Fostering The Love In Kansas

When you have bio children, if one falls and hurts themselves, you kiss their boo boo and go on with your day. In foster care, we have so many regulations and people watching us.  There are so many things we have to document, we have to share, we have to watch. Even before 8 am today, first blood was drawn.  Mr. T slipped and fell face first.  Busting his lip from the inside.  Mouth full of blood and lots of tears. This has become a very frequent occurrence with Mr. T as he is learning to walk and run and just be a boy. Normal parents wouldn't have a huge amount of anxiety around this type of accident.  But with foster parents, there is documentation, fear of investigation, and even as far as fear of having kids removed. Mr. T was removed from a foster home due to excessive critical incidents before being placed with me and so I have more anxiety than normal due to this.  I probably watch him much closer than I do Little Man.  And I watch Littl...

9/3/2015 Oy Vey....Little man had a MAJOR meltdown at the doctor's office and I had to physically restrain him. Broke my heart to do it but he was being so destructive to him and others. For being 5 and only 31 pounds, that boy is strong! He has a burn mark on his head, hidden in his hairline.  He was terrified, he was angry and he was completely unreachable at points.  I had to literally hold him close to me to make sure he wouldn't hurt himself or me.  He managed to hit me in the face a couple of times, knocking my glasses off.   I was angry...so angry.  And embarrassed.  I tried to keep a happy face on.  I tried to laugh it off and show him that we're friends and we're safe.  But inside, I was trying to control my anger and my embarrassment.  We got a cream for the burn and I sat in my car after dropping him off at daycare for 5 minutes and cried. After 3 days, I was already in WAY over my head.   7:15 PM ...

9/1/2015 Our first night was horrible....he woke up every two hours crying and screaming.  By 4 am, he had crawled into bed with me and curled up with his face in my neck.  He twitched and cried in his sleep, but he finally slept.  We both came to, blurry eyed around 10 am and struggled to assess where we both were with each other.  I offered breakfast as a way to start the day. This is a balanced meal, right? Cereal, banana, milk and trucks. He ate about 3 bites of each and was done.     S needs to expend A LOT of energy. We spent about 90 minutes at the park for our first day together. He only had 2 mini meltdowns while here.  The only way I got him to listen was by telling him I was leaving and I'd see him later.  Only then would he come to me.  But he's fearless...would crawl all over the equipment without asking for help.  Never fell until the end, of course.  Being a foster parent, I have to document a...