Baby Girl's First Night

Well, all of that nesting really paid off! We got a call to do respite care for an almost 6 month old baby girl. We're supposed to only have her for two weeks. 

She was asleep when she arrived but awoke shortly thereafter, around 7:30pm. She screamed her head off for 2 hours and 15 minutes because she had just gotten shots that day and every time she moved her legs it hurt. The more she cried the more she kicked her legs! I felt so badly for her! We did give her some Acetaminophen to help.

Baby Girl also had a lot of tummy aches from gas, possibly due to her foster mom adding rice cereal to every bottle she took. When I fed her in the middle of the night I didn't add the cereal. 

One funny thing she did was stare at my phone screen (I was texting and the room was dark) and it calmed her down! I thought maybe she had been used to falling asleep staring at a tv screen or something. I was glad she finally calmed down.

Here's how the first night went:

9:05pm 3 oz formula (I tried to get her to drink more to no avail.)

9:45-11:26 sleep

11:40 2 oz formula

11:45-2:05 sleep

2:22 2 oz formula

2:40-2:55 sleep

3:00 2 oz formula

3:05-5:41am sleep

Baby Girl loves Chico, our dog! She "talks" to him and grabs for him. Chico is quite fond and protective of Baby Girl, too. 

I took her to the grocery store this morning and she loved it! She smiled at me the whole time. It has been a very happy morning and she is now working on a two-hour afternoon nap!! I should be napping, too, but I got caught up on the housework. Amazing what messiness a 6 month old can cause ;) but I wouldn't trade a minute of it!

"Nesting"

It's been two months since our first foster children left us. The break has been extremely beneficial and rejuvenating, and I am eager to meet our new ones! During this break I've been trying to get things back on track--spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Now that I am feeling a lot better, as opposed to being completely exhausted from caring for needy children and ignoring my own needs, I have begun to work on our house...

It certainly won't be featured in the latest home magazine, but with our love seat and recliner against the wall we have so much more space for the (soon-to-be-here) children to play! Letting them play in the living room makes supervision so much easier.

My computer must be in the living room, too, because I work on Sunday School material and other church related stuff, so if it was back in our bedroom I couldn't supervise the children while I worked. Someday we would love to have a huge living area/family room that would give the children more space to play, but for now rearranging and smaller furniture helps.

craft and Lego table

Besides organizing the toys again (relabeling the bins), I took our kids clothing inventory and put it into a much more accessible chest of drawers rather than the bin they were in. Now I can see exactly what we have and wouldn't really even have to look at the inventory sheet when we get children who arrive with only the clothes on their back.

I love the idea of freezer cooking--cooking much more than we're going to eat in a day and freezing the rest or preparing foods ahead of time. Some people go as far as only cooking once a month. I did that once and it was wonderful! Now, I just make a huge pot of soup and put the rest in the freezer, and now that we bought an upright freezer I have so much more room to store meals!

Today, my mom came over and helped me switch the "baby" or younger child's furniture to the room closer to our bedroom. So, we took the oldest of our three twin mattresses and box spring to a thrift store since we don't plan to take three children any time soon. We will have to buy a crib if we get a baby since they don't allow ones with drop-down sides anymore. We have a pack n play that we can use temporarily, though.

Lessons Learned from Kids

Uno, Dos, and Tres left nearly three weeks ago, four months after coming to our home. They went to a friend of their mom's. After about six months the family could potentially adopt them. Thankfully, the children knew this family and were looking forward to the toys they knew they had at their house. When the caseworker came to pick them up, though, Uno initially said he didn't want to leave.

The last four months were challenging to say the least. I hope we made a difference in their lives during that time. Although they came a long way while they were in our house they still had a lot of issues to work through by the time they left. I hope they find a good therapist for these kids and they go on to live stable, happy lives. Hopefully, much of their pain will be forgotten as they grow older. 

I learned some things from having troubled kids in the house. Some of the most helpful things I've learned include:

• Sharing bedrooms is not always a good idea for children with abuse in their background, regardless of age or gender. (another reason we'll only take two kids from now on)
• We can't handle three kids with as much damage as these kids had at their ages. We already knew we shouldn't start out with three anyway, but that's another story.
• I must have a break to take care of myself or I won't be able to care for the kids.
• How to fix and care for African American hair : )

Josh and I took a two-week break from fostering. Now we are rested and ready for more kids! 

Waiting for another phone call...

Special Needs for Special Kids

Reactive Attachment Disorder?

As an attempt to start off on a good note, Uno is officially going to first grade and he graduates from Kindergarten this evening. Strangely enough he says he has already graduated in another school and his sisters claim to remember the event, too! I'm not sure if there was a communication gap or what, but we were told he was in Kindergarten when we got him. Apparently it didn't hurt him academically.

We've had the kids nearly 3 months now and, while they have come a long way in some areas, they are showing some unusual behaviors lately. Uno's behavior is getting worse, especially at school, and the girls are having more not-so-great moments. I am exhausted just trying to make it through the day without losing my mind.

When I'm around other people it seems they think our kids are no different than their kids. "He's just an active little boy. She's so cute!" They don't see what I see all day long. Tres continues to urinate on the carpet in her bedroom at random times, even when she seems happy. It doesn't seem to make sense. Now, Uno is urinating in his room, in his trash can, and his bed. These are not accidents. This is peeing on purpose for seemingly no reason. One of the indications of RAD is that they are sweet around everyone but their primary caregiver.

Dos, who is usually the more reserved one, lashed out on Josh (whom she dearly loves and clings to). I think she was supposed to be sitting in time out and wouldn't go and kicked, hit, and tried to bite Josh for a while. Then, during church (I was home with a bad headache), Uno was kicking and fighting Josh. Tres has her share of these fits of rage, especially when she has to sit in time out or is corrected. They don't do this all the time, but at random times.

According to Uno's teacher he is continuing to act out and his behavior is escalating. She said since he has joined her class the whole atmosphere of her classroom has changed. The children who used to be well-behaved are now acting out terribly. She says he has no self-control and cannot sit still to do his work. Her and the principal have strongly recommended that we talk to his pediatrician. So, I did it. I made the appointment. I don't want to put him on medication but I do want him to get help somehow. Unfortunately, the current therapist isn't helping. I hope and pray we can get an accurate diagnosis from someone.

A friend mentioned RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) and I remembered some things I had read years ago. I went to the library and found two books on the subject and I've already read some things that have helped me at least feel better and have some hope! One of the things is that normal parenting does not work on RAD children!! Thank you very much! 

The first recommendation in the book is "Take care of yourself first", so I am going to try to start getting more sleep, get someone to watch the kids for a little while every week, and attempt to have some real quiet time each day. Whew. 

Hoping and praying to find an attachment therapist soon. I'll keep you updated when I get a free minute!

Limiting Screen Time

Times have really changed. Years ago, when I was still a teenager, I made up my mind that I didn't want to own a television. Josh had already made the same decision before I even met him, so that was something that didn't even need a discussion when we planned on getting married.

I think most people know that too much screen time (of any kind) isn't healthy. Jane Nelson has a helpful plan on how to set those limits with your family. I just don't see the TV as a necessity, and knowing how visual-oriented I am, I could easily get addicted to it. That wouldn't be healthy for me or my family. I am sure there are some good things on television nowadays, including many educational shows, but I am still glad about the decision we made. Our children love to look at books and are probably a lot calmer than if we had cartoons going all the time. I noticed a huge difference in families (children) who watch television and those who don't.

That being said, we do own a computer and two smart phones, which are potentially more dangerous than television in many ways. However, our children don't touch the computer at their young ages nor do they mess with our phones, and we have to watch our own screen times so as not to get addicted to the internet. We do watch movies occasionally on our computer, but I haven't found many age appropriate movies for our kids that aren't totally pointless and mind-numbing. (yeah, I just don't see the point in most of them) Our computer is in our living room, by the way. One of the main reasons is so that I can watch the kids when I need to use the computer.

Another benefit that we have now is that there are settings on TVs (even on the older ones) where you can put in a password and block certain shows that are above the rating you would want for your children. There are probably all kinds of other ways to program a TV that I am not even aware of.

As for the computer, there are plenty of Internet filters and parental controls such as K9 Web Protection. There is also accountability software such as Covenant Eyes. Filters can also be used for smart phones.

I like #3 on this tool card. I haven't mentioned video games yet but you have to have some kind of screen to play them. We just haven't really gotten into them but we do enjoy playing computer games every once in a while. 

However, not long ago we took the kids to the dentist where they have a play room. They just installed an XBox 360 Kinect in there and some kids were playing it. I was astounded. Honestly, I thought it was the coolest thing and was ready to purchase one immediately! The reason I liked it was that the kids were jumping up and down and moving back and forth while playing it, so they were getting exercise. It was totally interactive. I mean, I've played the Wii but this seemed even better.

I talked to Josh about it, we got some more info on it and realized our living room was small and we would have to make some changes to put it in our home. Josh considered getting it for my birthday and we even went shopping for it but we came to the conclusion that, 1) We would probably end up with some kind of TV monitor on our wall so we could have a nice size screen, 2) We would be introducing the video game world to our very young children, 3) Both 1 and 2 are steps in the opposite direction that we want our family going.

Before you roll your eyes, it's probably just that I am weak and you are strong. Maybe you have an easier time setting limits on yourself than I do, which is probably true, because I have a feeling if I had an XBox 360 Kinect in my living room I would either play it all the time or the kids would!

The key word here is limit. 

Positive What?!

I have a confession to make.

I feel like I am blowing it when it comes to positive discipline with my children. In fact, I have resorted to punishment most of the time. :( Josh, however, has been kind and firm at the same time, which is the foundation of positive discipline, but he still uses time out. I am firm (consistent) but need to work on the "kind" part, especially when I am tired.

After reading Positive Discipline books years ago I could clearly see how well the tools could work with older children (6 and older), but I've always been unclear as to exactly how it looks for toddlers and preschoolers. My children are younger and the oldest is emotionally young for his age, so I've had a rough time implementing some of the positive discipline techniques. However, had I not read about these methods I cannot imagine what it would be like in our home! We are not allowed to use corporal punishment and that is all I knew years ago.

I said all of that to say... since I am already behind on the tool cards, mainly because I don't see how to implement them with my children's ages, I will write about the ones that are working for us. Oh, we are planning to start having family meetings soon and I can't wait!

Here is one that I'm actually good at, BUT I often make a big mistake and fail to be kind and/or keep my mouth shut afterwards:

We have bedtime routines that we rarely deviate from and they go to bed good most of the time. Sometimes they don't want to go to bed, though. If they get out of bed for anything other than going to the bathroom we point to their bedroom without saying a word, but sometimes if they come in the living room and say something to us we will put them in time-out. Maybe we're too strict but we always follow through. Here's our evening routine:

• Eat supper
• Take baths, one at a time
• We read books to them (while waiting their turn to bathe)
• Bible Time (Read the Bible, say their memory verse)
• Prayer Time
• Bedtime

So, just to make myself accountable and remind you that I am far from a perfect parent, I am working on being kind and not doing the "I told you so" routine when they mess up. Now, go read what TO do at Jane Nelson's blog!