Empty Net

It was the last day with the girls. DH had them all day by himself. They slept in until about 8am. DH made them a nice breakfast of pancakes and eggs. They all watched a little TV together and later the girls played out on the front walk with sidewalk chalk. They made nice pictures of rainbows and other drawings. DH said they were pretty good girls for him. Mid-afternoon he had to take them for a two hour, supervised visit with their mother. He just dropped them off and went back two hours later to pick them up. Since mom brought them lunch, DH didn't have to fix them anything until dinner. He fed them an early dinner of hot dogs and chips. I'm sure foster mama will feed them a snack later. He also gave them an old digital camera that still took pretty good pictures. He told me the little one was taking all kinds of pictures of our furry kids. I didn't think I would make it home from work in time to see them before foster mama picked them up, but I did. I fact, I made it home about a half hour before she got here. Anyway, by the time I got home the camera was broken. DH told me the pictures were coming out all blurry and that he saw the big sister force the telephoto in. I think between that and the little one telling me they dropped it a couple times - it's broke. I'm going to retrieve the pictures that they took and print out copies for them. We spoke with foster mama for a few minutes after the girls were in her vehicle. We told her how good the girls were and that they are welcome to come back again. I also told her how the visit with their dad screwed up that night and the next day for them. It was only because of them getting their medicine late. I didn't tell her about the underwear issue. I figure she didn't need to deal with that unless it happens again. One thing that was kind of weird, after foster mama was walking to her vehicle I walked inside and counted the money she paid us. It was a hundred dollars short. DH hadn't counted it when she handed it to him. I felt weird about it, but I went back outside and asked her about it. She said she was sorry and gave me a hundred dollar money order to make up for it. Was it a mistake?

I looking forward to our next placement. I'm sure it will be respite but I hope it goes just as well. The agency wants to place a teenage girl with us next month but we've already planned on saying "no" to that placement.

Lesson Learned

I learned that you have to ask questions and not just assume. I washed the girls dirty clothes while they were at school yesterday. I only found one pair of underwear for the one girls. Does that mean she's been taking a shower and putting on the same underwear or did she forget extra underwear, or worse than that; has she been going without underwear??? Well, I was able to rule out one of the possibilities. I looked in her case and found several pairs of clean, folded underwear. I knew I had to handle this with kid gloves. After dinner I told her how important it was to keep yourself clean and change underclothes everyday. I also told her I only washed one pair of her underwear. She told me that she had changed everyday and that she had put the dirty ones in her case. I could not very well tell her that I had looked in her case but hopefully she understood about keeping herself clean. Now I kind of wonder if she has been actually taking a shower or just letting the water run.

Long day, long night

After the long day yesterday the girls were beat. The oldest actually fell asleep in front of the TV way too early. I woke her up but she had a hard time staying awake. Both of them went to bed around 9:30 which is about a half hour past their bedtime. Of course at about 1:30am I saw a light on (from my room) in the living room. The oldest was laying on the couch and her sister was getting a throw to cover up with. The youngest went back to bed and I let the her sister lay on the couch with the lights down low and no TV. I knew she would fall back to sleep. Well, at 4am I woke to a bright light, from a flashlight, shining in my eyes. It was the little one telling me she could not sleep. I ended up waking up her sister off the couch and sending them both back to bed and crawling back to bed myself. At least I did not have to work that morning.

Parental visit

It was a long day. The girls had a visit with one of their parents last evening. DH and I dropped them off for what we thought was going to be a two hour visit but the "supervisor" informed us it was going to be from 6 to 8:30 instead. The girls didn't get to eat dinner until after we got back home and by their visit being so late in the evening, they didn't get to take their medicine until they were about to go to bed. I let them stay up a half-hour later so they could wind down. Both the girls were sleepy this morning and really didn't want to get up. They have another visit on Saturday but that one is early in the afternoon. DH will have to take them and drop them off. I have to work so I will have to say my good byes tomorrow night. It's been real nice having the girls here. DH told me tonight that I have been real good with them. I like this.

They're here

We have two beautiful girls for the rest of the week. I picked them up from the daycare late this afternoon. They talked all the way home and basically until they went to bed. Actually they calmed down about an hour before bedtime because their medicine kicked in. They are good girls that listen very well. I made a nice home-cooked meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans. They finished everything on their plate plus one of them asked for more meatloaf. I think they normally eat a lot of fast food. While dinner was cooking they took turns playing Outdoor Adventure on Wii. Then after they took their showers they played with the Fisher Price dollhouse until they didn't want to play together anymore. I dug out some books for the youngest one to read while her sister continued to play with the dollhouse. They didn't give me any guff about bedtime and I was happy about that. Since they are still in school, I will have to get them up early to eat breakfast and drive them their school. I hope everything goes good in the morning.

Meet the mama

We just met with the foster mother of the two girls we will be taking care of (respite). It went great! The girls are real nice and mama is real nice too. She has been doing foster care for many years and has a lot of information. The girls are sisters that have been in the system for quite awhile. They both have ADD and take medicine for it twice a day. They are on a strict schedule after school which I'm sure helps them stay organized. Mama has given me their schedule and all the information we should need to be successful. I will be able to call her if something goes bad but I don't foresee any problems as long as we stay on schedule. I don't have to work for the four days they're here so I will be available if something happens at school. Mama said sometimes one of them will act out in school and she will get a call but I'm hoping the girls will be on their best behavior. Our furry kids met them at the door and gave them lots of doggy kisses. In fact, DH had to put them (the dogs) in the other room so we could talk. Anyway, I have to pick the girls up at the daycare they go to after school. From what I understand the State pays for the daycare because they are foster children but they have to attend the daycare for a certain number of hours per week. They also receive free lunches through the State. I'm going to have to check into how that works just in case we get a school age child.

I'm feeling a little nervous but excited at the same time.

Respite

DH and I were talking just yesterday that it's taking forever to get a call. Then it happened. The agency called with a possible respite placement. Two girls for 4 days. We should hear from the agency again today after the therapist finds out details. I think she just called yesterday to make sure we would want to do it. This will be a good way to get experience.

FYI; Respite is when you take care of foster children for a foster family. Kind of like babysitting for a day or several days.

We also made a visit to our local CPS office to find out who would fill out and sign our FMLA paperwork. For those of you who are unfamiliar with FMLA (family medical leave act), it's a federal act that protects your job if you have to take any time off work for medical or personal reasons. There are several reasons you can qualify for FMLA, usually it's for a medical reason like maturity leave or to take care of a sick dependent. DH and I haven't received the FMLA yet. I found out we can qualify for it through a federal website when we started the foster care training. According to the site, we could have used it for our training but either one of us wanted to take advantage of the system. I just hope the website is correct. Oh, needless-to-say, CPS was no help with FMLA. They had actually never heard of it being used for fostercare.

Waiting for placement.

We're done! The home inspection went great. Linda only had us change a few things like; move the fire extinguisher from the pantry to hanging it on the wall in the kitchen and moving a few items away from the furnace (31" from furnace). Then Linda took pictures of the bedroom (mostly the beds) and a picture of us for her file. She also took pictures of the front and back of the house. We looked over the Home Study (bio). Linda told us we could take our time to look it over but she did such a good job with it, we signed it.

DH and I were able to get everything done, plus some, before she got there. DH had ordered locks, for the sliding door, online. It only took him maybe 15 minutes to install it. It's like a dead bolt that goes into the frame of the door then locks with a key. I was able to clear out the closet and get all the latches on the kitchen drawers and cabinet doors that I thought might have dangerous stuff in them. I latched the cabinet under the sink because of the dish soups and I latched the knife drawers, the silverware drawer (forks) and the junk drawer. We tested all the smoke alarms, which worked fine. I knew they worked because sometimes I set one off when I cook. lol That morning DH & I did some cleaning that I didn't really think we needed to do. DH dusted and vacuumed while I folded clothes and put them away. I really don't think that Linda would be been concerned if there was dust on some nicknack's.

Hopefully the next time I post, we will have a placement. We may start with something called respit. It's basically caring for foster children while the foster parents take a break or vacation that the kids can't go along. Some foster parents only do respit. We are thinking it may be a good temporary thing to do to get use to having an older child in the house. Linda talked about a temporary placement of a teenage boy. She said he's a real good kid but needs a temporary home because the foster parents are having personal problems. That's all I can say about the situation.

So the bottom line is, we will be eligible for a placement early next week (maybe Monday) but we won't actually be licensed until the state finishes the paperwork. If a placement comes up, Linda will call the state to hurry things along.