Tuesday, July 19, 2011

The Crazy Life of Foster Care

Seriously people, why do they make it so difficult and hectic to be a foster parent? I am convinced families like the Duggars' have less appointments than I do!

Today Tank's case worker with CPS was supposed to come over... she had to cancel, and called me 15 mins. after she should have been here. I guess it's only fair since I sort of cancelled on her last week...

Homeboy's CFT was also cancelled today and rescheduled for later in the week. His CPS Caseworker was out sick as well as the person at the behavioral health place that was providing it. I found out that was cancelled an hour beforehand.

Then early intervention people came to evaluate Homeboy -- yep, delayed. So now this same lady and another lady specifically over speech are going to come over tomorrow AM to do some more evaluations. Really?

Oh and did I mention Homboy has diahhrea? And has had it pretty much since I got him. We thought it was due to a milk allergy. Which it could still be but I've already taken him off of drinking milk (he actually likes Silk soymilk! yay!) and need to take him off everything all together dairy related. They also think he could have some parasite, etc. So now I get to collect stool samples. Just what I wanted to do this week! (sarcasm)

Oh and in less than an hour our new baby boy will be joining the family. So now I get to rearrange our vehicle to fit the 4 carseats... we have a big SUV, but it still will be a lot of work getting little ones into carseats in a third row!

Now that I am exhausted just explaining all of that I should go eat something before Bubba -- I think that's what the new ones name will be. We'll see -- if he's scrawny then we may have to rethink it :)

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Another Boy

Yep, we're adding another boy to the family. He'll get here next Tuesday afternoon.

At least it's a baby this time :) He's 10 months old... and moving foster homes due to a relocation out of state.

We are so excited to love on this boy. Yep, I wish he was a girl so I could dress him in pink, but I'll take a baby. And let's face it... I am set on boy clothes for a long time!

Update on Homeboy -- he had an evaluation for development and was tagged as severely delayed in speech and cognitive learning. They want to have someone come over 3 times a week for a few hours each time to work with him. This does not even count what the other early intervention people will throw our way from a seperate agency. Honestly, ladies... I don't know if I can handle all of that. I am already knock down, drag out BUSY... and I just can't be available that much when you factor in that I DO work part time, have other kiddos with different cases and so forth. I hate to disrupt but I feel that it may end up going that way if this is the level of care he needs. I wouldn't want him shorted any of this therapy because I know that he NEEDS it.

These poor little kiddos!

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

No.

A word I never thought I could say, but I did! I forgot that I hadn't already blogged this. Last Thursday I received a call for a 3 year old BOY. I was really disappointed that it wasn't a baby. I had moments of guilt but ultimately I had to tell the on-call worker that I could not take the placement.

I already have three two year old boys! Once she learned that she was completely understanding... not that she would have given me crap if I had said 'no' with no explanation. I even worried about it enough that I called her back and told her that we did want a placement and not to take us off the list but that at this time  we preferred a baby. She seemed happy to hear that we didn't want to be off the list completely :)

But we still didn't get any other calls....

Homeboy Update

I decided to call his case manager today around 3pm since I hadn't heard from anyone at CPS since last Tuesday. The little guy hasn't seen his family and there was no word on if a kinship placement was in fact going to happen. Let me also mention that this case manager is AMAZING and is actually the same one that placed Tank with us. He was very happy to hear that Homeboy was with us and knew he was in a good home. He called him "lucky"...  makes me feel good when CPS thinks you are a good home... cause lets face it folks not all foster homes out there are.

Court is tomorrow. I am not attending since it is just the basic stuff of them filing in the paperwork and saying that Homeboy is in custody. They are hoping that he will have a visit tomorrow with his mom. They aren't sure if she'll show... but since they are transporting I will let that be there problem not mine :)

They are working on a kinship placement. I don't think that they have been approved yet. I really hope that it happens. I know that family will be best for him. His siblings are already in this family member's care so it makes sense that it will work out. I just hope they will follow through on the early intervention stuff and get him the help that he needs. He is cognitively delayed and is capable of learning, in my opinion, if someone will just work with him one on one. Let's hope he just doesn't get lost in the shuffle.

The poor guy has also been sick all day today! He has some sort of stomach bug. He threw up last night in his crib and then again this morning multiple times. And then again at 5 pm when I finally tried some food and water... he tossed both up within minutes. I feel so bad for him. He just layed around most of the day looking miserable. If he can't hold down some crackers or water in the morning I will call the pediatrician.

In other news (or not news): We are still waiting for another placement call... we have asked that we only receive calls for a child 12 months and younger. I am praying that it will be a newborn or younger than 6 months. Either way I will be happy.