Dec 3, 2020
Things you have to say to your current foster daughter when your previous foster daughter had some unusual hobbies:
"Don't be startled by the severed head in the cabinet. It's styrofoam."
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Things you have to say to your current foster daughter when your previous foster daughter had some unusual hobbies:
"Don't be startled by the severed head in the cabinet. It's styrofoam."
A $40 emergency snack and TP run? That must mean I have a new kid moving in tomorrow!
Girlchild, reading my cards:
“Shit, bitch, yo’ tree’s on fire!”
Been meaning to tell you this story for a bit.
The first night I was a foster mom, nine o'clock found her barricaded in her bedroom after a polite decline of dinner, and I was in the living room, frantically googling "appropriate bedtime for a 12-year-old." I don't know what time she slept, because her door never opened again that night.
I'll tell you who didn't go to sleep at an appropriate bedtime, and that's "Who Thought I Was Qualified to Be a Mama" right here. No, I kept leaping awake from dreams of losing the child to jot down another note for tomorrow:
-buy paper towels -more snacks -Can she ride in the front seat? -Train cats not to scratch on bedroom door (as Oggie fervently attempted to tunnel his way to his new friend, who had bonded with him over the laser pointer before disappearing into her room)
I finally fell asleep around 6, and woke at 8:07, having promised the child I'd wake her at 8 to get ready for her sibling visit. Great. Morning one as a kind-of parent and I was already teaching her my tardy ways. Between the third and fourth times I woke her, I made pancakes. Mine, I ate with peanut butter and whipped cream, just like I'd eaten half the snacks I bought her upon getting the call for respite. Hers grew cold on the counter while she sat on the carpet with my cats.
I can't begin to imagine the chain of events that led to somebody's precious baby being placed in the care of someone who never thought to google bedtimes until it was past bedtime. And as scared as I felt, I can't imagine how scared the child was feeling, deposited at a stranger's home for the weekend, sleeping on top of the covers on Friday, waking up to take on a Saturday of siblings and social workers, armed only with a laser pointer and half a cold pancake.
The phone has been ringing nearly every day since then, but none have been a placement I felt comfortable taking. What I know, though, is that since my weekend visitor left -- after I put away her art supplies and rescued the dirty dishes from the closet and washed the bedding even though she only ever slept on top of it -- my house has been quiet and my heart has been waiting.
You guys!!
B wanted to go to a girl's house, but her parents are out of town and I don't know the relative who is staying with her, so I said no. And he called me a wordy dird and stormed away as per usual.
But. A minute later, he poked his head into sister's room where I was trying to rebuild a bookshelf, and he said, "Sarah? I still hate you, but I only hate you a little bit more than usual. I don't hate you a lot more than usual." And then he cheerfully went off to play video games. I feel like I won some sort of bizarre alternate universe preteen affection lottery!
Me: *walking through the living room, makes brief eye contact with child*
Child, uttering very first words of the day: "Quit staring at me, you effing weirdo!"
If you come to my house, you'll notice that my living room has gotten smaller. That's because I live in a small corner of that room. Boys and girls, even siblings 15 months apart who are joined at the hip, aren't allowed to share a bedroom in foster care, so to bring our girl home, I had to improvise a way for them to each have their own bedroom.
I've had my daughter home for seven nights, and for seven nights, my son has slept on her floor, reunited and refusing to be apart from her again. For seven nights, I've slept in the living room and my son's bedroom has sat empty.
This is all by way of saying that I desperately love my foster children ... but foster care itself can be kind of stupid. As most systems can.
Our house: Two bedrooms, a bath, a kitchen, a living room, and six pet beds.
Current location of me, both my kids, all three cats, and the dog: on my bed in the makeshift third bedroom.