Frankie and School

Frankie is coming here tomorrow because Friday is the day that new students get registered at Our Small Town High.

Though we will register him as a regular new student, we really are not certain about schooling for him. It's a problem because he has been in on-site education programs for a couple of years. They don't need to do the sort of testing and paper work that a public school is required to do to justify special ed and other support services, so we don't know what testing was done, whether an IEP was ever written, whether he has a learning disability, nada.

The social workers have been asking the last public school he went to to send information, but have not received a response (not even been told whether there is anything to be sent). Hubby, being a special ed teacher himself, knows the secret handshake and is on the case. It is all rather complicated and though I can talk sensibly about all sorts of things, I do not entirely understand what Hubby is asking for. I do know that he is rolling his eyes when hearing that the social workers are just calling the main office. Instead he is calling the special education teacher and saying things like, "Hey Bob! This is [Yondalla's Hubby] from ____ School. I believe you had a kid named Frankie there a couple of years ago. Do you have a thingamajig on him? Did you do the whatchamacallits? Can you send that over to me? Thanks."

Hubby still doesn't know if they have all the thingamajigs, whatchamacallits, and do hickeys required to justify services, but he is on the case.

This is what I know: We do have an Alternative High School in town and their educational approach is most similar to what Frankie has been in. It is also small (under 100 students) which will feel much safer to a kid who has been in facilities smaller than that. However, they do not have special education services. Getting Frankie in there would require a meeting and they would have to decide whether to accept him. Exactly what their criteria are is a bit of a mystery to me.

The regular high school has a fantastic special ed teacher who provides really good services and if Frankie qualifies for them then sending him there, even though it is a school of over 1000 students, might be the best option.

With the documentation that we have so far, it will be difficult to justify doing anything other than signing him up as a regular student at the huge school and seeing how he does. No one who knows Frankie thinks this is a good idea, but if it weren't for Hubby I would think it was almost certainly what would be done.

But like I said, Hubby knows the secret handshake. So we shall see.

I feel the need to go on record and say that I am less certain that Frankie is going to make it here than I was with the other boys. The other boys were flowers that had been transplanted from someone else's garden into mine. My garden was a little bit better for them than the last one, and they were already weather-toughened plants. Frankie though has been carefully tended in a greenhouse. He has been cared for, or at least supervised, 24/7 hours a day by adults who work in shifts and show up clean, ready for their shift, and pre-caffeinated (if needed). He has gone to school in a single room with kids he lives with and worked at his own pace on all subjects with a specially trained teacher.

We are now taking this hot-house flower and putting him in my garden. He will live with adults who are showing up, not rested and ready for work, but tired from work and hoping for a chance to unwind. He will have caretakers who say, "Please, just wait until I get breakfast and have my first cup of tea."

And we have no idea what school will look like for him.

So though I agree he is ready to try living in a family and I agree we are the right family for him to try living with, I also know that he is not just moving from one family to another. He has been living for years in institutions of various sorts.

This is going to be a big change for him. We will see how he does.

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side note: "thingamajigs," "whatchamacallits," and "do hickeys" are in Blogger's spell checker, but "caffeinated" and "Blogger's" are not.

40ish hours and counting

Frankie is due to arrive at approximately 9:00am Thursday.

Of course this means his social worker is picking him up long before I will even be awake, but I guess that is his decision. I hope he (Frankie, not the social worker) is able to get some sleep in the car.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Evan has a started a blog!

I'm not supposed to read it until after he has moved out. I will try, but that is rather like putting out box of chocolates and telling me that I cannot eat them for two weeks. So you will simply have to read it for me. Go tell him his auntie says hello. I had him sign up for a tracking service, so he will know exactly how many people go to his blog from mine. Don't let me down.

Apparently on MySp*ce this is called "whoring him out." I guess that makes me his pimp?Unsettling thought.

BTW: I will keep this post on the top of the blog for a while. Look for new posts below it. [Thanks to FosterAbba for instructions.]

Un-Update on Frankie

When I got home with Andrew I got a message from Hubby Darling.

It went something like this: "Frankie is coming Thursday, not Friday."

"That's what I told the worker I preferred. What time on Thursday?"

"I don't know. I told him you know our schedule better than I do."

"Okay. Is he going to call back?"

"I gave him your cell number."

"Was it the same guy -- the mental health worker -- or was it the state case worker?"

"I don't know."

Great. If I get any real news I will be sure to pass it on.

Still no word on school records.

Driving Lessons, and School Decisions, for Andrew Part 4

Well, I haven't blogged about teaching Andrew to drive for a while. Partly that was because we were on vacation and he of course could not drive the rental car.

Today though he drove us to The City on the freeway. Woo Hoo!

Yesterday was our first near collision. Fortunately he was going very slowly, making a left turn. He was doing a sloppy turn, where you cut across a lane you should not cut across and someone pulled into that space (where they had every right to be and he did not). He did not respond as quickly as he should have and I grabbed the wheel and got us out of danger.

But it was okay. The other car was stopped and we were going less than 10 miles an hour, so even if he had hit the other car, it would not have caused an injury. But it was a good learning experience -- you have to drive around places other cars have a right to be, even if there are not there at the moment.

He did fine on the freeway today. The traffic was light and though I helped him to merge, it wasn't difficult. He did tend to drive closer to the cars in front of him than I would have liked. It turned out he was trying to keep space between him and the car behind him. Once I got that I explained that he really could not control how close the person behind him was going to drive. His responsibility is the amount of space between him and car in front of him.

He wanted to know if I thought he could pass his driving test before school starts next week so that he could drive to school. I don't think so. He knows everything he is supposed to do, and he usually does it, but he does not have the confidence to do well and pass the test.

Still, he is getting closer.

Anyway, the reason for driving to the city was to see his counselor. The main topic for today was school. He made another appointment to talk to the counselor after one week of school, to talk about how it is going.

I'm glad he's doing that. I don't want any repeats of last year's melt down. I don't know what exactly he and the counselor talk about, but I know that Andrew comes out of his sessions more relaxed than when he goes in. We had lunch after and he told me what schedule he is going to start with and what changes he will make if that is too much. Right now he is looking at doing a full-time schedule (6 classes) for the fall and then just 4 or 5 in the spring.

Like I said, I really like this counselor. He is really good and getting Andrew to relax and figure out what he wants to do. Right now he is going for the three AP classes, Pre-calc, Economics, and Marching Band. If it is too much he can either down-grade one of the AP to regular section or drop band and take PE in the spring (Marching Band counts towards the PE requirement).

That's why the visit to the counselor after one week. He can down-grade the AP on his own, just by asking, but dropping Band would require a note from his counselor.

I do think he can handle this schedule. As long as he is doing it because he wants to and is not feeling overwhelmed by everyone else's expectations.

Bad Mom

I've not had a great day. Not a terrible day, just not a great one.

I've mostly been managing all the stress (one kid moving out in 10 days, one moving in in a couple of days, school starting for them and me), but I have had a lot of stress thoughts moving through my head.

Like I am about to have six kids. SIX. I am going to have to write down all their birthdays. I mean, think about that, these are my own kids and I am not confident that I will be able to remember all their birthdays. How does Cindy do it? How does she remember 39 birthdays? Okay, so she only has like 20 at home, right? Or is it 30? Does she bake or buy them all birthday cakes? Do they have a birthday party every other week, or just one a month for whoever happened to be born then? I would ask, but her life is pretty stressful right now and I don't think it is appropriate.

But I've been thinking that maybe six is as many as I can deal with. Kids need attention. They need people to remember their birthdays. A good mom should know what's going on in their lives and I am not that good at remember that many details.

And the doorbell rings.

There is a good mom there. The sort of mom whose kids are take music lessons and are signed up for soccer league and ballet classes. She is here to pick up her son for band practice and will she see me at the ice cream social?

Um...uh...I'm not sure.

She leaves and I call Andrew to the living room. I did not actually yell at him, but I did ask with a fair amount of stress, "What band practice!? Tonight? There's an ice cream social tonight? Is this a fund raiser? Am I supposed to have money, or is it just a social? What do you mean you don't know? Don't you have some sort of handout or something?"

Grrr....

Evan came home and after a while asked me what was wrong. "You know you are just dripping with snappishness, don't you? What are pissed about?"

"Nothing." I asked Andrew to go with me to the store. He knew better than to say no.

We got to the store and I told him that I was sorry. "This really is supposed to be an apology, okay? Not more reprimanding. I realized that the real reason that I was upset was that I was embarrassed by not knowing about it in front of the other mom, and that has more to do with my insecurities than with you."

"I can do a better job of telling you about things. If it is that important to you..."

"Well, I would like you to tell me about things, but what I am saying is that I should let go of caring what other people think of me. I need to remember that not knowing about the band ice cream social doesn't make me a bad mom."

Andrew says, "Just remember you have a license." (Which is what I tell the kids whenever one of them is foolish enough to question me by pointing out that someone else's parents let their kids do something.)

Anyway, we had a companionable time walking through the grocery store. We got to the end and I realized we did not have ice cream so I went down that aisle. We stood there trying to decide and a mom and her daughter walked by. The mother said very loudly, "I'm not spending $5.75 on f***ing hot fudge so that you and your brother can stuff your faces!"

Andrew leaned closed and whispered, "You're a good mom."

Good News for Andrew

It is objectively impossible for him to take all the courses he felt that he should!

Okay, that may seem like a strange thing, but this kid puts a lot of pressure on himself.

He was thinking about three AP classes, plus Marching Band, Jazz Band, Pre-Calc, Economics, and Spanish III. But some of the classes conflict and he has to let one go. And of course there's that thing were there are only seven periods, and that is with the addition of "zero" period.

Interestingly, this seems to make it psychologically possible to consider dropping two classes.

That quiet sound you hear is me sighing with relief.

Although Andrew's more reduced schedule is still a list to make a person gasp.

Frustrated Nesting

Part of the problem is surely that I would rather not do the school work I ought to do.

But part of the problem is that I have a new kid on the way and I want to make the place ready for him.

And I absolutely, positively will not do anything that will make Evan feel like I want him to move out earlier. I don't want him to move out earlier. I wish that Frankie could come two weeks later.

I wish I was going to have a week in between the two boys to prep the room.

The room is an unattractive blue with a strange green trim. Brian picked it out and he loved it and that was really all that mattered. When Evan moved out, Brian moved to the upstairs bedroom (so as to be closer to the puppy). When Evan wanted to move back in he was already part of the family, and it was just temporary. Saying, "Of course you may move back in, but you have to take Brian's old room with the funny colors and the Harry Potter curtains" did not feel rude. Evan was fine with it.

But now there is a new kid coming. I want him to feel welcomed. I want his space to feel like it is really his. You know not "Frankie, Cupboard Under the Stairs, Privet Drive...." or more accurately, "Frankie, Smallest Bedroom with Broken Closet Door and Ugly Paint, Our Street..."

So the plan is to wait until Evan moves out, and then paint -- while the kids are double bunking and school is starting.

Hubby thinks I should just let the painting go until winter break. At the moment I am drifting to the compromise of painting the walls the off white we agreed upon and leave the trim and accent wall until winter. I could paint the walls fairly quickly.

We did buy new window coverings though. At least I will get rid of the old Harry Potter curtains.

This is probably what Evan was worried about when he kept asking me if I could handle the stress of one kid moving in while he was moving out and school was starting.

Hubby is probably right, I should let go of painting it when so much else is going on.

It would be so much easier if it weren't so bloody ugly.

Lessons in Quilting

Over the past fifteen years I have made at least a dozen quilts. I don't consider myself an expert quilter, but I am fairly good. I have just completed my first quilt-as-you-go project and thought I would pass on to you what I have learned.

Quilting as you go is an exciting option. Your initial discovery, like mine, is likely to be that the the loft of the batting creates an interesting variability, resulting in blocks that are significantly different sizes. These however may be paired, sewn together to make adorable throw pillows.

As usual methods of "squaring up blocks" will be impossible, you will also have the opportunity to develop completely new methods of sizing the blocks. You want to produce blocks that are consistent in size, and whose backing extends out further than the block.



Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to ensure that the block stays square with respect to the backing. Some of your blocks are likely to go askew. Examine the photo below. The right side of the block has been folded over so that you can see that the top of the block extends beyond the backing.


These blocks also make excellent throw pillows.

Since the loft of the backing will be making your block come out smaller than anticipated, it will be tempting to sew with very scant seams. I recommend against this however as the seams may pull a part.


Blocks with this feature do not make good throw pillows. If you are growing low on fabric and patience, you may wish to zigzag, using so called "invisible" thread over some of the weak seams.


When you sew the blocks together requires two seams, the second of which is tricky. See, you have to sew through all the layers and as far as I can figure out, you need to sew it from the back of the quilt. Of course most people will be looking at the top of the quilt. You should therefore attempt to "stitch in the ditch," meaning that you should stitch in the same place as the joining seam on the front. This will be difficult since you cannot see that seam and will have to do it by feel. Just remember though, if the line of sewing must show, it will look reasonably okay if you simply keep the seam line straight. You may need to click on the photo below to see exactly what I mean.




As with any quilt, it is important to trim your blocks to the same size and make consistent seams. Doing this results in a quilt that lays perfectly flat, always an indication of a well-made quilt.

Frankie's quilt

Okay Bacchus, take a good look, because I will probably delete this post after a few days. Here it is. It took a long time to load, so it is probably too large of a file. If it won't load for you, let me know. I'll mess with it and see if I can make it easier later.



Evan is jealous because he thinks it is a nicer quilt than his. It is. This one I started months in advance. His was a "I'm getting a new kid already?" speed quilt. I am sure he wanted me to say that I would make him a new one. Not now kid. I might promise to make him one if he gets married -- or gets as close as our country will allow. (On a side note, if they don't call it marriage it ain't marriage. Something that looks almost like a duck in one state and turns into an egg when you cross state lines, ain't a duck. It's a decoy to confuse and pacify us.) On second thought though, making quilts conditional on forming a relationship is not fair. I'll tell him he can have one for a graduation present. Whatever he wants, as long as it is in my skill level and doesn't include fabrics whose colors or patterns give me a headache.

This was the evil, quilt-as-you-go project. When I was putting it together I kept having the same thoughts. "This is stupid. No wonder most people don't do quilts like this! I'm never doing it again!" and "Well, now that I've figured this out, it's not so bad. It is a good way to get a quilt partway done and then allow the kid to make final design decisions. Maybe I will do another one. Next time though I will..."

The quilt looks nice from several feet away. I think it will hold up well. Anyone who knows anything about quilting will look closely and think, "What the hell?" and then say, "Was this your first quilt, dear?" I'm really glad that he picked one of the smaller patterns. Several of my blocks turned out to be too crooked (with respect to the backing) to be used. At this point I could make another three small throw pillows. I might be able to ruthlessly chop down the blocks and sew them into a baby quilt...

Ah but it is a quilt for a fifteen-year-old boy. He will love it.

I'm going to print the photo and send it to him at the group home.

He should be here in a week.

Reflections on Frankie

So he's gone, for now, and I had a good night's sleep.

I don't know if I can describe how I'm feeling. I'm looking forward to this, but it is same feeling that people who have been striving to be parents would feel. It is not the joyous anticipation that I'm going to be a mommy, or even that I will be a mommy again.

I think about how deeply I love all the boys, and how proud I am of how the older boys have done. Carl, David, and Evan all in different ways have come so far and are doing so very well. I want to point to them and say, "Hey! Those are my kids! Look how wonderful they are!"

I expect I will feel that way about Frankie, but I don't feel that way now. If they were to call me and say that he changed his mind about living here and wasn't ready to leave the group home I would be disappointed, but accepting. I would tell them to let him know that if he changes his mind they should give us a call. Then I would move on, wondering every now and then what happened to him, hoping that whatever it was was a good thing, but not feeling a great deal of angst.

Right now I feel more like one would right before doing a very difficult project. I feel up to the job. I know I shall be writing posts venting frustration, but I don't know what the topics of those posts will be. I expect to also write posts of pride and affection, and eventually love. Right now I am more curious, and a bit anxious. And protective.

He should move in in just over a week. Perhaps I will ask for the address of the center and send him a short letter or card.

Next: Frankie's quilt

Gone for now

Frankie left with Ben a little after 5:00 today.

We had some discussion about his schooling. It may be complicated. Frankie has been in group homes and treatment centers all of which have had on-site education. I did not quite realize that until this afternoon (not that it would have changed my decision). What that means is that the sites have been providing him with individualized instruction and only giving him the testing that they required. That testing may not be enough to qualify him for any sort of support services here.

We all think that he needs something. I'm nervous about taking a kid who has been working in a room with half a dozen students, one subject at a time, at his own pace, with pretty much a guarantee that he won't fail (he doesn't take the test until the teacher is sure he is ready) and moving him to a high school of more than 1000 students without any any sort of individualized support.

But the social workers are on it. I am not going to worry about that right now.

What I was going to tell you when I came to the computer is this. I am working on Frankie's quilt. When Ben got here I mentioned it, gesturing to the quilt squares all over the table. He smiled and said, "Remember that I told you that Frankie has five suitcases? One of them is filled with blankets that are important to him. You are definitely speaking his language of love." That made me feel pretty good.

Then I told Ben that I had given Frankie a pillow I had made out of two of the quilt blocks that had not come out quite right* and some photos of the house so that he could show people where he would be living. Ben smiled again, sighed and said, "Oh good. That's wonderful. He visited somewhere else and came back and told everyone that he was moving and then it didn't work out. That is going to be such a good thing for him."

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*I do believe that was Bacchus's suggestion. Thanks!

Next: Reflections on Frankie

More on Frankie

Here are the things about Frankie that I know will continue: he does not speak clearly which with my hearing problem is a frustration. He doesn't stay focused on a conversation. This morning he asked me about the tea that I had made and seemed really interested (although I knew it was not about the tea but about making a good impression on me). I started to answer him and he said, "You sure do like your tail, don't you?" I wondered if I misheard and he had said, "You sure like your tea, don't you?" which was a silly question because we were just taking about how much I liked tea. I looked over from the dishes I was washing and he was looking down at the puppy who was chewing on his tail.

He does that sort of thing a lot. Last night Evan was telling him something and Frankie pulled up his shirt to look at his ribs and asked Evan if his ribs had this particular feature. Evan looked at me and laughed silently. It really shows, by the way, how much Evan has grown up.

Actually that might be an example of a slightly different thing. Last evening Frankie found a lot of reasons to pull up his shirt and ask Evan about something: has this bruise healed, does this rib looks funny, does he has a spot on his side, or... Note that even if I am in the room I am not the one that he wants to look at his ribs. Evan is very aware of what is happening. He is doing the very good big-brother thing. He stays at a distance, glances at what he is being asked to look at, and then speaks in an adult-to-child reassuring voice.

Andrew isn't interacting with him much. He is able pretty accepting of Frankie's oddness and distractability. This is what Andrew wanted -- a kid who he did not have to interact with much. Andrew will concentrate on being a senior and getting ready to leave home.

Frankie is also not showing annoyance with Brian. It is a subtle thing. With a lot of kids you can see that they are struggling not to be annoyed with Brian. Frankie just doesn't seem annoyed. In some ways they are pretty similar. Both are slightly odd characters, tend to announce facts, and have issues with anxiety. I don't know if they will turn out to be kindred spirits who understand each other, or if they will each be annoyed by the other.

And one more anecdote: last night Evan was talking to me while I was cleaning the kitchen. Frankie walked in and started putting dishes in the dishwasher. Evan said, "What's he doing?" I said, "He's helping without even being asked!" Frankie said, "I really enjoy helping with household chores." Evan laughed loudly, patted me on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry, he's new. He'll get over it."

Next:
Gone For Now

Everything is moving so quickly!

This post is probably going to be disjointed, but that is because my brain is running in circles.

Okay, this is going much more quickly than any placement has ever gone before. There are multiple reasons for this of course. Kids from his region almost never get into this program, so nobody over there knows how it works. That has led to him being given a false impression about the process and to things like him being brought up for a two-day pre-placement visit before we even had a chance to read the file.

It is difficult for anyone to put the brakes on because school starts in less than three weeks. If we are going to do it, and are willing to do it now then we should, so that we can get him into school at the beginning.

With Evan I was first told about him. Then I called the youth group leader to ask if he thought Evan was a good fit for the family. He gave me a good report and so then I read the file. THEN Evan was told of our existence and we agreed to meet him.

In this case Frankie was told that there was a family in Our Small Town that had been identified as a good possibility for him and asked if he wanted to go for a visit BEFORE the file even made it to the local office.

Now I know that in foster care what typically happens is that you get a call about a kid who needs a place to stay and foster parents agree (or not) with very little information. But this is not regular foster care. This is permanent placement. Though it is possible for me to ask for Frankie to be moved, that is not what this program is about. I am being asked to make a commitment to this kid. I have signed placement agreements for three kids, and all three of those boys emancipated from this home. I view my relationship with them as permanent.

So we are usually careful.

We keep getting information and then deciding whether to take the next step.

In this case we are getting everything all at once. My head is spinning.

I think I know everything that it is possible to know before he actually lives here. I know what his past issues are. I know the ways in which he has been different in the last six months. I have seen the way that he is interacting (so far) with the boys. He seems like our kind of kid and it feels like a go, but it is fast.

Today Evan, Brian, Frankie and I all had lunch with the agency social worker, whom I will call "Diane." When we got to the agency she brought me into her office to tell me that she had just got the full file herself and we had been misled about the severity and frequency of some past behaviors, but not about the fact that those behaviors had stopped when we were told they had. I had a mental flash of Ben's face from the night before when he told us that he hoped that when we read all the details we judged Frankie based upon who he had become and not who he had been.

With that running around my head, we went to an Asian restaurant (one of those places you find in the middle of the country where they serve Mandarin Chicken and Vietnamese Noodles) where we ate and talked about family rules and acceptable ways of handling conflict, among other things. Then Diane took Frankie back to the office to discuss the program and what was expected of him.

I took Evan and Brian to the mall and sat dazed wondering how much to worry about his pre-medicated behavior, was it likely to re-occur? Everyone agrees that part of the issue was the group home environment and his behavior in the same group home has been dramatically different. I decided that I was willing to take a chance on Frankie. He seems like our sort of kid and he has come a long way. He felt right.

Then she called me to pick him up and asked if I wanted to sign the placement agreement.

It was so odd. The signing of the placement agreement along with other forms has always been a bit of a ceremony here. The whole family has sat around the table, after weeks of getting to know each other, and read the documents out loud (especially the sexual safety plan), and everyone has signed it. There has then been much hugging and grinning. The day is thereafter remembered as the anniversary of the day the kid officially joined our family.

She asked me right there, in front of Frankie, and Hubby and Andrew weren't even the same county. I had told her earlier that Hubby and I were prepared to go forward, but it felt like I agreed to an engagement only to have someone produce a judge and ask me to take my marriage vows.

Okay, not quite, but it was disorienting.

I pointed out that Hubby and Andrew had to do some signing too, so I would take the documents home. She gave me a return envelop so that I could mail them back.

I got into the car feeling a bit stunned and Evan noticed the paint brochures I had picked up earlier to give to Frankie to look at. If we all decided this was going to work, I wanted him to be able to paint his room. Evan asked if he could give them to him and I said, "Okay" without really thinking about it.

Frankie of course was over-joyed. I'm not certain he has ever been able to choose colors for his room before. He asked if he could pick any color he wanted. I told him he could have any color, just not any intensity. He could have one accent wall in a dark color, if he wanted, but the others had to be light.

With furious excitement he announced that he wanted his accent wall to be dark red and then started asking Evan for advice on the other walls. He kept handing him samples, asking, but then coming up with another before Evan had a chance to even look at the previous. "What do you think of yellow? Yellow is bright. Would it look good with this red?" "Maybe I should do white. How about pink? Do you think pink would be good?" "Oh. Look. Here is a nice green." Evan said, "NO. No green! I will help you when we get home." "Okay. No green, but I think maybe pink. Or white. Look at these, Evan. Here is a picture with dark red and light blue!"

Evan's lap was covered with brochures, we were stuck in a traffic jam, I was more than a little dazed and Evan grinned at me and said, "You're going to blog this, aren't you?"

Oh yeah.

This evening, Hubby and I asked Evan for his input. I gave him more information than I otherwise would have but I know he has lived in group homes. I wanted his assessment of the reports. Given the circumstances under which Frankie has been challenging, and given his improvement, what did he think? Evan is advocating for him, and that means a great deal to me.

So, it looks like we are doing it. Hubby said he will take the paper work down to the office tomorrow.

We are aiming for a move-in date about two weeks from now.

Frankie picked out a dark red and off white that work very well with the red block and white fabrics in the log cabin quilt. He likes the center diamond pattern.

Next: More on Frankie

First Impressions

Okay, Frankie has been here an hour and a half and I think he is a keeper (use of pronoun not a mistake).

He seems to like it here. He is really into RPG (Roll Role-Playing Games) games, which Andrew and Brian really, really are. Frankie is very excited at the boys' collection of such games. [Added: Andrew, and to a lesser extent, Brian are major Dungeons and Dragons players, which is a role-playing game which does involve rolling dice. They also own a large collection of video games in which are also classified as RPG's. Thanks to Parodie who caught my mis-spelling which in this case was confusing).

He likes to read and we live a block from the library.

After dinner I asked him if he had any questions or comments and he said, "Well, I'm really glad you're not like some other foster parents I met. You're not like neat-freaks or anything."

Yep. That's us. We spent all day cleaning. I look around and am so impressed and our astute visitor observes that we are not neat-freaks.

Everyone else is watching my language though. I was asking him if he wanted more pizza or something to drink and then I said, "I should warn you though. I won't always be this solicitous."
Hubby rolled his eyes and told me that nobody knows what "solicitous" means. Ben, the health care worker, said that he was embarrassed to ask. I explained that "solicitous" means paying a lot of attention to people's needs before they even express them. Frankie said okay.

After he noted that we were not neat-freaks I laughed and said this was as good as it gets and over the next few days he will see it degenerate before his eyes. Hubby said, "That means it will get worse."

Next:
Everything is moving so quickly!

Isn't mid-forties too young for this?

No...Frankie is not here yet.

I took a nap (not on purpose). The sheets on Brian's bed, where Frankie will sleep, are all nice and clean, and Hubby dusted. I am sitting here in my big chair while Evan watches a movie turned up too loudly and three fans are running (I said the air conditioner was working, not that it was working better than it used to).

Hubby says, "Yondalla!"

I look over and he is staring at the TV. "What? ... WHAT!" I say, not very rudely, but he did just call me.

Hubby says, "I wanted to say something but Evan wanted me to [mumble...mumble]."

I go back to reading an email.

"Yondalla!"

"What!"

"The person who does the voice for [mumble] is the same [mumble...mumble]."

"I can't hear you over the TV and all these fans!"

He gives me the now uninteresting factoid in a louder voice. I make polite acknowledgement, doing a very good job of feigning interest.

Evan says, "You know when you two get older you will both just yell at each other all the time, don't you?"

I reply, "Maybe we will just take a sign language class together. What do you think, Honey? Will you take a sign class with me?" He stares at the TV. "Honey?....HONEY!!"

He startles, looks at me confused and says, "What?"

Evan just shakes his head.

What else there is to say

First, thanks to those of you who gave reassuring comments about the toilet. Hubby thinks he can do it -- tomorrow. Today we decided the first priority was getting the house looking like adults actually lived here.

Hubby started with mowing the lawn while Andrew and I went shopping. Hubby burned himself on the lawn mower. I don't know how, but the blisters on his fingers look awful. He soaked them in ice water but is much tougher than I am. He got back into the swing of things.

It was one of those days where removing one level of clutter just reveals another level of filth.

Andrew spent an hour sorting and removing two months worth of recyclables from the mud room, which revealed a disgusting floor which Brian mopped.

I vacuumed the main floor, revealing stains I worked on with the little stain machine.

The kids cleaned their rooms (a major project). They also cleaned the rec room, removing old dishes that now look like forgotten science projects, a couple dozen aluminum cans, and enough trash to fill TWO giant lawn and leaf bags (I kid you not). This of course allowed us to see the floor and table surface -- so out with the mop again.


Brian scooped a months worth of dog poop out of the back yard. Since Hubby had burned his fingers, Brian mowed the back yard and Andrew did the front.

I cleaned the kitchen, which was just ordinary cleaning, except for the apparent science project things that kept appearing, and the main floor bathroom. Hubby mentioned that the basement bathroom (the one with the broken toilet) needed to be cleaned. I reminded him that I do not clean the basement bathroom. It is a matter of principle.

Meanwhile there is laundry. So much laundry. Hubby is mostly doing it, as it is his normal job. I am cheering him on though. I even folded a couple of loads.

Evan even swept the stairs, which were also very gross, moved the mattress that was still out from the last respite, and cleaned his room. He also took photos of it so that Frankie could take them back to the group home with zir. I will take some photos of the house to add, and print the photos of the ways the quilt can be put together so ze can let me know which ze prefers. I might even include some photos of us and the pets.

Anyway, the house is cleaner than it has been since my mother-in-law last visited. It doesn't look like anything you would find in a magazine, of course. There are still piles of books and magazines on almost every surface, but it is clean. Just don't look at the dust under the piles of books.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with myself for the next three or four hours.

Maybe I should go buy the toilet so Hubby can install it first thing in the morning. Or I could offer to supervise the laundry so that Hubby could go.

Of course I could listen to the audiobook on my iPod that I found under the chair when I moved it to vacuum.

The toilet broke

I mean what else is there to say?

Last night it started to over-flow. Andrew knew that if he held the knob up it would help so he did. He yelled from the basement for us but we didn't hear. So he banged on the wall, at which point the tank lid, which he had moved to make certain that holding the knob up was holding the seal down, fell into the tank and broke it.

So we need a new toilet.

On a Sunday.

When a new kid is coming to visit.

We do have another toilet on the main floor which all five six of us can use. As long as Andrew is not taking one of his marathon baths, that is. Oh the fun and joy of THAT option.

Yesterday my handy friend came out and cleaned my air conditioner and she didn't even charge me. I absolutely owe her dinner. Did you know that those units outside your house can get really dirty, and if they do get really dirty then they can't push out the hot air and so they don't work? You have to turn off the electricity to it, and then you have to know which places to spray with the hose and which ones not to, but when you do, lots of dirt and gunk comes out. And then your air conditioner works again.

So at least we won't be outrageously hot.

Just full bladders.

Anyone ever replaced a toilet themselves? It's Evan's day off and he can help with the heavy lifting. Is this the sort of thing that someone who can read and owns tools can do? I suppose I could call my handy friend. She encouraged Hubby to install our dishwasher, to replace the one that died a month ago (sigh). He did that successfully.

What the boys think

Not that any of you asked, of course.

Anyway, Hubby and I had to make an immediate decision about whether Frankie could come over on Sunday. We did not have time to discuss it with the various boys. Afterwards though I spoke with each of them. And I thought you might be interested in their response. Prior to these conversations all I told them was that we were told that there was a kid who they were considering for us but about whom I knew almost nothing.

Andrew:

I spoke to him first. Told him that I didn't think it was a good idea for Frankie to sleep in the basement area with him and Evan so Brian would be moving in with him (again) and Frankie would stay in Brian's room. Andrew rolled his eyes, sighed and said, "okay." I told him everything I was willing to tell him about Frankie, which was a lot. Then I said, "If this happens, and I think it will, it will be fast. I imagine everyone will want him to move in before school starts." Andrew said, "That's cool."


Brian:

I stopped Brian and told him that Frankie was coming over on Sunday to spend two days. He said "Cool." I told him that I knew that it had been hard on him to loose his room for three weeks when we did respite and I wanted him to tell me honestly how much time he felt he could give it over in the next three weeks. He looked seriously at the calendar and then said matter-of-factly, "I can share with Andrew as much as ze needs me to."


Evan:

I told him. He said, "How long have you known this?!" I told him that I had got the call while he was at work and this was the first chance I had to talk to him about it. He said, "Okay then. You know I'm really excited about going to college. It's like I'm so excited that nothing else seems important. Like there was this thing that happened at work...[story omitted] ... and I just didn't care. That's normal right?"

Me: "Yeah. It's normal. Does it have something to do with Frankie visiting?"

Evan: "No. I just wanted to tell you about it."

Me: "Okay. I needed to talk to you because if this happens they will probably want Frankie to move in before schools starts and you move into the dorms after that. This is your home; there's no question about that, but how do you feel about someone moving in while you are moving out?"

Evan: "If you want I could ask my mom if I could live with her for a while, although I don't know that that would work out."

Me: "No. I don't want you to do that. Frankie will probably stay in Brian's room and Brian will be in the basement with you and Andrew. How do you feel about that?"

Evan: "I'm just worried about you. Can you handle all that stress? I'll be moving out, and you said you would help but there will be a new kid in the house. You know how you get sometimes. Can you cope with it?"

Me: "I can handle it." [This part of the conversation went on for a while. Evan was very concerned about my ability to handle the stress of meeting everyone's needs. I eventually convinced him.]

Evan: "Can you still help me move?"

Me: "Sure. You will be moving in while the kids are in school."

Evan: "That's right. You said he is living in a group home now?"

Me: "Yeah. And he's anxious to get out. He was about to leave months ago but then didn't because they told him he was a good candidate for our program. So he has been waiting for that process. They thought about putting him into a different foster home and then move him again, but"

Evan, interrupting me: "No that would be dumb. You know I did that -- living in a group home waiting to get into the program and move in here. Group homes suck, you know that, don't you? I mean they really do."

Me: "I imagine they do. Of course living here will be strange and different for him too."

Evan: "Yeah. You do know you guys are really geeky, don't you? I mean, this is a very weird family."

Me: "I've been told. So you are okay with him moving in even if you haven't moved out yet? You won't feel like we have some sort of assembly line thing here happening? I mean this is exactly what you asked us not to do last fall."

Evan gives long speech about how much he has matured since then, all of which is true. He then tells me that he will be at work most of the time anyway, so it doesn't matter. If I want he will move in with Andrew so that Frankie can move into his room. Immediately he looks like he wishes he could take that back. I assure him that he can keep the room until he moves.


Me: "There is just one more thing. When Frankie visits I want zir to be able to see the bedroom. I want you to get it picked up enough so that ze can look at it."

Evan gives me the look that says this is going too far, don't I remember that he doesn't want ANYone to ever go into the room? I say, "I won't let zir look through your things, but ze needs to see it."

Evan, sighing heavily: "Okay, but you won't let zir in without me, right?"

Me: "No. I promise."

Evan: "Okay then."


I'm so proud of all of them. Evan legitimately had worries to work out, but every single one of them heard "kid in group home who needs us" and was willing to do do whatever he could to make things work.

Every one.

They are such wonderful human beings. You know, most of the time.

Next:
First Impressions

Life-long parenting

I was recently in a conversation regarding some data on foster care alumni. There were statistics on homelessness, arrests, education, family status, drug and alcohol abuse.

Some of the young people were doing well. Others were struggling.

Though the conversations was supposed to include a wider range of people, it was just me, four foster alumni, and one social worker. Again and again the conversation came back to: we have to teach them about ____ before they leave care.

The list of things we decided they needed to know got longer and longer, until I was overwhelmed for them. I thought about how ignorant I was at 18. I thought about how much parenting I have had since I was eighteen.

I mean, I'm forty-four and I only recently got advice from my father-in-law about whether my current investments in my retirement portfolio are wise.

The first (but hardly the last) time I called my mother to describe a symptom of one of my children and ask if I should call the doctor I was twenty-seven.

The first time I did the bargaining for a (used) car and actually got it at the price I had intended to pay I called my father-in-law to tell him the story and be told how well I had done. I was thirty-two.

When my father came to visit once I asked him to look at some windows to see what we could do to fix them. He told me that there was no easy fix. Certain damage would have to be done and then repaired. I was thirty-eight.

And now I know my parents and in-laws are getting older. I am learning to accept that they will not always be there. Eventually, they will no longer be there to advise me. I will have to be an adult. Really.

Maybe I can put it off until I am sixty.

But youth who emancipate from care often leave on their eighteenth birthday. Some take advantage of laws allowing them to stay until they finish high school. But whatever age they leave, they are on their own. No matter how good a job we do, no matter how much information we get into them, they are not prepared for self-sufficiency.

In the meeting we kept talking about what else we should be doing for foster youth to make foster alumni able to take better care of themselves.

Suddenly it hit me. That attitude behind that question is part of the problem.

It is not possible.

The goal for every youth in foster care needs to be adoption or permanent placement, or something. Somehow every youth needs to be attached to some set of adults they can turn to.

Somehow.

The foster alumni recommended support groups in which they could mentor each other. I support that. If we can make it happen, I support it.

I don't know how to solve this problem. I know that there will continue to be teens in foster care and far few adults willing to adopt them; and I know there will be teens for whom adoption is not the answer.

But where did we get the crazy idea that someone could be a self-sufficient adult at 18?

Where?

He could have been mine

Okay, so he is older than I am, but he was once a youth in foster care and now he has a blog.

I read the whole thing, and will keep reading it.

Here is the link to the first post. The blog is Reflections of a Foster Youth.

Go. Read. Cry.

And be glad that people like him are writing.

Frankie's coming to visit

Hopefully by Sunday I will no longer be tired, because Frankie will be here.

As you may remember, Frankie lives several hours drive from here. One of zirs current workers, whom I'll call "Ben," is going to be in the area for a training and suggested bringing Frankie along so that ze can meet zirs new worker (the one with the agency with which I work) and do some of the things zir must do in order to enter the program.


I originally thought that it would be good if ze was just told that we were a family that was going to let ze stay for two days so that there would not be any pressure. That however is not going to work. Ze has already been told that there is a family in Our Small Town that has been recommended for zir and ze is not stupid. Ze will know we are that family.

Ben though said that maybe he would tell Frankie that this was a trial run and that everyone wanted to make sure it would work out -- you know, instead of just introducing us as zirs new family.

Uh...yeah.

I told the worker that with the boys I had emphasized that they got a choice in this too, that the visits were not just about us deciding if it would work, but for them to decide if we were right. The worker thought that was fantastic and would definitely tell Frankie that.


I told the worker he could tell Frankie that we were active in PFLAG (I had to explain what that is). The worker had only been told that we might be a good family for Frankie. He had not been told that we had a commitment to GLBTQ kids. He was thrilled. With other families have been okay with Frankie's other challenges*, but have not been comfortable with the other stuff. That we are actually interested in zir BECAUSE of the other stuff was amazing too him.

And then he found out that Brian and Andrew play D&D and World of Warcraft.

I think Ben was about to cry for joy.

A family that is comfortable with a kid who is questioning AND has children that play D&D?

Apparently we are too good to be true.

I am a little nervous about the visit though. Frankie really, really, really wants this. Ze wants to leave the group home, wants to be in the program I work for, wants to live with a family, and wants to live in my county. Though Frankie often does need time alone and can be fairly independent, we are to prepare for a kid who is intensely trying to please.


We might tell zir early on that ze is welcome to live with us if ze wishes, just to take some of the stress off.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to drive my hubby to pick up his van. It wasn't just the brake pads. Sigh.

__
*I'm not going to share with you what Frankie's past challenging behaviors are. I will tell you that the most difficult things that ze has done were (1) things that would not be dangerous to Andrew and Brian and (2) have not been seen for quite some time. So even if ze is as challenging as ze has ever been, I am not worried for safety or anything like that.

Still, I am going to try to give Frankie a clean slate. This will be the first time ze has lived in a household that is accepting of the sort of questioning ze is doing. That might have a calming influence, or it may cause testing behaviors to be more extreme (the more valuable something is the more scary it is to get attached to it). We will just have to see how it goes.

Next:
What the boys think

Really dumb comments

Not here of course. Y'all leave really good comments here.

I am slowly catching up on the blogs I read. It is odd, reading 2 1/2 weeks of someone's life all at once. Pain, drama, laughter, terminal cuteness. I want to leave half a dozen comments on each blog. But see, my brain is still really, really tired and I am overwhelmed with all I would like to say to each of you. I'll never finish reading if I leave all the comments.

So I shall leave you a short note, just a "hello" or a ((HUG)) to let you know I have been there.

Meanwhile, does anyone know where the boys put the infuser to my good tea pot? If you see it, will you let me know?

Could be anywhere. Probably fell on the floor and was dragged off by the puppy....

We're back

Hi all.

We're home. I want to write you all an interesting and relevant post, but that is not going to happen.

I wonder about vacationing where we do. It takes so long to get there and back. We fly in and out of a city that is 6 hours away from the cottage. Given how much money we save doing that it always makes sense when I buy the tickets and makes little sense when I get back exhausted from two days travel.

Oh but I should not whine. It was a lovely vacation. Here are the highlights:

The cottage and the ocean were, as always, breath-takingly beautiful. I live in a part of the country which is very dry and I grew up with forests, water, and fog. The northern coast of Maine is far from my childhood home, but it brings back all those old feelings. When I was a girl I used to go into the forest and find myself holding my breath so that I could hear all the noises. I used to think that if I could be quiet enough I could hear the trees speak. I feel that way at the cottage. I go sit on the rocks and listen to the waves. It touches my soul.

We ate lobster three times.

I put Brian's cell phone through the washing machine.

We went to our favorite restaurant. I decided I loved it fifteen years ago when we asked to be seated in the non-smoking section which turned out to be four tables in the middle of the restaurant -- surrounded by tables at which patrons smoked. It was so outrageous it made me laugh. Fortunately there were not a lot of smokers. Now the whole dining room is nonsmoking, but you can still get the best clam chowder and crab meat rolls there.

We got the last Harry Potter book and I read it aloud to the kids over three days. I have a first edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. That means something as they were not certain that it would take off in America. We found it and loved it. No one we knew had heard of it. Most of the books we have read in that cottage. Not all, but most of them. We have had them shipped directly there and I have read the books to the boys sitting on that plaid sofa in the living room.

And this year we read the last of the books there.

And the family decided to put the cottage on the market. The taxes alone are as high as our mortgage. We cannot keep it. (Please, my darling helpful, problem-solving friends, don't offer creative suggestion for keeping the property. Decisions are made. I have agreed with them. I have gone through denial, anger, and bargaining. I am grieving and every so slowly moving towards acceptance).

We returned to a house which, as Evan put it, looks like two teenage boys lived here for two weeks. Actually, considering that, it is not too bad. They left us some milk, which is sour. They house is dirty, but not torn apart. The puppy was prevented from chewing furniture and I only found one un-treated puppy accident mark.

Evan is getting very excited about school starting. He moves into the dorms in less than three weeks now. He wanted to know if we would attend the family dinner at orientation with him. Actually he asked if we wanted to go, using a "I know it is lame and it is okay with me if you don't want to do it" voice. I am assured him that I wanted to go, that the school does these things to make it easier for parents to let go of their kids and it was important. We would be there.

The brakes on the van mysteriously went from squeaky to down-right frightening, even though Evan says that he did not drive the van very much. (He was only supposed to drive it on the days he dropped us off and picked us up). He did make a joke about how the brake noise isn't so bad if you turn the radio up really loudly, but he didn't drive it very much -- really. Hubby's taken it to the shop to find out how bad it is. Hopefully it is just the pads. Please, let it just be the pads.

I have not heard any updates on Frankie, but I will let you know as soon as I do.

See you in August

Andrew & Evan reprise

Last summer I pulled together emails I wrote early in Evan's time with us. I just went back to see what I wrote about Evan and Andrew almost two years ago. For those of you who don't want to read the posts, I will summarize. Evan and Andrew did not get along.

Both liked to debate. Both hated to loose. Evan was used to winning though being louder than anyone else. Andrew uses logic leading people into argumentative dead ends. Evan complained that Andrew did not like him and Andrew complained, well, that he did not like Evan. As far as Andrew was concerned, Evan could fall off the face of the earth and he would breath a sigh of relief.

For a while I tried to help them understand each other. Finally I gave up and let them work it out themselves. Andrew dealt with it by avoiding all contact with Evan. They divided the house up like a couple of tom cats. I kept taking deep breaths and thinking they just had to make it until the end of the school year. Evan was supposed to be with us for only 10 months or so.

Sobriety did wonders for Evan's personality and after he came back from rehab he and Andrew just started getting along.

I just went to Andrew's room to talk to him about the possibility of our getting another kid and where Evan might sleep when he wanted to come home from school for vacations or just because he needed a weekend out of the dorm. Andrew didn't think about it. He just said, "He can share my room."

You know 18 months ago it would have been, "I can't stop you from letting him stay in the house. Just keep him away from me."

Evan and Frankie

Yeah...I barely know anything about Frankie and there is already sibling rivalry.

I asked Evan if he would be willing to write something about what it is like living here. I have been wanted to create a short portfolio on our family for a while. I wanted to give the social workers permission to show it to potential kids so they would have an idea of what we were like. I thought a page from Evan would be really good since he has maintained his relationships with the rest of his family while he has been here. Since Frankie has family in the area, that might be something that ze would be reassured to hear.

But I did end up telling Evan that there was a kid that the agency was considering introducing us to.

And Evan's response? He's worried about where he will stay on vacations. I promised him that he could come home during breaks, even though he knows the agency will pay the extra for him to stay in the dorms, he really wanted to be able to come back here.

I reassured him. I had told him before that I could not promise him an empty bedroom waiting for him, but I could promise that he would always be welcome. He could bunk with Andrew or Brian could bunk with Andrew and Evan could have Brian's room.

I promised Evan he would still have a key to the house. He could still come over on Saturdays and do his laundry (well, check with Hubby -- he's the captain of laundry around here). He can come home for the weekend just because he has to get out of the dorms.

I know he will miss having the bedroom empty, there for him any time. Bunking with the boys won't be the same as coming back to his own room. I think though that he is feeling reassured.

This is one of his homes.

I feel like I should give him something, other than the key, that indicates I really mean it.

Don't know what though.

Next:
Frankie's Coming to Visit

It is not the same thing

So this year Evan is paying me rent, which he does very reliably. He pays me in cash on a weekly basis.

Last year I was being paid room and board by the agency (more than I am getting now). Before we left on vacation I stocked up on all sorts of foods. I told him that if he had to buy more food he should keep the receipts and I would reimburse him. I came back and it seemed that most of the food I had bought was still here and that he had pretty much lived off of fast food, for which he knew I would not reimburse him.

This year I suggested that he not pay me rent for two weeks. He could just buy his own food instead. If he budgeted carefully he would actually end up with extra money. A month or so ago that seemed to him to be a good idea. In the past couple of days though he has been asking me when I was going to to shopping. I explain that I wasn't. He could buy what he needed.

His anxiety went right up. He had to do the shopping? He didn't realize he was going to have to do grocery shopping. And what about teenage pet sitter who was coming in?* Did he have to buy groceries for him too? I said that I wanted him to keep the house stocked with things like milk and bread, but that he did not have to buy the house sitter special items.

It was all so overwhelming.

Finally I said, "Okay. How about this. I will go shopping and stock up the house. You put the rent money you would give me into an envelop and if you or the pet sitter need any food you can use that money to buy it. You can make a run to the store, or you can give the pet sitter some of the cash. When I get back you can give me what is left."

He was relieved. That was different.

Just so long as he doesn't have to do any PLANNING.

____
*There is no way the puppy can be allowed to stay alone for 10 hours while he is at work.

More thoughts about zir

I've decided to go ahead and give the name "Frankie" to the youth we were told about.

I re-read my last post and the words "it all could come to nothing" jumped out at me. I was tempted to just edit those words out, but I decided instead to take them back in a separate post.
Several things could happen in Frankie's life. Ze could be admitted into the permancy program and become part of my family. Ze could also continue to live in the group home. Frankie is at a cross-roads in zirs life, and no path is "nothing." There are just paths that include us and paths that don't.

Hubby and I have not told anyone about zir, not even Andrew and Brian. We didn't even have to discuss that. We know too little. Andrew and Brian would have questions that we cannot answer. I will make you suffer with knowing and not knowing for three weeks, but not them. Sorry, friends in my computer, but I have no obligation to protect you from psychic angst.

I find that I am glad to be, or potentially be, out of that morally icky place where I am hoping for them to find me a kid. There is something goulish about that psychic place -- waiting for something bad to happen in the world so that I can have something that I want. And yes, it is something that I want. I find it to be one of the most rewarding things I do. It is stressful, exhausting, damaging to careers and friendships and everything else in one's life, but it is rewarding. My life is richer because of these three young men. I am glad that I parented them and I want to do it again.

And in order for that to happen, some other parent must be unable to care for his or her child.

It is easier when there is a real kid, when I begin to know a little bit about why this kid needs me. I am no longer hoping for a bad thing to happen; it has happened. It is what it is.

Frankie is living in a group home. Zirs parents cannot care for zir. I do not know the whole story, but I know major parts of the story involve the medical diagnoses of the parents. Ze does not have a failed adoption placement in zirs past and I don't think that ze has even been in very many different foster homes, at least compared to most kids.

I will be anxious to find out if the social workers will let ze into the program.

It feels strange to be going on vacation right now. I want to be here to hear what they learn, maybe even be part of the decision.

There is not doubt that Frankie will be a challenging kid. Ze has not lived been successful in a family. The workers at the group home think that ze is ready to try again, but it will not be easy for zir, and it won't be easy for everyone else.

If ze is questioning in the way we think ze might be, then it could be that just being in an accepting and affirming home will help a lot. But that won't make everything better. A kid who has grown up not feeling safe, not confident that zirs basic needs will be provided, will not relax because suddenly ze is in a home with parents who have PFLAG logos all over the place.

And on that questioning thing...the social workers think that Frankie is not really aware that ze is questioning. Hubby and I think that is possible, but highly unlikely. It sounds to us that the questions that ze has been asking in therapy session are the sort of testing questions that people ask in order to figure out whether it is safe to come out. The people at the group home have not responded to zirs questions, which is better than responding negatively, but not much.

So I am anxious to learn more, but it will be a while.

I almost wish I weren't leaving for vacation in two days.

Almost.

A Definite Maybe

We went to a training last night, where we learned that the world is an incredibly dangerous place, that there is little we can do about it, so we should be vigilant and not worry too much.

In other news, the supervisor and the family developer wanted to tell us about a teenager they met.

I shouldn't perhaps be telling you about zir because I can't tell you much and the youth might not even be accepted into the program. It could all come to nothing. Worse, I shall be leaving for vacation on Tuesday morning and will not have access to the Internet until early August, so you will be left without even knowing what is happening.

So I shouldn't tell you anything, but why should I suffer alone?

Here's what I can tell you. The youth in question is fifteen, seems younger, and said things which indicate questioning. The social workers talking to us struggled to find the right words and I finally said, "The youth tripped your gaydar but is not self-identifying as GLBTQ." They were pleased. That was it exactly.

There are behavioral issues in the past which would disqualify zir from the program and for living with us, but there is reason to think that ze might be better now. The representative of the group home where ze is living is advocating for zir, saying that they almost did not accept zir back after ze left them for a long-term treatment center, but they did and ze is like a different kid.

Ze very much wants to leave the group home and live with a family, and would like to move to my part of the world as it would allow zir to have contact with the birth family whose own medical and other problems make it impossible for them to care for zir.

So we shall leave for vacation. The social workers will try to get to know zir better, and ze may come to visit us when we get back.

Or we may come back to be told that they decided ze was not appropriate for the program.

Next:
More Thoughts on Zir

My father

My father is still here.

Or some pale remnant of him is. It is not my father who is napping in the hotel a mile from my house -- it is the old man he has become.

He is things that many old men are. He is hard of hearing, easily tired, and has fingers that are no longer quite straight. He has a cell phone which he does not know how to use. I put phone numbers in his contact list (he had none after owning the thing for two months) and tried to show him how to dial numbers from the contact list, but he seems to think there are too many steps. I expect that if he needs to call my sister he may look up her number in his phone but then search for a piece of paper on which to write it so he can dial the number.

He is and is not the father that I remember from my childhood. He seems smaller, perhaps is smaller, and I do not think that he could hurt me physically. He does not frighten me. He is no longer mean, does not take pleasure in making people unhappy, but he also is thoughtless, unaware of the effects of his actions.

All except Brian know this. "Acceptance" is perhaps not the word to describe our attitude towards him, but certainly no one thinks that that anything can be done. My father was confused about his itinerary and called my sister this morning to tell her that he would not be arriving today and leaving Sunday, but would be there tomorrow and leave on Monday. She called me to get his exact itinerary and sigh about schedules which had been changed which now must be changed again and vacation days taken which cannot be given back though though would be much better used later. Had he called even yesterday her husband could have gone to work today. I sympathized, but not even she could get up the energy to be angry at him.

It is just who he is.

And I have trouble knowing what to do with him, how to interact with him. My instinct is still to tell him nothing. I had a brief moment of irritation that my husband told him that I had been listening to audiobooks this summer. The look of disapproval on my father's face was also brief. A younger version would berate me for listening to books, quiz me and then be horrified at the silliness of the novels I was currently listening to. This elderly version of him however let it go, having come to accept in his own way that the world has come to this sad state of affairs.

He did not talk about it, but I imagine that if it did that conversation, like nearly every other would go to the same place: the contemporary disregard of the "canon." Nobody reads the great books any more. Shakespeare is an elective for English majors now. An elective! Can you imagine? English Professors teach poetry of _____ or some other such nonsense. (I have omitted the specifics to avoid offending my readers who are human). When he is gone no one will teach the great writers of western civilization. His department is no longer an English Department is a bleeping department of cultural studies.

But he does not have much energy even for his favorite rant. He gets started, but there is no enthusiasm. He has given up. He buys his grandchildren video games. His own daughter listens to crap on an iPod and nobody, nobody reads Milton. Nothing can be done. The end is upon us. He is a dinosaur who will soon wander off to die and lie with the other fossils.

I do not know what to say to him, nor he to me. He opens his book and falls asleep on my sofa.

This old, tired, inconsiderate man does not seem to be the same person as my father. That man was large and frightening. He was often mean. There would be periods of generosity and of niceness, but they always felt artificial. They were better the times of meanness, but they had their own strangeness. I did not know my lines. I did not know how I should behave and was never not nervous.

I spent my time with him afraid, sad or anxious. I still carry anger. A part of me still wants to confront the father of my childhood. I have feelings regarding him. I am angry at him. I used to fantasize that I would confront him; I would yell at him. I tried a few times as a young adult, but it was unsatisfactory. I wondered if I would ever find a time and place in which it would be right to confront him with the pain he caused.

But that man is gone, all that remains is this shell.

And I do not know how I feel about the thing that is what is left of him.

Congratulations to Bacchus

The adoption is finalized!

Go read celebratory post -- complete with photo of adorable "Baby R".

What if?

I had an interesting conversation with Brian the other day.

A few days ago, for the first time, I considered the possibility that the agency just wouldn't find us a new kid. Evan would go to school, and Andrew would follow a year later. Both boys, like young people all over the world, would have an empty bedroom of their own waiting for them to occupy during holidays.

And most of the time it would just be me, Hubby and Brian.

Freaky.

I asked Brian what he would think about living like that -- just him and his parents.

"Well, what would be the advantages?"

"Um...you could have any bedroom you wanted."

"I like the bedroom I have."

"Anytime you wanted a parent's attention one of us would be available."

He looked at me strangely -- rather like I was telling him that we would never run out of milk. I followed up, "You know, there wouldn't be other kids needing things and we wouldn't always be driving them to appointments and stuff."

He still looked at me funny.

"You would not have to fight for the computer."

"I'm not going to have to soon anyway. Evan's giving his old computer to Andrew."

"But if we got a new kid you would have to share again."

"So?"

"So, what would you think if the agency just didn't find a new kid and it was just the three of us?"

He again looked at me like I was asking him what he would think about living on the moon, and said, "I think I am going to save up my allowance and buy my own laptop. I should be able to do it in about two years, I think. There really isn't anything I want to spend my money on."

Sure...back to reality mom.

My Father Visits

My father is visiting and that is always a stressor.

It was a little unclear exactly when he was going to get here. He showed up yesterday, just after I had got rid of the last family member and was settling down to watch The Closer on my DVR. Brian was the only one I could get in touch with, which is fortunate because he is the only one who has "uncomplicated" feelings about my father. We met him at the restaurant near the hotel (one of my least favorite eateries in the world, but that is irrelevant) for dinner.

The first thing he said to Brian was, "So you haven't lost any weight since I saw you last, huh?"

Brian with surprise told him that he had not lost any weight, but he had grown and not gained any. He was still expecting to get thinner as he grew. I backed him up on that claim. It is likely. I considered explaining to my father that the weight gain was caused by one of the drugs that we had tried and that it was true that once he switched meds he stopped gaining, but my long standing habit is to never give my father more information than absolutely necessary, especially information he can use in a negative way. He doesn't know anything about Brian medications or counseling. I am not even sure we have said anything about him going to half days at school. If Brian wants to tell him, he can.

He is planning on taking Andrew and Brian out to lunch today. Not Evan, of course.

I told him that Evan was back and that he works from 2-10pm everyday so they won't see each other much. My father turned that into "not at all" and has just crossed him off his list of people to think about. I have some responsibility for this as I don't push Evan back into his consciousness. I could have told Evan just to be ready at when he shows up and announce to my father that Evan was going to meet them wherever and Dad would go along with it.

The thing is, I think that Evan would probably turn down the invitation if it were made. After last year he has learned that my father is not really a nice person and he probably doesn't really want to have lunch with him. Like me, it is not the lunch, it is the thought. I am sure he will be hurt that my father did not even consider inviting him. And that is the one thing that I cannot make my father do. I can't make my father care about any one's feelings.

He leaves Friday afternoon.

David, Evan and Andrew all growing up

David's roommate's parents live in Our Small Town and yesterday she came to visit them and dropped David off with us.


He and I played about cards for a couple of hours. He is the only person in the world who will play cards with me. It probably has something to do with him being the only person in my world who can beat me half (or even more than half) of the time.


Like always I want to invite him to come home. He has been struggling for two years now, and doing fairly well. He is slowly recognizing how little he can do without even a high school diploma. I want to bring him home and let him finish, and yet I am convinced that it will not work unless it is what he wants. I think he is getting closer. He spoke last night of his efforts to stay healthy. He seems to understand how precarious his life is. One illness and he cannot pay his bills. He will be 21 this fall. Someday this life may get old.


Do you get tired of reading that after every visit I have with him? I hope not, because the desire to "rescue" him and the effort it takes to remember that rescuing him when he does not (yet?) desire to be rescued are quite strong. I need to vent it all somewhere.

But putting that aside, it was a wonderful visit. It is perhaps because our visits are wonderful that I so strongly feel the need to take him in.

Evan on the other hand had dinner with the other kids in the education/job training program with the agency. The kids got their vouchers to buy whatever it was in their plan to buy (Evan got a lap top, we're talking generous vouchers here). They were also told that they each had a budget of $500 to buy things for their dorm rooms. So I think Evan will be fairly well-stocked with linens and trash cans.

Andrew is very excited about Evan's new lap top. Andrew is getting the old one. It is on "indefinite loan." Evan considered selling it to Andrew but then decided that he wanted to be able to recall it if anything happened to the new one. Andrew of course agreed.

Evan won't give it to him until he transfers all his stuff over -- all of it. He was quite insistent. I think Andrew started to say that he could be trusted not to snoop or mess things up, and then I think he realized just what sort of things Evan might have downloaded that he would want to remove and agreed.

I offered the use of my external hard drive if it would help with the transfer process. As long, of course, as everything was deleted off the hard drive.

And we talked about Andrew's college plans. He too will be leaving in a year.

I love that they are turning into responsible adults. I really do. I am proud and excited.

And a little sad.

Minor updates

Things are so quiet and peaceful here, now that the girls are gone.

Our biggest drama is Brian being made to be responsible for taking his own medication. This means no drama when he remembers and lots of drama when he forgets. The power of pharmaceuticals is amazing.

The second biggest issue is Evan's ... whatever it is. I ask him to bring up dirty dishes from his room. He tells me he has none. I SEE dirty dishes in his room and tell him to bring them to the kitchen. He promises me he will. I go down to his room while he is at work and bring up four of the best glasses, four plates, two mugs, and a handful of flatware.

Hubby tells him that if he opens his AC vent to full his room may be 60 degrees (where he likes it) but the living room at the other end of the house is 80. He needs to keep it cracked. Hubby shows him where to set it. He agrees. Hubby goes in after Evan goes to work and it is open to full.

Funny, Hubby expresses just as much irritation as I do about the dishes.

We have learned though. He has no intention of arguing with Evan. It gets you nowhere. Evan will agree, assure, and promise and then do the opposite. Hubby is already trying to do something or other to the vent so that Evan will no longer be able to change the setting.

The thermostat issue is important because it has been hot here. I normally avoid talking about the weather because it is a geographical clue, but as there is a heat wave covering much of the country I suppose it is safe to say that it has been hot. Really hot. So hot that I bought a styrofoam cooler and a bag of ice to bring home the ice cream from the grocery store. So hot that stepping outside in the late afternoon feels like walking into an oven.

I wanna go to Maine now, please. (We leave on the 17th).

Bad Holidays

'Tis the Fourth of July again. It is my trigger holiday, although I think I am too wiped out to have much emotion one way or another. Last year it bothered me more than usual, and I think I am back to my typical pattern. My emotions are subdued (maybe in part because I am so tired after the respite care marathon), and once again the holiday is today has caught me slightly by surprise.

I know it is because we don't celebrate it. I don't, like with all the other holidays, think in advance about what we should do. I don't plan a menu, bake pies in advance, keep an internal count-down of the days as I engage in preparations.

What I do do is think about triggers and foster kids.

See, something really bad happened on the fourth of July twelve years ago. I have processed my feelings in multiple ways. I understand that nothing bad is going to happen today. I will not have an anxiety attack or cry. Well, maybe I will cry, but it will just be a few quiet tears, not sobbing. I will however think about that day. I will wonder where he is and how he is. I will calculate his current age (15 or 16) and wonder if he is doing the things that other kids his age do. Perhaps he re-learned all the skills and knowledge he lost that day. Perhaps those who know him now would never guess. I will wish that I had not lost contact with his mother. I will wonder if she simply stopped writing to me, or if talking to me is somehow painful. I do not think that she thinks poorly of me, but I could believe that thinking about me involves thinking about that day her life also changed. So maybe it was just easier for her not to think about me. Maybe that is why she did not contact me after she moved years ago.

I will feel sad and I will try to shake that feeling. I am an adult, and I will deal with my feelings in a way that does not affect other people (aside from my not planning any appropriate celebration). I might vent a little on the blog, but I will spend the day looking and acting pretty much the same way I do on any other day.

And I will think about all the children we care for. How many holidays are like this for them? Do they have powerful negative emotions associated with all of them? The holidays are usually excuses for excess.

We often have unrealistic expectations for the children we love. We hope that while in our care they will heal from the trauma they have experienced. We hope that it will somehow go away. That the past will stay in the past, and they will come to enjoy the events once associated with pain.

Though that is possible, I think it is unrealistic. I think instead our goal should be that they will understand their triggers so that when those triggers come around they will know why they feel the way they do and will be able to take care of themselves without hurting people around them.

And that is a lot.

More thoughts about princesses

In my post Re-Training a Princess Carolie said:

I'm a pretty cheerful person...and I was brought up to believe that even if I was in a nasty mood, I should at least act pleasant to those around me. I had a boss who was disgruntled allll the time. She hated computers, and had hired me to be her designer, and also to update her computer software. One day, she stuck her head in the office and said "oh, by the way, when you finish that, will we be able to blah blah blah(something to do with the new software)?" I said "No problem!" with a cheerful smile.She went ballistic, screaming at me not to condescend to her, and how dare I, stop that fake sh*t, etc., etc., etc. All I meant with my cheerful, smiling and sincere response was "I'd be happy to do that and should easily be able to fulfill your request, boss!" What she heard was "that's easy, you dumb bitch!" said with fake cheer.Where do you draw the line? After Rhonda has manipulated you with her eye-batting routine once, how do you know when she's manipulating, or whether you're reading in ulterior motives to her smiling demeanor? (I'm seriously asking, and not at all accusing you of misreading her!)

I think this is an incredibly important observation and I suspect the heart of the answer is in a recent post Gawdess wrote. Gawdess, in discussing her daughter's princess-like behavior, pointed out ways in which she was oblivious to others feelings.

And I think that might be really important. It might be that that obliviousness is what makes the behavior clear and distressing to those who live with princesses and invisible to those who merely interact with them occasionally. It may also be the answer to Mongoose's question in a comment on the same post:

Why does it matter if she's cute about asking for something she's allowed to have? For that matter, why does it even matter if she's cute about asking for something she isn't allowed to have, as long as you don't give in? I'm sure we all do it sooner or later.

It matters because it is not really the behavior. Oh any behavior repeated constantly can drive you up a wall. But princess behavior is a problem because, at the heart, it rests on a blindness to the needs and feelings of others. This is probably true of all sorts of manipulative techniques, of course.

But I wonder if that is the answer, such as it is.

After I wrote the post I began thinking about what it would be like if I could and did find a way to get Rhonda to stop engaging in princess behaviors. What if I taught her not to give me wide eyes, pouts, and pleading tones? How would she understand the lessons?

Would she see them as simply a different role to follow? A way to manipulate people who don't respond to her current skill set?

I don't know, and I confess that I am relieved that I will not have to figure it out, but I think that somehow the heart of the problem and the key to the solution has to do with teaching empathy.

Now if someone could just figure out how to do that, we would be all set!

I scared the princess

I frightened Rhonda last night. She has been asking if I am angry at her, and I don't know how to have a conversation about what she is doing that bothers me. The truth is that I just really don't like her, and I don't want tell that to the poor child.

On one hand she is off the charts on the princess scale. I have met wide-eyed, innocent, pouty manipulators before but I have never met anyone who lives at the furthest extreme of the spectrum. On the other hand, I can only believe that doing this has been essential to her survival. I am sure that underneath this princess behavior there is a girl who is afraid and behaving in the only way that has worked for her.

If she were mine I might be able to form an attachment or bond to her that would make me want to try to reach inside the princess and love the girl. I certainly would try.

As it is, well, she is leaving tomorrow. I don't have such an attachment to her, and I don't like her. I confess that I like her less than any foster child I have had to deal with. And that is remarkable considering that I have had kids who actually frightened me.

I behaved badly last night. I frightened the poor thing as badly as FosterAbba had frightened my dog.

Just as I was getting ready to go to bed they were loud and I knocked on the door and told them calmly and appropriately that they needed to be quiet so that I could sleep. Quiana who had spent the afternoon visiting with her mother, not napping as usual, was in bed looking quite exhausted. Quiana, by the way, spent more time primping for that visit than she had had for her boyfriend. I don't think her mother gets passes very often and I suspect that Quiana was emotionally exhausted as well. Rhonda simply nodded.

Five minutes later I heard Rhonda's pleading tones and I knocked and openned the door again. I said, "Rhonda, I am exhausted. You have to be quiet."

Rhonda, "Do you know how to play chess?"
Me: "Not well."
Rhonda, "Me either! Will you play with me?"
Me: "Rhonda, I am exhausted. I have to sleep."
Rhonda: "Pleeeeease?"

I'm afraid I just looked at her like she was a giant bug and shut the door.

Five minutes later I walked by the room and heard, "Pleeease?" It wasn't too loud, but I was furious. I, without cause, anticipated that it was going to get louder. I want to tell you that I was also acting out of concern for Quiana's tiredness, but I'm not sure that that wasn't just an excuse.

I really was exhausted to the point of tears. There has been no one thing that I have done that I did not want to do. Some things I have recently done, like have visitors, I really wanted to do. But still it was true that I had had respite kids and/or company in the house for three weeks. I had not got enough sleep and I wanted to have a good cry and run away.

So when I heard that "Pleeeease?" coming from the room I transformed into the evil-monster-mommy. I threw open the door and said, not loudly but with venom, "What are you demanding from Quiana now?"

Quiana said, "She wants to play chess."

Rhonda said something, but I honestly don't know what it was. I said, "Okay. I will take away the chess set." I picked it up and walked out.

It doesn't sound that bad does it? Trust me, you had to be there. It was all in the 'tude. That and startling the crap out of her by throwing open her door.

Hubby, uncharacteristically, suggested that I apologize for at least opening her door without knocking. I told him that I was psychologically incapable of apologizing to Rhonda for being insensitive to her needs. I did tell her this morning that I should not have frightened her so much and that I had been exhausted. She just nodded, looking at me a little fearfully and went on.

We are at a point where she knows, or suspects, that I do not like her or am mad at her and she honestly doesn't know why.

I want to sit down with her and say, "Rhonda. There's been tension between us and maybe we should talk about it." But I'm pretty sure she will respond with wide-eyed sweetness and say, "Will you take me to the store and buy me Star Crunchies?" So...no.

I need a nap. I need more than a nap. I need a vacation from children and animals. I need to have a grown-up day somewhere and have a massage.