Jenn's Zen

The children have been in a stable environment living with their paternal great-aunt. They have been living with her for over a year and it was thought by all that the situation would continue indefinitely as needed. We see the kids when we visit, talk on the phone, they text w/ E, but our involvement in their care has been on the back burner as they have been in predictable, reliable circumstances. Our names are still on reports in the CPS files, the kids know we are here, but it didn’t seem as immanent that we would be raising the children.

That all changed two days ago when the conditions took a turn for the worse. The children were met at school by social workers and taken separately to new foster homes. The girls are at one home and the boy at another. This is the first time in three years that they’ve been separated. Neither are homes they’ve been to before. It is not likely that they will return to their aunt’s home (that of course could change as much as anything thing else). We are not sure if they are being allowed to attend the same school they started in just a month ago. (Side note: I had no idea this was even an issue within the foster system. Not only are children moved from home to home more frequently than any would like, but when they are moved they must go to new schools if they have moved to a different district (neighborhood). Are you kidding me?! Let’s make it absolutely impossible for these kids to get a foundation under them and have a positive predictable school experience.)

Currently their father is not wanting to continue receiving services, which is a sterile way of saying that he doesn’t want to drug test, go to classes or stay out of jail, in an effort to regain custody of his children. There is a court date in early November scheduled to severe his parental rights. Their mother is still in prison and due for release after the first of the year. She has been told that it would be at least a year before the children would be placed with her as social services wants to be sure she can handle the stressors of day to day life in addition to caring for her children. The children do not know this. The children are waiting.

Taking all of the above into consideration the social worker indicated to us last night that they are running out of options and asked would we still be willing to care for the children. YES! of course. And so, we are back in the loop. There will be paperwork to fill out, home visits to plan, court dates to follow. When we pressed the social worker for a time-line in our favor she hesitantly replied, “by the end of the year”. So, we don’t have four kids today. We aren’t buying beds, clothes or sending away for immunization records to register for school. But it is a possibility again. This time it feels like we are more of an option, then again it could just be our hearts pulling for these kids. Our kids.

In the November issue of Bon Appetit there is an article titled Sauer Power written by Molly Wizenberg. The part of the article that caught my eye had nothing at all to do with the actual “plot” of the article. While giving the history necessary for the piece Wizenberg states that her grandparents met in 1943 and two months later they were married.

“They set up house in Baltimore, and over the eight years that followed, they had seven children, including two sets of twins born eleven months apart.”

Are you freakin’ kidding me?! Parenting like this blows my mind. Can you even imagine? Your oldest is eight, then six, then four then a pair at 1 and new born twins. I can’t even comprehend the type of housekeeping skills necessary to survive that kind of mothering chaos. This from me, the stay-at-home mother of one low key, seven year old,  who can’t keep her kitchen and laundry room free of dirty dishes clothes.

This mom used cloth diapers and she didn’t have a front loading washer to handle that mess all at once. She didn’t have Sesame Street and exersaucers to entertain her babes while she tried to fold that laundry. Her pharmacy probably wasn’t open 24 hours and her husband didn’t have a cell phone so she could call him on his way home to pick up something to complete dinner. She didn’t have a microwave to defrost the meat she forgot to take out of the freezer or to re-heat her coffee for the umpteenth time because she set it down to care for a child.  She didn’t have Chick-fil-a with a play area where she could sip a diet Dr. Pepper and breathe easy for two seconds while her toddlers burned off some steam in the middle of a chilly Baltimore winter.  I’m going to venture a guess that they didn’t have a six bedroom house with a playroom so everyone could have their own space. Although maybe that would have just been more to clean.

Today I will be grateful to be a mother in these current years. A time when birth control is legal and available so we can decide how many children we want in our family. A time when a mother can take time for herself and still raise happy, healthy children in a clean (OK, reasonably clean) house and not feel guilty about it.  A time full of convenience and plentiful hot water. Today I will be mindful and thankful.

This could also be titled, “My Heart Grew Four Sizes That Day”. 

The little girl and I recently returned from a trip out west. Due to a savvy case worker and a six hour road trip we were able to reconnect with the children over lunch and a playdate at the park. Let me say this, there are alot of things wrong with CPS and the foster care system, but any social worker willing to drive six hours (each way) with three small children in one day so that we could all see each other gets some kudos in my book. We drove from WA, they drove from CA and we met in OR. As soon as the kiddos saw each other they were instantly “best cousins” all over again. At lunch they were making potty jokes, giggling and telling stories. The youngest babe sat on my lap and ate fries. It was delightful. After we filled our bellies we headed to the park.

We lucked out and it was a fabulous sunny day. We had packed snacks, sand toys, sidewalk chalk, and bubbles. They ran, swung on the swings, spun around, shot basketballs, blew bubbles, slid down the slide(s), traced each other in chalk, hopped hopscotch, and smiled for the camera. We were able to savor this family bliss for about 2.5 hours. It was not long enough. I had to make a conscious effort not to cry when it was time to say good-bye. I knew if I started they would follow and that would just be bad all the way around. We gave them gifts to play with on the car ride back to CA, we blew kisses and the social worker made promises of trying to get a visit to NC this summer. And instead of my heart breaking while saying good-bye, it grew. It grew as only a parent’s (guardian, care-giver) heart can. It grew the size of four small children (including our own dear sweet little girl) ranging in age from seven to one. It was great to see them all smiling, happy and healthy.

It was good to reconnect. Aug. 10th is the next court date.

The sweet darling little girl that is.  She has recently discovered Wheel of Fortune and I dare say it’s her new favorite show.  At first I tried to get her to not watch it.  While we are the parents and we make the rules, TiVo does make it difficult to justify to a child that the show is on after bedtime and therefore she can’t watch it.  Wheel of Fortune is on at 7:30 EST in our viewing area.  The little girl’s bedtime has been 7:00 pm for quite some time now.

A few things made the shift to letting her watch a little easier. 1) JD gets home later than he used to.  So their time together was taking a hit. 2) The little girl was starting to do the bedtime procrastination thing.  All parents and caregivers are familiar with it. The dawdling, the requests for water, time in the bathroom, did I mention dawdling?  It was pushing bedtime further and further (closer to my prime-time viewing actually). And by allowing her to watch Wheel of Fortune both of these things were solved.  JD watches with her and it has become one of their special things.  Be careful if you watch with them, you can’t just blurt out the puzzle if you think you know.  Our rule has become that she has to be ready for bed (jammied up and teeth brushed) before she can watch.  Done.  Easy Peasy.

It’s hilarious to watch with her.  She’ll usually comment on Vanna’s lovely dress (the color, how sparkly, how long it is).  Then she does what we all did.  It’ll be a five word puzzle and they’ve called T,H and E. “I know, it’s something, something, THE, something, something, something”.  I’m not even kidding.  That’s exactly what she says.  And I laugh EVERY time.  She was shocked to learn that when mommy watched the show as a little girl Vanna had to actually turn the letters.  It took some explaining, but she was impressed.

Another generation of Wheel.  Merv would be proud.

Am I the only person who sometimes feels bad for the husband who is depicted as clumsily taking care of his own children?  This week in the comic strip For Better For Worse the mother has been out of town and dad has been home taking care of the children.  As per the stereotype of this situation he doesn’t know the routine or where anything is located in the house.  If I side with this guy do I have to turn in my neighborhood mommy card? Am I siding with the enemy?

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At the end of December we recieved paperwork from the state of NC to begin the official process of becoming eligible to adopt our nieces and nephew. The paperwork was pretty much as expected, our general personal and contact info, work history, family history and then the not so expected “life story”.

Three pages of the packet they sent us was devoted to questions for us to individually answer about how we came to be the people we are today. It covered everything from “describe your mother and father, what was your relationship like growing up, what is your relationship like today. describe the homes you grew up in. describe your relationship with your siblings, now and in the past. describe what you like most about your spouse, and least. how do you make decisions in your family. how are emotions displayed in your family” and it went on and on like that for three typewritten pages.

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Requirement number one was to love them, and I probably jumped the gun with the next step being to get custody. Depending on how I figure it’s either number two (and I’ll shift getting custody) or I’ll squeeze it in at 1.5. Either way, my next suggestion is NOT to ride the roller coaster. It’s right there, a bright shiny, roller coaster of emotion just waiting for your mind, body and soul, but don’t do it. You will need the energy for when the children are actually living with you. (more…)

A quick search on Amazon comes up empty for books with this title. Since it isn’t written yet, maybe I’ll write it.

The short story is that JD’s sister has left her kids for the umpteenth time with their mom, the children’s grandmother. Grandma is capable of handling one of the kids at a time for a day at a time. I don’t think that’s unusual. When my sister-in-law leaves it’s usually under the guise of “I’m gonna go get a Coke, I’ll be right back” and she’s gone for anywhere from 12 hours to a week, without any communication or way to get ahold of her (she won’t answer her cell phone). This happened, most recently, yesterday. However, yesterday CPS and the police were called to take the children because grandma could no longer care for them. This is new. This has never happened before. It’s time.

This starts a clock for their mother. The mother now has 48 hours to claim her kids. If she does then the circus starts all over again. If she doesn’t then she has six months to take classes and follow the rules set by the state to regain custody of her children. It isn’t a perfect system by any means. The laws are all on her side. We have to wait and see what she does. She may do nothing and the children will be available at the end of six months for placement. She may pull it together and regain custody. In all likelihood she’ll get her act together a little, just enough and this will drag out for more than six months. (more…)

As I was getting dressed today I noticed my clothing:

• Levi’s jeans
• t-shirt from Hard Rock Café (Maui, yes, I really went there)
• bra from Vera Wang
• undies from Gap Body
• and sweater from Abercrombie and Fitch

I’m not a label girl, really I’m not. I buy what I like and what fits and only pay what I want to pay. The jeans are the $20 variety from Target, the t-shirt was a tourist purchase almost 7 years ago, the bra was less than $20, the undies were on sale I’m sure of it, probably 3/$10 or some such thing. The sweater is of course the gem from our recent Goodwill outing. All could have been made in China, so possibly not so very American after all.

This past Saturday was a beautiful thing.

It was the perfect symbiosis of life as JD and I have figured out thus far. We all like to sleep in.  Well, to qualify that the little girl likes to “snuggle in”.  If someone is willing to get her something to eat and let her snuggle back into the bed to watch TV, the morning is golden. Because of our schedules, the way that they are, this is best enjoyed on Saturdays. This last week the breakfast and snuggling were delayed a bit even by E’s normal routine. She is usually up and ready to face the world at 6:45 am and then detained in her room until her clock reads 7:00 am. At that time she is allowed to venture out and seek comfort for her hungry belly and cold feet. This is of course assuming that she hasn’t already climbed into our bed between the hours of 1:00 and 4:00 am. When this happens, as long as she goes back to sleep, I don’t mind anymore (notice the anymore, I’m relaxing into motherhood!).

So, back to Saturday… 8:00 am E and I are up and had toast or cereal or some such token of breakfast. I got dressed, she got dressed and then we both went back to mommy and daddy’s room to watch TV. An hour or so later JD joined us in the awakened state. He was hungry, but neither cereal nor toast was sounding good. I mentioned IHOP and heard, “Do they deliver?” “Um, no.” And truthfully soggy lukewarm pancakes with rubbery eggs just don’t sound very good out of a Styrofoam box. The Saturday attire of t-shirt, hat, cargo shorts was donned by JD and off we went. Surprisingly the wait was less than 20 minutes and we were seated in a timely manner. YUM! When IHOP sounds good, and then I actually get to eat it, YUM! That’s all I have to say. By the way, I order the same thing EVERY time: Harvest nut & grain pancake combo, eggs over medium w/ sausage. High cholesterol be damned. It isn’t like I eat it every week, or even every month for that matter.
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