions are. I know that in this house, and in the homes of the majority of foster parents I network with, this is just not true.

When a big holiday comes around and we do all that we can to incorporate our new family member’s traditions into our own, but often that proves fruitless as we can not, and often should not attempt to reproduce what the children had at home. Holidays are often difficult for foster children because they may have bad memories or experiences surrounding these days that mean so much to us.

Providing respite care poses a whole new challenge because, of course, it wouldn’t make sense for us to rearrange our whole holiday for people who are only passing through. So what to do? With Thanksgiving only a week away it’s time to start shopping for our meal and planning our spreads. How will you handle the different tastes of Thanksgiving if you provide foster care or respite on this day of Thanks? This foster family shares their experience from last year…what are your ideas for this year?

This summer is flying by - one day I post, the next day I realize that almost a WEEK has gone by since I posted! I do have, however, a good story for you.

The other day my sister-in-law (who will now be referred to as SIL to shorten the typing…which I just lengthened in explaining that…) came down. She’s a frequent visitor to our house. She was looking to get a new tattoo and had me looking up the Dreamworks logo - you know, the one with the moon and the little fisherman on the end of it? She wants that, with the crescent of the moon to be the “d” in the word “Dream”. Then she said she wanted three little stars near the Dream.

“Why three stars?” my husband asked.

“For Babygirl and Toad…” she hesitated… “and for FS.”

For those just tuning in, FS was our first toddler foster son, who lived with us from the middle of January until the end of May. He is now currently very happy in a new home with a school teacher mom, a farmer dad and two doting teenaged foster brothers.

So my SIL wants to get a tattoo of a foster son that we had with us for five months. Now I will NEVER forget any foster children we have, and am keeping a running track on my computer (complete with pics), but this, to me, is going a little far - especially as she is the SIL/Aunt and not the foster mom or dad. I really don’t know how to handle this situation without hurting her.

If she keeps this up, she’ll have a solar system on her legs before we’re done…

Yesterday, a man I’ve never met lost a son that I’d never heard of. He was five years old. Being a mother, I grieve for this man. His site is here. His son’s name is Puppy Monster.

Today, a co-worker/boss of mine suffered a terrible miscarriage.

I donated money in honor of the boy who lost his life, the man who lost his son, and my boss who lost her hope.

If you can afford five dollars, click on the picture above. It will bring you to a website where you can “purchase” a graphic for 5.00. All of the money raised will be going to this man, to show him that there are people out there who still care for strangers. If you do not have 5.00 to spare, please put a post up linking to the site, so that someone else that reads your blog might be able to link to it.

Things have been kinda nutso here this week. My new laptop came in so I’m in the process of moving my husband out of bed and the laptop in! Seriously, it’s nice to be able to be mobile and not tethered to a desk.

It’s actually been pretty quiet lately. No foster calls. This is a GOOD thing - this means that people are taking care of their children, which they should. So here’s an example of how I feel about some of this:

I have a nephew - Scott and I raised him from 16 - 19. If you think it’s easy raising a 16 year old when you’re only 23, think again. Anyway, he has some mental problems and eventually, after we’d helped him to graduate school and get a job and so forth, we all felt that it would be in his best interest to get an apartment. They helped him to get one and he moved out. A few months later we discovered that his girlfriend was pregnant. Oy vey.

My sister-in-law, one of his other aunts, got upset at me one day. “He’s keeping that baby clean and fed!” she yelled.

“Yeah, and he quit his job and has nothing else to do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the baby is being taken care of, but it should not be impressive when someone takes care of their infant - it’s their infant, they have the responsibility to do so.”

Raising children is not a “sometimes” thing - we should not be in such a society where we are impressed when someone actually takes care of their children. That makes me sad.

Recently the search string “foster parenting as a business” brought a few people to this website.

Foster parenting is NOT in any way, shape or form a business.

Most people who get into foster care do so because of how they feel about children. Unfortunately some people believe that they can “work at home” by becoming foster parents.

IF you want to be a foster parent only for the money, don’t do it. A child is not a check in any way, shape or form.

Happy Father’s Day to a man who isn’t just a father to our two biological children, but a father to whom ever may come through our doors.

It takes a special man to be that type of a father.

My mother says this constantly, and it annoys me to no end.

“Randi - I’ve got too much on my plate right now. I can’t handle anything else.”

This is her excuse for everything. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my mother with every breath in my body. I simply don’t understand how she has so much on her plate that she can’t spend more time with us and with her grandchildren. I told her the other day that I am now the treasurer for the Parent’s Club for my son’s school.

“Don’t you have enough to do?”

Let’s see, I work from home, I take care of my two children, and I do the day-to-day things that everyone else has to do. No, I don’t think I’m adding too much to my schedule.

She tends to stress out about things that she really doesn’t need to, such as getting the garden weeded or painting the front steps. So you’re a day late getting the weeds out of your garden - so what? You need to strike a balance between enjoying life and fulfilling your obligations.

This is something that all foster parents, and regular parents for that matter, have to do. You have to find a way to balance everything, which can’t be easy. Don’t feel bad to let your hair down for a night and plop in front of the TV with the kids watching movies with McDonalds for supper and ice cream for dessert - sometimes we all need to relax, and how much nicer when you can relax with your kids?

We had a call yesterday for a 17 year old girl - according to her case manager, she’s a habitual liar.

Ummmm…no.

I say this for a reason. If we were to take her in and I had to leave for the evening, for whatever reason, she could say that Scott molested her, and our own children would be taken away while we waited for a formal investigation.

Helping children is great - including your own. Sometimes you have to say “no” in order to protect your kids. Your kids come first, or else you could end up having them be in foster care.

Sorry - I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with my new internet provider - see - we live in a small town and our only option was satellite. Now I’m discovering that if you’re looking at YouTube videos, its considered downloading. Once you download 200 MB worth of stuff (which you can get to quickly), you get substandard dial-up speeds.

Does anyone have any power over ComCast or Verizon because I’d REALLY like them here right now….

I’ve decided to start a little thing called “YouTubeFriday” - there are tons of great You Tube videos about foster parents and foster children. Here’s the first one - it’s about a gentleman that wants our opinion about whether or not he should be a single foster parent.

My opinion? I’ve said before that single foster parenting is DEFINITELY possible - but you have to be a very strong person in order to accomplish it. Foster children come with baggage, and single parenting even your OWN children can be difficult. What do you think?

I don’t think I’ve mentioned before, but my mother works at a school for…challanging…children. By this I mean she works at a school that is funded by the state for children who have behavioral issues. A lot of times these kids are not that bad - they just are in a school where the teachers are overworked and do not want to deal with any difficulties.

This school uses a type of “respite”. Whenever a child acts up to the point that they have to be asked to leave school, a person comes, picks them up, and takes them away until school ends, when they bring them back to greet the bus.

It looks like I am going to be one of the respite providers.

We’ve discussed it for a long time, but they already had 2 homes and really didn’t need a third. As it turns out, one of the homes is full up with children and the other has a sex offender living in it, so they are not a viable option. We are! I am kind of excited about this as it’s something I haven’t done before - and at the same time I’m a bit nervous because - well - it’s something I haven’t done before.

Knowing that I could have a child come into my home that is a bit wild is intimidating. But I truly believe that all children are good children, and that you can bring the good out of them with the right work and incentives.

An interesting thing to note - not that it has anything to do with the discussion, but almost all of the children at the school are male - why is that, I wonder?

A lot of people are wondering what respite is.

Respite is a babysitter for a foster parent. There’s a bit more to it, such as licensing, ect - but in a nutshell, that’s what respite is.

I am not a huge fan of respite. I prefer to have the kids I am taking care of be watched by the same people that watch my own children. I can, however, see the benefits and have no problem BEING a respite provider when necessary.

We got a call last week about a possibly monthly respite situation for a teenager. I gave the go-ahead but haven’t heard anything more from the foster parents. This happens sometimes. Parents think that they want a break and call for respite only to re-think the situation and change their minds afterwards.

Respite can be a great way for new people to get into foster parenting. If you’re not sure whether you’d like to foster parent or not, contact your local DCF office about respite - they can give you any information you may need and it gives YOU a chance to get a feel for foster parenting.

I am so sorry that I haven’t been here in a week - things have been nuts. My job has been nuts, my kids and family has been nuts - argh LOL. Summer is definitely upon us.

Toad has one more week of school (because up in VT we like to torture our children by making them attend school longer than any other state in the US) and he’s SUPER.EXCITED for school to end. That may have SOMETHING to do with the promised Friday Night Partay, but probably not. We told Toad that on Friday night, because he’s had such a good first year of school, we’d rent a game and let him stay up really, really late. I’m guessing he’s down for the count before 10 p.m. And I promised to buy that spray cheese in a can - because I’m wild and crazy like dat.

Living in a small community can be difficult when you’re a foster parent. We saw FS’s therapist at the Memorial day parade last week. She said that FS was doing great - but biomom was having issues.

“They had nothing to do with FS. I looked at her and said, ‘get over it’.”

The hard part is that sometimes there’s only so much you can do to help somebody before they have to help themselves. In our part, I know we made the best decision for FS. He is loving his new foster home and they are absolutely insane about him. And now we wait for the next call…

I recieved this in an e-mail from FS’s new foster mom yesterday evening.

FS is doing wonderfully! We have all fallen in love with him. He’s adjusting quickly to his schedule with us. I am really hoping that he’ll be with us forever. He’s a perfect fit in our family. My children love having him in the house and he loves being with them as well. He has brought new life into our home. I must admit that I love watching my own children play with him almost as much as I enjoy playing with him myself. He is such a happy, little boy and he’s bringing great joy to all of us. My mom and dad are visiting tomorrow and they, too, are so excited about meeting him.

Thanks for your advice and especially for being there for FS when he needed you the most.

For anybody who ever wondered why a foster parent does it? The answer is right there.

Sorry it’s been a few days - Babygirl, Toad, Scott and I have been getting into a new routine since FS left our home. I had a really, really rough night on Thursday night, worrying that FS was really upset. After I wrote the post I went to Scott bawling. It was definitely tough.

Yesteday, though, I heard from his Infant/Toddler teacher. She had gone out to the new home and wanted me to know how he was doing.

“He’s got his own room, and he’s psyched about it. It’s decorated perfectly for a little boy. He’s got his own toys, and the new foster mom says that just when she starts to get tired, her older sons (they’re 12 and 14) come home and start to play with FS, so he’s always got someone willing to play with him.”

This lightened my load considerably and reminded me WHY I do this - to help children find their forever families. Looks like FS has just found his.

It doesn’t mean, though, that we will be out of his life forever - and the saga with his biomom and the new foster family is just beginning. But now I can rest easy knowing that he’s safe, he’s secure, and he’s loved the way he needs to be.

Foster Care, FS, Foster Mother, Biological Mom