Anatomy Lesson

Brooklynn was looking at her toes on Sunday:  "Mom, what's this toe's name?"
Me:  "That's your big toe."
B.:  "No, it's my thumb toe.  And that's my little pinkie toe.  It's so cute -- except it stinks!"

Today she fell onto my bed and started sobbing because her "head ankle" hurt.  Oh, you don't know where your head ankle is?  Neither did I.  Your foot ankle turns your foot, so your head ankle (sometimes called your neck) turns your head.

The Cost of Adoption

I've always told my son, jokingly, not to get himself injured or killed because I paid good money for him:  "Wear your helmet.  I paid good money for that brain of yours."  "Don't run after your ball in the street.  I paid $28 for you."  and so on.
I should mention that this year I am also his teacher -- not a situation I would recommend to any other single mom out there.  So at school I told him, "Don't tip your chair back.  I paid good money for you, and I don't want you to fall on your head."
Gasps filled the classroom:  "Your mom paid for you?  How much?"
Derrick, very proudly:  "Yeah, my mom paid $28 for me.  See, adopted kids, they're paid for.  Kids that are just born to their parents are free."
I didn't burst his bubble...

Fun weekend; sick kid

I had a wonderful weekend away with the women in my church.  Lots of fun, lots of rain, lots of FOOD!  Very little sleep...
I come home, pay the exhausted babysitter, note with dismay that my foster daughter only slept an hour, plug her into a Strawberry Shortcake movie (the theme song of which I'm sure I could sing in my sleep -- come to think of it, I have sung it in my sleep!), and fall on the couch for a brief catnap.  Then... rustle, rustle, rustle...  My son had an Easter egg hunt at church this morning.  (Isn't Easter still a week away?!)
Me: "No more candy."
He turns around and looks at me woefully.  Oh no...  You know that glassy-eyed look?  The one that children get when they have a fever of 103?  The one that says, "Sorry, Mom, you'll have to take yet another sick day off school"?  Yes, that one.  I don't really mind days off of school.  It's only that it's so hard to prep for a sub.  And I go stir crazy at home, wondering what my little terrors darlings are doing to the dear sub.  And my computer froze up twice in the middle of writing my sub plans.  And, did I mention?, this week is school-wide achievement testing, which messes up everyone's schedules.
So now it's 11:30 p.m. and I've had to retype every other word of this because I'm so bleary-eyed.  Good night!

Part-time Parenting

When I first started fostering, I ran into an acquaintance at the store.  She asked me about my foster son.  When I explained that I was a foster parent, she responded: "So you're, like, a part-time parent?"
Really? Which part is "part-time"?  Perhaps it's the meeting with the case workers.  Or the certifier.  Maybe she meant all the phone calls with the CASA*, or going to the CRB* meetings.  Possibly it's the extra doctor appointments to catch up on missed immunizations.  Or the developmental screenings.  Or the WIC* appointments.  Or the sleeping outside a RAD* child's door so he doesn't get up and harm someone in the night.
Yes, it's like being a part-time parent, on top of being a full-time parent.

CASA -- Court Appointed Special Advocate, who speaks to the judge on the child's behalf, and is usually the only one who can really say how s/he feels about the whole situation.
CRB -- Community Review Board oversees the county foster care system; their main question seems to be "Has the child seen a dentist yet?"  (Ummm, no, we've ben working on getting the child to eat more than chicken nuggets, and getting her to say her first word at 2 years old.)
WIC -- Women, Infants, and Children, a program that provides nutritious food and training for low-income families with children under five; for years they provided peanut butter, but no bread, and frosted shredded wheat, but not plain.
RAD -- Reactive Attachment Disorder, when a child fails to bond with his first caregiver, and cannot bond with anyone after that; results in the child giving threats such as, "I'm going to burn down the house!" or "I'm going to eat grass and take off all my clothes!"  (The latter threat being somewhat ineffective, unless he meant to make us all laugh.)

What they DON'T tell you in foster parent training:

1. You'll constantly be checking the inmate list to see whether the bio parents are in jail.
2. You'll be comforting the extended family while they wonder where the bio parents are.
3. You'll preface every plan with "If you're here in the summer..."
4. You'll never know exactly how many children you have. Do you count the ones that stayed six months or more? Or the ones that bounce back? How about the siblings of the ones you've kept?
5. You can't possibly draw your family tree. Unlike Hickville's (which has only one branch), yours has seven trunks.
6. You expect a knock on the door every birthday and Christmas from bio parents who haven't been in contact in over a year.
7. Every time you see "Drug Bust" in the headlines, you hide the newspaper until you can check that it's not your child's parents.
8. You'll need to explain drugs, half-siblings, arrests, depression, overdoses, and suicide attempts to children who can't yet tie their shoes.