tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170488522024-03-06T23:25:06.622-08:00Other People's KidsAdventures in providing foster careDanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.comBlogger332125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-55296880551960597052014-06-14T15:59:00.001-07:002014-06-14T15:59:41.968-07:00Haitus could be Haitus-ed...Hello again dear readers, if such there still be in these parts. I've had a different life the last few years. We've worked hard, paid off a lot of debt, and raised our Panda during that time. She is getting to be quite the wonderful young lady these days...five years old and starting kindergarten in a couple of months.<br />
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And the winds they are changing again. I have been working in software, and as my old readers already know I was burned out on that by 2009 or so...which is why I went to school for special education. I had to give that up around the time of my last post, mostly for financial reasons.<br />
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Those financial reasons have been in large part dealt with, and now teaching is weighing heavily on my mind again. As is my long absence from taking a direct hand in helping kids outside of Panda. It's a thing you are born with...a thing you *are*. I don't think you can turn it off...and I'm not sure whether it is a blessing or a curse. But I simply need to get to a point where I can center my life in some way around helping kids figure out how to become as successful as adults as their native talent and personality allows. I'm gradually coming to peace with that in myself.<br />
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And so...I am currently making arrangements to finish up school next winter/spring by doing my demonstration teaching to complete my masters in special education. Hopefully I'll be able to begin teaching in or near the new city we've been living in for the 2015/2016 school year. And none too soon...if I was to start then and teach consistently, with my age and other factors I could still actually retire with full benefits about the time I turn 69.<br />
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Strange...like most of the rest of the people I used to know, in my younger years I was convinced I would be wildly successful in my work life and retire by 50 to live the good life. Now I'm hoping and praying that I could retire with some decent benefits at 69. And yet...it makes me happy. After all, not everyone has other benefits outside of Social Security, and some never really get to retire at all. And I certainly don't mind staying a few years past the usual age. What would I do with my time? Watch TV? Much more entertaining to watch the kids. And learn from them. And love them.<br />
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As for fostering, well...it was a hard experience before. The Wife is hesitant to go back into it, and I share some of her nervousness. When I say it was a hard experience, I mean it was HARD at times. But there's no reason I can see that we would have to go straight back into it full time either. And so we've been discussing perhaps getting back with our old agency (who is based in our new city) and see what we could do about becoming a respite home for a while. Drive-by foster parents, if you will. Fly-by-night kid wranglers. Bringers of hope and light to overworked and overstressed foster parents everywhere!<br />
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And if all goes to plan and I do teach...well...my schedule will track much more closely than The Wife's will with the kids' schedules. I'd become the primary foster parent, most likely. Could be interesting, if that's the way it works out. We'll see.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-70661563600522859262011-10-23T19:23:00.000-07:002011-10-23T19:23:34.643-07:00After Action ReportI don't think we'll be doing foster care for the foreseeable future. We have enough of our own problems right now...though I have hope that The Wife and I can work through them. "Pixie" was our last foster child for awhile, though. And I hope "Pixie" the best, and last heard she's doing better in her family environment. I've heard mixed results on the others we tried so hard and sunk our lives into so deeply. Some have been good. I hope we had a hand in that. Some have done not-so-good. I hope we didn't make their situation worse.<br />
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We might do foster care again...but I don't think it will be at least for another couple of years. So let's consider this a MAJOR hiatus. I'll continue this blog if such time comes as it makes sense. Until then, I'll be focusing on my own child. Panda. And The Wife. That's all that matters now.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-46493764366699045142011-07-28T17:06:00.000-07:002011-07-28T17:06:21.648-07:00Checking InYeah, I haven't been posting in awhile. Nothing to post, at least foster-related. We're on a sabbatical from fostering. The good news is, I am currently in week 5 of my last 8-week course for special ed. I'll be taking a break after that from school to build up some more money to finish, but the only thing that will be left is a semester of student teaching. And then I'll be eligible to be a teacher. Special Ed, Emotional and Behavioral disorders. I fully expect that the first words out of my first student's mouth will be "physician, heal thyself". And I guess they'll probably be right, to a degree.<br />
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I did give the address for the blog to my current professor, and she claims to be suitably impressed with my archives here. I was inspired to give the address out to my class. I guess I'll see if any of them feel that the hours I've spent dumping my guts into this thing have been worth it...but I know that if I never wrote about another child, perusing the archives and remembering "Angel", "Pixie", and especially "Josie"...well, you can't buy those kinds of feelings with money. Not even in a Las Vegas hotel at 2 in the morning. I HELPED those kids. Whatever mistakes I've made before that or since...with those kids, I was the good guy.<br />
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And I think I will be again. I certainly can't promise anything, but within the next year or two perhaps, we may be in a position to reenter the foster wars. Right now our beautiful Panda will be three years old on September 2. We're focusing our energies on making sure that she has everything she needs. Right now, that may include a stick to fight off her grammy's incessant hugs and kisses. But once she's in school and we're moved to a new town (and county and possibly state) and we get a bit settled...well, things could get boring again. And we could get stupid again. And then, of course, the natural thing to do is start fostering again.<br />
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I'll never get the need to work with kids out of my blood. Never. Thanks, Mom.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-2222332902521510632010-12-13T14:54:00.000-08:002010-12-13T14:54:38.124-08:00Big Change Completed (mostly)Okay, so we now own and have moved into our new house. There are still some things at the old house, but we could probably get the rest out in one solid day's effort if we had to. I LOVE the new place, and all that remains is to get the old place sold before we go bankrupt making the payments (given our now-lower income). But once the old place is sold, our expenses go lower than my expenses have been since probably the beginning of my career.<br />
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I also should mention that "Pixie" is back with us, and has been for a couple of months now. Apparently going home didn't work out as well as hoped, and they placed her back with us to re-try the going home thing. She has been WONDERFUL. She treats Panda so well and Panda and the Puppies love her so much, it's like she really IS part of the family. I can't really detect any sign of any of the usual disorders (ADHD, ODD, etc) and she truly does seem to be a very normal, very likable teen. That's wonderful for us...though it does make for boring writing.<br />
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I suppose she does lose points for being a Packer fan while having grown up in Minnesota...but then, nobody's perfect, right? On the other hand, she plays basketball for the school team, so I get to give her coaching advice. I'm currently trying to get her to understand that anything the ref doesn't see isn't a foul, but she seems to be a little slow that way. My philosophy is that if both you and the person guarding you don't walk away with some bruises and maybe a little blood on you, then you didn't leave it all out on the court.<br />
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When I start teaching, I'm guessing they probably don't want me to coach basketball. Ah, well.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-82642674835145265242010-09-19T17:44:00.000-07:002010-09-19T17:44:35.345-07:00Big ChangeAs planned, the house emptied out of kids at the end of August, and we have been reevaluating things. One thing we've wanted to do is downsize our mortgage...and in my case I'd like to get out completely from under it if we could. Well, turns out The Wife, who earlier was not ready to move, is now sufficiently recovered from our last move 5 years ago to do one more.<br />
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When I was looking through the local listings, I noticed two that seemed way too good to be true, at least on paper. I thought about them for a few days, reviewing the listings several times a day and forming my mind's-eye picture of them. I finally broke down and showed them to The Wife, asking her if she would go and see them with me. She's done this dance with me before, and she knows that if I can just get out and see them, she will be able to argue me out of wanting to move again. She agreed to go see them, and we had a showing of each of the two houses on Friday.<br />
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The first one turned out to be mostly a dog. One of the "2 bathrooms" was a toilet, sink, and shower in the corner of a basement that even I would have a tough time spending a lot of time in. The Wife probably couldn't even live in the house just knowing that that basement was under her. Sigh. I knew that at the asking price, it was just too good to be what I hoped it would be. On to the next house, which was only slightly more expensive with a smaller yard and very close to the center of our little town.<br />
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But a funny thing happened at that showing.<br />
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The worst impression I had of the place was the first instant I saw it. I suspect the same was true of The Wife. The more we looked at it, the more we liked it. Huge kitchen, HUGE basement that is unfinished but not at all musty or otherwise distasteful. HUGE 2.5 car garage. HUGE master bedroom, bigger even than the one we have now. Nice room for Panda. As an older (1913, I think) house, it had all kinds of nooks and crannies. Incredible number of windows to let in all sorts of light, just like The Wife likes. Roomy kitchen and dining room, and a living room that might be even a bit bigger than our current one, with an alcove on one wall surrounded by windows. Unkempt but very nice perennial flower beds. Officially 3 bedrooms, but we could pretty easily call it 5. Part of its life was spent as a top/bottom duplex, so there is a kitchenette upstairs complete with cupboards and so on.<br />
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It's right across the street from church, across the street from tanning & beauty salon, 2-3 blocks from the video store, Pizza Ranch, Subway and the grocery store. Walking distance from pretty much everything. Corner lot, and couples with small children for neighbors. A small yard, which may make it less ideal for the dogs, but mowing and snow removal will be much easier and there IS room for a run for the dogs as well as a place to set up a play set for Panda.<br />
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The price? Slightly less than what our equity would allow us to walk away with after selling our house, paying the realtor and closing costs, and so on.<br />
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By the end of the first showing, we were in love. Turned out Mom & Dad were paying us a surprise visit Friday night, so we called and had another showing with them. We fell more in love, and the folks liked it too. We stewed until this morning.<br />
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We found a way to get the cash fronted to us until our house sells, and at 11:30 this morning we put in an offer. There is already another offer on the place, and the bigwigs at the local bank (who owns the property) will be considering both offers tomorrow. The other one is contingent on financing and we're offering very close to the asking price (which is a little over 2/3 the assessed value of the property according to county records) so we're feeling pretty good about our chances. We should hear tomorrow afternoon what's going to happen.<br />
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We still plan to foster, but it may take a month or two to get the new place into shape for it, get inspections done, etc. It'll be nice that we'll be on city water and not have to worry any more about doing well tests, and it'll be nice for the kids to be living in town where they'll be closer to their friends. Of course, that also makes it easier for teens to sneak out and get into trouble with their friends at night. But all in all, I'm REALLY hoping this goes through. I've been dreaming for many years of living in a house without a mortgage. Looks like this just might be my shot at it.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-43532077538148782952010-08-06T22:04:00.000-07:002010-08-06T22:04:00.867-07:00InstabilityI've learned a lot about "Marcus" over the last month or so since I've been home. He has absolutely no words, nor seemingly any desire to start using any. His only vocalizations come when he is "stimming" (self-stimulating, which in his case usually involves jumping up and down with his arms raised in mild cases, or loudly shouting "eh!" when he's really cranked up.) He is usually a sweet kid, very affectionate toward both The Wife and me (especially me...his father was his primary caregiver at home), he loves to feel whiskers and has no compunction about feeling the face of any man he happens to meet, he loves spaghetti as I do, he's very gentle with Panda and she loves him.<br />
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Nights are not as good as days though, and sometimes they are downright bad...sometimes he seems evil at night to a tired parent who is ready to get some sleep. As I type this, he is peacefully out, but last night we were not so lucky. My first clue that something might not be right was that after listening to the shouted "eh!" for a couple of hours, things were suddenly VERY quiet. TOO quiet. Uh oh. Walking back to his room, I hit a wall of what can only be described as shit-stink. Crud. I jumped over the safety gate that keeps him in his room, and sure enough, he had his hand down the back of his drawers. He looked quickly around guiltily, and equally quickly he pulled his hand out and put it in his mouth.<br />
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Nearly retching, I grabbed his hands and kept them both away from his face and his drawers. A look around assured me that there didn't seem to be any "stuff" around on the floor, the dresser, his bed, etc. I carried him into the bathroom. He's between 50 and 60 pounds and this is not a trivial thing, but I was...exercised. Very motivated to try my best to make this a teachable moment if I at all could. Plus I was revolted.<br />
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Much, much, MUCH scrubbing later plus a pull-up change, he was fit to try bed again. After an hour or two more of "eh!" he finally fell asleep. The Wife has been very grateful to have me home (she dealt with this stuff alone for a month or two before I lost my over-the-road job) and I don't blame her in the least. I even took care of the kids this morning while she slept in a bit. No, I'm not the Best Husband Ever...quite the opposite sometimes. But I do have my points at times.<br />
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Anyway...the episode I describe was one of the milder ones. Except for the eating part...that was a first. But the cleanup wasn't as bad as several of the others. But it had gotten better...and that's what's bothering me, and what has me thinking, and what has me drawing parallels with other kids we've had.<br />
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Foster kids generally come to our house, especially in the current climate of the social work pros, with the idea of eventual reunification with their biological family. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that it is best in almost all circumstances for the child to live with their biological parents. While I can see the impulse in that direction, I disagree...but the other thing is that budgets are under even more than the chronic strain they are used to and let's face it, we are expensive. It's not just the foster care "reimbursement"...there are all the appointments. My Lord. "Marcus" has appointments several days a week, and some of them are over a hundred miles away. Mileage adds up, too. And there are many people involved in his care. Us, his guardian ad litem, the PATH worker, several people from his county, his geneticist, his regular doctor, his dentist, and so on.<br />
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All that, I guess, to say this: he has recently begun the "final stretch" of home visits that, if they go well, will pave the way for this reunification. Now let me be clear: his parents clearly love him. They have not abused him, and I'm pretty sure they would do anything they could for this little guy. That's not a problem. What IS a problem is that I really don't know if they are ever going to have what it takes to give this child the care he needs. From what I've seen and heard, it's questionable whether they are the sharpest tools in the shed to begin with, and even a seasoned parent might have trouble with the issues we're faced with daily.<br />
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And we were making real headway with "Marcus" before these visits started. He had settled in very gradually but pretty nicely. He was learning new skills (eating by himself with a fork was a big one), going to sleep VERY nicely at the appropriate time, his "stimming" was gradually disappearing, and it was getting easy to love this little guy. Immediately after the home visits started, all the progress we had seen reversed itself. Not completely, but very noticeably so.<br />
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This isn't just "Marcus", either, and it's been a problem with nearly all the placements we've had where reunification was a realistic possibility. Long-time readers will recall the issues we had with "Josie" (still one of my favorite foster kids of all time)...those got a LOT worse when the county started to push constant home visits. Same with "Tammy". And the rest.<br />
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When I was a kid and it was my folks doing the foster parenting, it was much more usual that there would be a visit every month or two, for a day or two. Now for "Marcus" we (or a PCA) are expected to drive this child an hour one way, wait for 2+ hours and then drive home. As a reward, we get to be kept up for an hour or two while a child yells "eh!" and watch him eat his own poop.<br />
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I've been contacted by people who are considering the possibility of being foster parents, asking me what it takes. What it takes, is to read this post and still want to do it. If you think you can handle this stuff, knock yourselves out. We are. But then...some people think we're crazy, and they're probably right. People will think you're crazy too. Be ready for that.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-18203933368940362072010-08-03T19:14:00.000-07:002010-08-03T19:14:23.878-07:00The Great Smoke-OutLast week, we had a fun incident. "Elaine" decided it would be a great idea to smoke in the bathroom in our basement. This is a bit of a surprise, because we didn't really know her to smoke. Furthermore, we haven't had this problem because when kids insist on smoking, we tend not to make a big deal out of it. We just provide a coffee can on the deck and tell them to keep it out of the house. The Wife has made a specialty of complaining very vocally about how their clothes and hair smell, but we don't forbid it.<br />
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It was a little more disturbing in this case in that she pulled "Pixie" into her shenanigans, and 13-year-olds are pretty impressionable, especially when a 16-year-old brings them into their confidence. We do NOT want "Pixie" learning to smoke on our watch.<br />
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Well, I've described in the archives many of the projects we have pursued on the way to completing the basement. There are only three left. We need to install a wood stove. I need to put up some shelving in the storage room. Oh my goodness that's right...I also need to finish venting the fan from the bathroom to the outside, instead of into the furnace room as it is now.<br />
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"Elaine" wasn't aware that the fan was not fully installed yet. It was not difficult to tell that someone had recently been smoking in the basement, but she steadfastly maintained her innocence to The Wife. Later I broke her by the expedient of warning her that if she had any other smokes she needed to turn them over, or I would be finding hard work for her to do if we found them later.<br />
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"Elaine" has pretty much given up on trying to make it work here, and is spending all her time trying to figure out ways she can spend as much of her remaining time as possible at her grandmother's, where it sounds like she can do mostly as she pleases. Recently her grandmother let her go to a concert, where she decided she needed to be in the mosh pit. She got head-butted in her eye, opening a large gash that bled all over her dress. She showed her masterful decision-making ability by staying for the rest of the concert because she didn't want to miss the last band, presumably bleeding all over herself and everybody else for an extended period of time before going to the hospital and getting three stitches.<br />
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That one will boomerang out of her grandma's and back to either residential or foster care again...I just hope nobody gets hurt in the process....especially "Elaine" herself. There's a lot of good stuff in that one...she just needs the structure that apparently the powers that be aren't willing to provide for her at this point. Seems like kids need to be at least 90% wrecked before someone notices that maybe they're not in the best situation and gets around to helping them for real.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-2224143436968288192010-07-29T19:40:00.000-07:002010-07-29T19:40:37.536-07:00Time With "Elaine"I had to take "Pixie" to town to an appointment and "Elaine" decided to tag along. I didn't mind...I like both of these kids a lot and it was a good chance to spend some time being the dad.<br />
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We dropped off "Pixie", and along the same block were several shops. A thrift shop, a couple of antique places and so forth. It's a tourist town. So we decided to just browse some.<br />
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Let me first of all say that I strongly resent finding a Kiss album in an "antique" shop. Okay, so it was vinyl. But "Love Gun", while it may be a classic, is certainly not antique. Ditto for Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet". For cripe's sake, people! These guys are still doing concerts! Though, it wouldn't surprise me if one or two of the Kiss guys take geritol...<br />
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Anyway, after taking "Elaine's" jokes at my expense and having a generally good time poking fun at some of the old stuff together, and after her being a good sport and going into a book shop with me, I let her drag me into a teen fashion place. We tried on glasses...I don't think I would make a good-looking teen girl, by the look of me in those glasses. She had a fit over some "Boyfriend Watches" that were labeled "Trend Alert!" Personally, I don't think I have a use for a watch that has a "jelly band", whatever THAT means. As we left, the only other male in the place was leaving too, with what looked like his wife and little girl. He looked at me and muttered "was that as much fun for you as it was for me?"<br />
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While I'm guessing that I felt about the place about like he did, in my case it was totally worth it. It's important, if you want to develop a good relationship with a kid, to sometimes do things that the kid wants to do, and to at least ACT like you're having a good time. They know well enough that you're not going to have as good a time as them, but they tend to appreciate the effort, and it ties you together. It also makes it easier for them to feel like they really should do things with you that they DON'T want so much to do if they know that maybe next time there will be something in it for them.<br />
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Give and take. Sharing things. Building relationships. Those are, after all, the things that we wanted to get out of fostering, yes?Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-46052193704004438452010-07-27T20:36:00.000-07:002010-07-27T20:36:47.519-07:00Kid: "Pixie"The latest addition to our family is a 13-year-old girl. She just got here yesterday so we really haven't had much to judge her by yet, but so far all seems pleasant. Tonight she spent a bit of time with The Wife watching TV, and even took my usual role of getting a snack for The Wife in bed. Hmmpf.<br />
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"Pixie" and "Elaine" seem to get along very well together, watching the same kinds of movies and liking the same kinds of music. They even look a bit alike, in a way. Tonight they came to ask if they could bring the portable DVD player into their room to watch so they wouldn't have to lay around in the next room (their own private living room with a 50" plasma-screen TV). Apparently they're equally lazy as well. The answer, of course, was "are you kidding me? Get out of here."<br />
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I haven't yet read "Pixie's" file, but I'm told she has quite the depressing history. She doesn't show it at first blush...but I hope we're able to gain her confidence enough to help her out with the things she needs to work on. She is only slated to be with us for a month, but that could change. In any case, The Wife is known for working well with teen girls. From my own observations from being in the trenches with her for a few years now, I'd be more likely to say she works miracles with them. I definitely married above my level.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-50508838121478096662010-07-26T16:39:00.000-07:002010-07-26T16:39:50.628-07:00Kid: "Elaine"I should have introduced "Elaine" before now...she's been with us for months. However, she has been very smooth to have around and frankly doesn't provide juicy material very often. Still, she's come to be an important part of the house and deserves recognition.<br />
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"Elaine" came to us from a girls' home, and is currently destined to go live with her grandmother. She is very much a typical teen, who likes softball, guitar hero, boys and shopping. We haven't had any major issues with her, and don't anticipate any in whatever amount of time she remains with us.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-36401903418415027392010-07-25T11:36:00.000-07:002010-07-25T11:36:25.705-07:00Ebb and FlowThe Wife, as I have said before, is the heartbeat of our household. We'd be completely lost without the energy and effort she puts out each and every day...especially days like today and yesterday, when I've been fighting a splitting headache and am not much help. But Panda and the various kids that come and go make up the rest of the body of the place, and we've had a fairly interesting group this past week. One 16-year-old girl who I have not introduced--but who has been with us for several months (she is about to leave us, it looks like)--is here, along with another 16-year-old girl who was here for the last week for respite from one of our colleagues' house. They are both good kids and have had a lot of fun together and with Panda. We also have "Marcus", of course, plus his two PCAs have been in and out, one of which is a virtual member of our household already being the son of a close friend of the family and the other of which is new to us but seems very compatible with us.<br />
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All these people along with the usual pets have combined into a very nice unit for a week, issues with "Marcus" notwithstanding. It works out that way sometimes. You get a glimpse of why you wanted to do this, and a peek at the sort of fine people the teens could grow up to be if only they listen to at least part of what you're trying to teach them.<br />
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Plus, there was spaghetti. No week is a total loss if there was spaghetti.<br />
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Tomorrow we are supposed to be receiving a new 13-year-old girl, who is scheduled to be staying with us for a month or so, until school starts. Should be interesting to see what she's about. I know her age, gender and first name, and that is all. Life is nothing if not dynamic.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-71029510290090526212010-07-24T20:30:00.000-07:002010-07-24T20:30:24.416-07:00What if You Don't Like the Kid?People get into fostering because they honestly love kids and enjoy having them around. They want to help them. Foster parents who get into it for another reason (money, a sense of "civic responsibility", or whatever) invariably flame out inside of a year or two. You have to love the kids, period. Nothing else will do.<br />
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However, we are human, and humans run into other humans that they simply don't like. Other times, you can like another human, but then that human does something that causes you to not like them anymore. This can even happen when there are good reasons for the thing that person did to make you change your mind. It can be a disease (alcoholism, autism, retardation, tourette's, or what have you) that you fully understand and that the person has little or no control over...but still you just can't work around it for whatever reason.<br />
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We have experienced this a couple of times since we started fostering, and it is brought to my mind by the "potty issues" we're having with "Marcus". These issues are something he can't help and we're working with him on them, but they are causing us to honestly not like him, and in some cases dread even dealing with him. After all, how many times can you slap a kid's hand away from digging between his legs while he's on the toilet before you start to get squeamish about taking his hand, hugging him, and being intimate in a parent-child kind of situation? The sanitary aspect of it alone is enough to make you want to avoid having him spend time with your own child.<br />
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You can start out with the best of intentions and have a fair bit of experience and still begin to resent having to clean up human feces time and time again...not only from his pants and clothes which is pretty natural, but from the bedclothes, bed, floor, dresser, window, walls, and everywhere else he can reach. Not to mention his face, hair, ears, nose, mouth and every other part of his own body. Something inside me is beginning to revolt at the idea of keeping on with this if we don't see some sort of improvement soon. We may have reached the outer limit of our expertise.<br />
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I'd be interested in hearing from anybody who has had to deal with this kind of problem on a protracted basis. We've had kids spread feces (and even in one case blood) on the bathroom wall and of course we've had kids mess in their pants, but I've never, EVER, in my life as a foster parent or my earlier 11-year stint as a full-time foster brother, had to deal with an issue of this kind quite so severe. And The Wife and I are starting to get tapped out for ideas. I'd love to just zip the kid into a ziplock when we put him to bed, but something tells me The Powers That Be would frown on such a course of action.<br />
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Comments welcome.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-72475257786455646782010-07-23T11:37:00.000-07:002010-07-23T11:37:08.947-07:00ChangesAs regular readers know, I was studying to be a special educator last fall. I continued that until this last spring, when I had to withdraw from school to be...a trucker. Yes, I got my commercial (class A) license, and went over the road. This was necessitated by a combination of the facts that I had lost my contract in software, there are not many other opportunities in that vein in rural MN, I didn't want them anymore even if they were there because I'M SICK TO DEATH OF WRITING SOFTWARE, and I needed a job that had health insurance. Trucking seemed like a good idea at the time, at least until I could figure something else out.<br />
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I started in early April and went until late June, at which time I had Two Very Bad Days. Accidents on two back-to-back days, mostly due to a faulty trailer. Of course, that's my fault too, because I should have caught the problem(s) and refused to pull the trailer. Needless to say, I lost the job, and am now back into the routine of life at home, looking for something different.<br />
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I've applied for things as disparate as "research associate", shipping/receiving, and terminal operator for a fertilizer company, but just today I mailed a resume for secretary/special education for the day treatment school down the road. That's the only job I've applied for that I have a real interest in, and I'm REALLY hoping I get an interview. I'm now scheduled to finish school at the end of fall semester 2011 (I restart where I left off in November) and I would LOVE to have an "in" in the local district. It has health insurance, even if it doesn't pay that much. I'll take it if I can get it.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-51545525806343590612010-07-23T11:17:00.000-07:002010-07-23T11:17:36.867-07:00Kid: "Marcus""Marcus" came to us some time ago, but I've only gotten to know him in the last few weeks since I've been home again (more on that later). He is nearly 4 and, by the best guess of those who know, autistic. He doesn't talk. Or rather, he doesn't speak. He does make certain things known very well, like for instance when he's unhappy about something. Specific communication is challenging, but the broad strokes of how "Marcus" is feeling at any given point isn't very hard to decipher.<br />
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"Marcus" has "potty issues", especially at night. In fact, without trying to get too graphic about it, he is also something of a sculptor. He also enjoys some...uh...UNIQUE facials. Yes, it's that bad sometimes. Enough so that we have done away with the carpeting in his room in favor of washable stick-down tiles. Only one incident since then, and it was a LOT easier this time, if not any easier on our stomachs.<br />
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Still, this little boy is often fun to be around. We're likely to burn out over the long run given his many, many, MANY special needs (including at least one appointment in distant towns every single day) but we'll see how long we can last. People like him used to be immediately referred to institutions I suspect, but with budget cuts and so forth I guess they put the B team on the field. That's us.<br />
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From the perspective of a person who is studying special education, "Marcus" is a fascinating case study. I would guess he is about at the developmental age of 18 months or less in most ways. Absolutely no toilet training, no words, and very into immediate gratification. His parents clearly love him dearly, but have great difficulty meeting his needs. I can't say I blame them.<br />
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As I currently understand it, we are to have him for at least another month or more.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-69602653448700792362009-11-30T19:21:00.001-08:002009-11-30T19:57:56.189-08:00News From the PastI'm truly enjoying my selected course of study. I started school in September, a 20-month course in Special Education with a specialization in Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Because it's not enough to just be able to come home to foster kids swearing at me...I want that same privilege ALL DAY LONG. Heh. Anyway, I've finished 2 classes and will finish the third, and the first semester, around Christmas time. So far, I'm maintaining a 4.0 average, with a decent chance of continuing that through my current class. Next semester I begin my "field experience", where I get to spend an hour and a half per week in an actual special education classroom assisting the teacher. I'm really looking forward to it.<br /><br />But the reason for breaking blog silence at this time is that we've had our first news of "Angel" pretty much since she left our house. We had thought the system had swallowed her whole and we wouldn't be hearing from her again. However, The Wife was at a class (which she described to me on the phone half an hour ago as "excellent") and she ran into "Angel's" guardian ad litem. Apparently they had a very nice talk, and The Wife got an update on how things were going.<br /><br />Our intution about her language skills turns out to have been sort of vindicated. If you recall, she had little to no English, which was perhaps the biggest component in our frustrations. She had no other language either...except that it turns out she did. We called it...well, I can't give her real name, but we called it [her name]ese. Call it Angelese. She used consistent words and syntax to mean the same things...it just wasn't English. She is at the same foster home she went to from us, and it sounds like they have done great work for her. She now has better English and it sounded like while she isn't at age level in a lot of areas, she's at least on the road.<br /><br />The guardian at litem also said that she "constantly" uses us as an example of foster parents who were failed by the system. "Angel" was with us two months. We were promised home aides and other support inside of two weeks and never saw any, plus we couldn't get a county social worker on the phone, so I concur with her assessment wholeheartedly. After two months of The Wife and I basically being under 24/7 house arrest because we couldn't leave her alone and there was nobody else around to provide respite, we made the reluctant decision to bail out because if we didn't, we ran the risk of permanently burning out on foster care. That's a risk we weren't willing to take.<br /><br />The bright side of this is that we now know that at least one person appreciates the effort and sacrifices we made for "Angel". For one thing, the guardian understands the position we had been put in and sympathizes. She told The Wife that in speaking to people, she often points to our situation as one that can't be allowed to happen to foster parents. I hope she speaks to many, many people. That was hell, and the more who know about it the better. At least some good came out of it.<br /><br />For another thing, I think "Angel" had some influence on my eventual decision to become a special education teacher. I think she would provide enough material for a book to someone lucky enough to work with her professionally as an educator. I'm really, REALLY wishing that she was with us now as I go though school, so I could reference her learning and behaviors in my papers and discussion for class. Plus, as I mentioned many times in the archive, it was definitely not all heartache and pain. I had some truly joyous times with her in my household, and she was truly a character. Mom still mentions the time she stood up at the supper table and gave us all a full sermon in Angelese.<br /><br />Another great thing is that while the county was completely unresponsive to our needs at the time, The Wife's incredible efforts in getting the proper assessments done and services in the pipeline seems to have panned out nicely for "Angel's" new foster home. It sounds like they got the services they and she needed almost from the get-go, and it has made the difference. She now has a stable and loving home. And that's really what it's all about, right? Also, we spent a LOT of money on that little girl, and had a birthday party for her at which we made sure she received a lot of great gifts. She came to us with nothing, and left with many clothes and toys to call her own. Apparently that has not gone unnoticed, either. We did not make money on that placement. We usually don't...but that's a subject for other posts later, perhaps.<br /><br />I'm suffering from a lot of guilt though, though, in spite of everything. What if we could have just held out another couple of weeks? It sounds like we were SO close. We REALLY didn't want to "abandon" that little girl...we just didn't feel like we had any other choice. It was either terminate the placement or put ourselves at legal risk for not following the letter of the rules. And we truly did not and do not feel that we were given a fair shake. I have a lot of anger about that to this day. I clearly remember feeling for awhile after that like we were the only ones who cared about that little girl. And that made it all that much harder to let her go further into a system that had failed her up to that point. I can say that that was one of two low points in fostering where we nearly flamed out entirely.<br /><br />I hope sometime that I have the chance to speak to that guardian ad litem personally. I have many questions about how she saw our part in that mess, and how "Angel" is doing. I'd love the chance to see "Angel" too, and see if she remembers us. She could be a really sweet little girl, but she also had a LOT of anger which came out in completely inappropriate ways. I think I'll pray for her tonight. I hope she is and will remain well.<br /><br />I have no idea if I'll be posting anytime soon or not. I have to do a lot of writing for school, and that seems to relieve the itch quite a bit. But I do know that I'll return to regular posting at some point. I still have to get the poison out somehow and school won't last forever. I still feel as though I have one or more books in me, and once I start teaching I suspect I'll have a steady stream of great material. Hope all is well with my old readers that happen along and see this, and I wish you a happy and contented Christmas season.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-2961051552313612232009-06-26T19:56:00.000-07:002009-06-26T20:12:43.123-07:00Past, Present and FutureI'm going through a change in life. Weird, since I just went through a major change 4 years ago, buy hey, that's what life is like, right?<br /><br />Anyway, I'm writing this to let any readers I have left that I'm mothballing this blog for awhile. I do have good reasons, though, and I don't know that it will be forever. I just thought you might appreciate a heads up on my plans.<br /><br />I've been doing software development for 17 years now. It's a good career, and it's served me well. However, it leaves me a little cold and frustrated these days. Nobody really cares about my work except me, and it won't leave any lasting impression in the world. In that respect, my part-time work fostering is far more meaningful than what I spend my days doing, often for 50 or more hours a week. If I'm going to be pulled away from my wonderful family for that big an ongoing chunk of my life, I'd like it to mean something big to somebody.<br /><br />So I think soon I'll be going back to school, probably 100% online if I can manage it. I want to become a teacher at the high school level, or possibly junior high. I've spoken with a few people about it, and they all seem to immediately feel like I'd be a natural at it. I've done a lot of work in Boy Scouts and in fostering with this age group, and I have a special love for kids that are having problems of one sort or another. I really like it when I can legitimately feel like I've made a positive difference in someone's life. The best way I can see to accomplish this, given my skill set, is to get into special education.<br /><br />One of the people I spoke with was a fellow foster parent who is also my wife's supervisor at a day treatment school (who is also a recent PhD in Psychology or somesuch) and who has hired special ed teachers for the school. She seems to think I could do this, and said she would consider hiring me after I get the proper certs and stuff. Of course, she takes 4-5 teenage girls at a time, so she's probably certifiably insane herself, but that's another story.<br /><br />I figure I have at least 25 years left in my working life, possibly more the way things are going in our economic system. I can't spent that long doing what I do, or I'll end up a hollow shell of myself with not much to show for it except money. That's no way to live, and I won't do it.<br /><br />So I have some serious academic challenges ahead of me, and I'm hoping to start sometime soon, whenever we can get the money saved for tuition and stuff. I'll continue to foster as we love it, it's needed here and it will be an excellent source of inspiration and fodder for class assignments. It will also keep me networked with the local people that I'll need to suck up to in order to have a better shot at getting a job when I'm done.<br /><br />This isn't going to leave me much extra time for blogging and other outside pursuits, so I'm just going to let this blog go dormant the way it has been for a little while now. I may pick it up again later, once I've met the new challenges I've set for myself. My best guess at this point is that it will take me somewhere between 1-2 years to get myself positioned for a hire into my new field. At the end of that, we'll see. I may have professional ethical prohibitions against it at that point, but if I don't, I may well begin again.<br /><br />Until then, I just want to thank all the great readers that have cared enough to leave comments and encouragement for me in this space. It's been a really exciting time and good experience to start up foster care and take care of these kids. I hope some people have found things here that have been useful in their own endeavors to help the kids that need help. Take care of yourselves until we meet again.<br /><br />Or until I get mental constipation again and start writing. Heh.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-45367134374555453722009-04-20T19:23:00.000-07:002009-04-21T13:43:37.967-07:00Agency DiscontentAnybody who has ever done any foster care at all must have at some point wondered whether they were working with complete doorknobs. We are no exception. This was an expected "feature" of existence in the foster world, at least for us. We knew there would be good social workers and bad, good administrators and bad as well as good kids and bad.<br /><br />But lately, it seems to us that the agency we have been working through has been really slipping. They don't seem to have been interested in our opinions on issues regarding the various kids we've had, they seem very out-of-touch with what we go through, and there's a certain amount of...distraction there. They're not focused.<br /><br />This was highlighted this last weekend. Last week was a bad one for "Jake". The previous weekend, he had had a friend over. He apparently showed her or told her that he had "a gun" and some "drug paraphernalia" hidden in our house. Rule #1: if you're going to do stuff wrong, make sure you can trust people to keep their mouth shut before you show or tell them anything. Anyway, she goes to the same day-treatment school he does and she told one of her counselors, and the jig was up.<br /><br />The cops came over and rifled his room, finding a bb gun and a pot pipe, which The Wife seemed to think was clean enough that it had never been used. "Jake" was taken to the hospital. Twice. Apparently they decided he was a risk to himself and others, at least briefly. There was general upset, and while he didn't have much to say about the whole episode, I think it was unsettling for "Jake".<br /><br />You see, I've gotten to know this kid, and my gut tells me he is a decent person and can be trusted with most things (being alone with a girl he finds attractive NOT being one of them). I would personally feel comfortable sitting with him behind me holding a knife OR a gun. Let's face it, people. When you're dealing with troubled kids (or people in general) you're placing a certain amount of faith in God. If they really decide that they want to kill you, they're going to find a way to do it. A gun just makes it easier. And there's a far, far, FAR greater chance they'll do it to themselves before they'll do it to you or your family. And they'll find a way to do that too if they're serious, gun or no gun.<br /><br />But "Jake" has been mistreated by the system, from what I can see. How else to describe the circumstances of a kid who's spent like 11 years in the system and been juggled around to well over 20 placements? They say he's RAD. I would be, too. So would you, if over 20 homes didn't want to hang on to you. At some point it stops being a disorder and starts being a rational response to how the world seems to be treating you, I would think.<br /><br />Now...the professional mental health people have fully evaluated this kid, and some of them (people I trust) have raised concerns about him. They see something in him that isn't quite right...and I respect that. The kid does have problems. My issue is, have some of the things that have been done to "help" him caused those problems to be lesser or greater? There is now a dedicated husband-and-wife team who have gone to the trouble of learning to know this kid, who like him, who have at least some talent in working with these kinds of kids, and who desperately want to help him. Shouldn't such people be incorporated into attacking the problem and finding solutions? Apparently not.<br /><br />The agency's response to last week's brouhaha? Friday night, at about 9:30pm, they called us and said they'd "feel more comfortable" if we would ship him to a town about 1.5 hours away for the weekend, to a group home he'd stayed at before. Immediately. No, they wouldn't provide transportation. Either way. Arg.<br /><br />Mom and Dad happened to be over that night and were going home, and while grossly out of their way, it wasn't as out of the way for them as it would have been for me to drive all the way there and back again, so they volunteered to drive. Bless their hearts. For the 10,000th time.<br /><br />I had the happy job of telling "Jake" that he would be going, and he had about 10 minutes to get his stuff ready. I made sure he understood that this was most definitely NOT my idea or The Wife's.<br /><br />I am seriously considering whether we wouldn't be better off jumping ship from our current agency and just joing the local county's stable of foster homes. The reimbursement would probably be lower and the cases wouldn't be quite so..."Interesting". But then, we'd have an easier time raising a stink when something didn't seem right, and the cases would be much less..."Interesting". Heh. "Interesting" is very much a double-edged sword.<br /><br />I think there's a lot of fostering left in us, and that seems to be rare. Not many people are built to take the abuse from kids, government bureaucracies and so forth that are sometimes required of foster parents. Cops have a similar requirement...they take a lot of crap they don't deserve from people who have no right to be dealing out crap, too. I admire them. I would be a horrible cop.<br /><br />But we may need to make a change at some point. For now, I think The Wife is leaning toward trying to work this through, and she's probably right. She usually is, and I'm usually too eager to jump ship on things, so I'll follow her lead on this for now. But there IS a limit on what we can really accept, too.<br /><br />And then there's "Jake". That poor kid has really been a stellar performer since he came here. By far the easiest kid to live with that we've had in most ways. I think we may have started to build some trust with him. He's got nobody else in the world except a sister that we haven't heard from since he's been here. He contributes as a family member, and loves the pets and Amanda. We've set up a nice little suite for him downstairs where he has better access to the 50" TV than we do. He cleans the basement without being asked, and does most other chores with only one asking. He pitches in on special home improvement projects, he cooks dinner once a week or so, he has an ironic sense of humor I love, and he is comfortable enough to give me an unending stream of guff about the state of my 1996 tracker that, shall we say, has seen better times, particularly since it was totaled hitting a deer and was resurrected to play the role of "old beater" for the rest of its days.<br /><br />We can't let him go. He's only got a year of school left, and we could actually make a difference with this one. He's the kind that could decide to adopt us as his unofficial, or even official, family for the rest of his adult days. And we would welcome that, if it was what he wanted. I'd love it if he came back to visit for the occasional weekend and we went out and fished. That's the stuff life is made of, especially when I get on in years and fishing starts to look like a better and better way to spend my time.<br /><br />This post feels a little disjointed...but then again, I guess that's how I'm feeling overall right now.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-13309457149626577242009-04-14T18:17:00.000-07:002009-04-14T18:52:22.180-07:00A Haitus from my HaitusAnybody who is a long-time follower of my adventures knows that I'm prone to long, unexplained absences from this space. I warned you, back in the dim mists of the past when I started this thing, that I will not allow this thing to own me, and if I don't feel like posting I won't until I feel like it again. So there.<br /><br />On the fostering front, nothing much has happened lately anyway (unless you count the cop and two sheriff deputies that stopped by for a nice little search of the Boy Child's bedroom today, but that's another post for later).<br /><br />But the adoption front...well, let's just say that after months of anguish and worrying, many legal threats, thousands of dollars in legal bills, health problems for the birth mom related to stress, and some other rotten stuff, the court date finally came last Friday.<br /><br />And the tribe didn't even bother to show up by phone.<br /><br />All that crap they gave us, all the pain and heartache, those horrible days in the hospital after Amanda was born, and they didn't even bother to let us know it was okay now.<br /><br />I'm going to say this now, and then I'm probably not going to mention it again. The Indian Child Welfare Act is a poorly written legislation obviously put together by B-team congressional staffers with no real-world experience. It is being used at least in some cases to punish women whose decisions the tribes disapprove of. It is fostering a bitter culture of racism and entitlement among many Native Americans, and it is building bitter resentment among non-natives who are/were otherwise well-disposed toward people of other races, including natives.<br /><br />In short, it's a crappy law written by crappy lawyers being used by crappy people to do crappy things, and it should be at least massively amended and probably repealed at the first possible opportunity.<br /><br />So then.<br /><br />We have our beautiful little girl. She now officially has our last name, and is ours for life. It's almost like she knows it, too. In court she charmed the judge completely. The bailiff looked like some kind of pro wrestler, and I swear he was grinning from ear to ear when he thought nobody was looking and I was afraid he was going to get down on the floor and start playing with her.<br /><br />She's our angel, and nobody can ever take this one away. Heh. Can you tell I've got it bad? Of course, as Daddy, it's my official duty to show a picture. Enjoy. I know we will.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHtlM0KSmu97OZ_ZrLXArPqiaTiTmRlnZ8J_Y7QVUsEqy-qMzdX1nZZX5iSKcsKC8ZrXnFjS1cfSWKEC2twYd38iNN4V7RrLzMLVp3vUeu-hSDz5-PPYNGeUVq8f_3oESTdNg6jw/s1600-h/Amanda.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 229px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHtlM0KSmu97OZ_ZrLXArPqiaTiTmRlnZ8J_Y7QVUsEqy-qMzdX1nZZX5iSKcsKC8ZrXnFjS1cfSWKEC2twYd38iNN4V7RrLzMLVp3vUeu-hSDz5-PPYNGeUVq8f_3oESTdNg6jw/s320/Amanda.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324729729203880114" border="0" /></a>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-41966521838863456882009-01-31T21:15:00.000-08:002009-01-31T21:39:46.501-08:00Death Visits Us AllI had a best friend in high school. Let's call him B1. Actually he was my best friend from about 4th grade until graduation. He obviously was a major influence on my life at a very formative time for me.<br /><br />He had an older brother that was three years older than us. Let's call him B2. He remains to this day one of my closest friends. He is an extreme victim of his own intelligence. He is vastly more intelligent than I am, I can say that without even hesitating. He graduated at the top of his class (rightfully so)...but he should never have been given the microphone at his commencement address. He delivered a valedictory address in about 1983 that is remembered to this day. Oooh. He talked about the president having his finger on the button, and how that was going to doom us all, etc. He embarassed his family, and (if he had only been able to understand at the time) he embarassed himself.<br /><br />In later years, I kept in touch with both of these gentlemen. In August of 1991, B1, B2, myself and one other mutual friend went on a trip together. Many things happened on that trip, but suffice it to say that B2 embarassed us all.<br /><br />Both B1 and B2 went to the Minneapolis area, as did I. I stayed in touch. They did not. Very difficult situation. But in the fullness of time, I came to the realization that B1 simply had made a clean break with his past (except for his family), which unfortunately included me. Too bad so sad, right? Except that I am not used to losing my friends. I had not yet given up on him then, and I have not yet given up on him now.<br /><br />B2 is a more interesting story. He lost himself in drugs first, then in alcohol, though he'd never admit it. At one point, I'm pretty sure I was instrumental in getting him to go back to school. The guy was a valedictorian back when it actually MEANT something after all.<br /><br />I say all this to say that their father died on Monday, and B1 called me for the first time in (I think) 20 years to invite me to the memorial service. I went today. It was...interesting.<br /><br />First of all, they're Methodists. The Methodist style never appealed to me. Let's all get as dressed up as we can, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us, so that God will be happy. Somehow I don't think God cares so much what we're wearing.<br /><br />But I did have a chance to visit my hometown, and also visit these people and their family, all of whom had such an influence on who I am today.<br /><br />You have to understand that the man who died was a judge. He was an outstanding person, besides. He was also an insufferable man, a man who caused no end of consternation among his fellow citizens...but also a man whose passing caused a lot of pain, reflection, and self-examination among those who knew him well and those who knew him at all.<br /><br />Such a man is to be revered. He is to be remembered. His words are to be, if not "followed", at least to be taken to heart. The program informed me that his political persuasion runs directly against me own. This does not surprise me. It actually makes me sing with joy.<br /><br />Because if this man is politically against me and yet still loves me as he so clearly did, then I am still free to believe as I do and all is not lost.<br /><br />God bless this man. God bless his family, as they struggle to learn what it is to be a group without his leadership. And God please let this be a vehicle for B1 and I to become closer. I am willing. Is he?<br /><br />Only God knows.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-67302101773880490802009-01-27T18:14:00.000-08:002009-01-27T18:20:10.116-08:00Story Found"Jake" is an interesting person. I found the following story written longhand in our kitchen. I don't know if he wrote it or copied it, but either way (grammar corrected because it drives me crazy)...<br /><br /><blockquote>MY LIFE STORY<br /><br />There was a little boy, a man, and a mule walking. After a while people noticed the man riding the mule, and said "look at that horrible man let the poor boy walk." So the man let the boy ride. After a while the people said "look at that nasty boy make the old man walk." So they both got on the mule. After a while the people said "look at those nasty people torture that mule." So they both got off and walked alongside the mule. After awhile the people said "look at those foolish people waste a perfectly good mule."<br /><br />No matter which way you do it, it's wrong.<br /></blockquote><br />This kid does some thinking, and does have ways of expressing it.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-3094102514811737302009-01-19T18:38:00.000-08:002009-01-19T19:12:44.653-08:00Cabbage Patch or Cop Shop? Meh. Same-Same.Saturday we went to my company holiday party to collect a nice free dinner and a door prize. As the prize-giving was winding down, we got a call about an emergency placement. We are apparently the only baby-ready foster home they could find on short notice anywhere in the area.<br /><br />Needless to say, we stopped off at the cop shop on our way home and picked up a brand spanking new foster daughter, 7 months old. She and Amanda have already hit it off, and I'm pretty sure they've agreed to be in each others' wedding parties by now. Women bond quickly, you know. Especially when they're sharing tummy time and stuff. They'd be going to the bathroom together if they could...maybe The Wife and I should be changing their diapers next to each other at the same time to foster a lifelong friendship.<br /><br />This little girl is in trouble, though. Bad, bad, BAD situation with the mom. Not sure about the dad, but it doesn't sound good. Based just on getting to know the little girl and examine her, it's not good. She's WAY overweight, with no detectable muscle tone. Her legs could just be so much spaghetti, and her favorite thing to chew on is her foot. When we took her into our laps and started playing with her, it was like she had no idea what we thought we were doing (but it did look kind of fun).<br /><br />Our impression has been that mom hasn't done much besides sit her in the corner in her carrier or crib and prop a bottle once in awhile. This was reinforced in my own head when The Wife told me she had fed her at night and she downed an entire bottle pretty much without even waking up. She seems starved for affection and attention, and isn't really sure what to do with it when she gets it.<br /><br />On the other front, we've been having trouble getting Amanda to eat. Since the new child is on a different formula, we thought it would be a good time to begin switching Amanda, so we started that on Saturday. The change has been instantaneous and miraculous. This child who acted so hungry and then stopped eating and started crying almost immediately now starts eating and then takes the whole bottle nearly in one breath. She's probably eating close to twice what she was eating. I have a feeling she'll be putting on quite a few pounds over the next couple of months. Fingers crossed.<br /><br />In the meantime, we're enjoying the interaction of these two. At 5 and 7 months, they have no idea about race or differences between them. Amanda has not the slightest worry that this girl is overweight, and what being seen with her will do to her image. They only know "hey, there's another little person in this land of giants. Maybe she wants to play!"<br /><br />Ah, to be an infant again. No, scratch that. I had a hard enough time figuring out the whole toilet thing the first time around. And I'd REALLY rather not go through the whole kindergarten thing again if I don't have to. My kindergarten teacher taught me what it was to have the little hairs on the back of your neck jerked when you misbehaved.<br /><br />Today, that would likely get her crucified by the ACLU, but in the early 70s it was a very effective and widely used technique to get early control of the troublemakers and thin their numbers (I was more or less a thinnee I guess)...and MUCH more effective than "time out", no matter WHAT the "child experts" say. Holy crap, but that woman was effective. I'm still scared of her a little bit, and I think she died several years ago.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-21496028949608738242009-01-15T09:48:00.000-08:002009-01-15T10:25:21.072-08:00The Greatest JoyIt is with a spinning mind and an immense joy in my heart that I hereby announce to anybody who cares that I just got The Call from The Wife. The judge has approved our adoption, and in a couple of weeks we will officially be Amanda's mommy and daddy.<br /><br />I'm in shock. I've become so conditioned to the idea that nice guys finish last, and the court usually makes the decision I would rather they didn't, and the law was more often used to cause mischief than to deliver justice. That we should be granted this gift finally, after all the shock, grief, wrangling, rage, muttering, cursing, pleading, and who knows what all else over these last months...well, it's a kind of gratification I don't recall ever feeling. I MAYBE felt something akin to this when I studied and worked my last quarter in college to earn 26 credits, and, for the first time in my entire scholastic life, received straight A's on all 26 credits' worth. And then, if I hadn't been so tired of school I just didn't want to deal with it, I could have participated in commencement exercises for two different schools within a few days of each other. Instead, I just fled to the lake cabin and spent a week or so sitting on the dock, tanning, fishing and recuperating.<br /><br />I don't need recuperation this time, though, except maybe emotionally. And I have a wonderful wife and beautiful little girl to help with that, thank God.<br /><br />I...I don't have any more to say right now. I have to work the rest of the day anyway...I may have more to say on the subject tonight. Or maybe I'll just sit and hug my little girl awhile and think about how good God can be when He has a mind to.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-45430000711408016702009-01-14T18:33:00.000-08:002009-01-14T18:46:51.326-08:00A Delightful Phone CallI just got a call from one of my former foster sisters that I haven't seen for many years, though I do get news of her through Mom from time to time. It tickled me pink to hear from her, not least because she was calling to thank me for our Christmas card. Her father is suddenly dying of acute Leukemia, and it sounds like it has her rattled...her mother died 5 years ago, and the rest of her family are...well, let's just say there's a reason she was in foster care as a teen. But the letter I wrote and sent with the card got to her at a low point, and went a long way toward cheering her up. That alone made the whole Christmas-card-sending hassle worthwhile.<br /><br />I remember her dearly as one of my favorite foster siblings of all time. She would sit with me and watch All Star Wresting, and when it was done we would whale the tar out of each other with body slams, flying elbow smashes, "The Claw", "The Sleeper", and every other goofy wrestling stunt we had just seen. I enjoyed this because it was SO much fun...but also because she was a few years older than me and I was right about smack dab in the geographic center of puberty. She was blond. She was hot.<br /><br />Pubescent boy gets the chance to wrestle with an older hot blond girl. Yowza. Sign me up.<br /><br />But she just had this really-good-friend-who-I-could-trust feel to her, and we always had a special friendship when we still saw each other. We could cry on each other's shoulder. There's not enough of that in the world.<br /><br />She's had a pretty tough life, and not all of it has been self-inflicted. Probably not even most of it...and she actually managed to foster herself with some success for awhile, though she's had her problems as well.<br /><br />It sounds like she's in a pretty good place these days, though. I've been meaning to get on my motorcycle and go back and spend a day visiting old ghosts in my hometown where she still lives...maybe I'll drop in on her and see how she is. Life is too short not to do something like that every great once in awhile, don't you think?Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-77152984246676769882009-01-10T15:32:00.000-08:002009-01-10T15:39:18.653-08:00For Your Reading PleasureIf you have extra blog-reading time to waste, going forward I have decided to set up another blog at http://undiscoveredcolumnist.blogspot.com.<br /><br />I am committing myself to two articles per week on that blog to start, and may increase that if inspiration seems to strike often enough to support it. My idea is to try to build up a body of more polished work that I can shop around to newspapers and what have you in an effort to land at least a part-time professional writing gig. I don't really care much about the money...long-time readers here will know that this is just something I've wanted to do for a long time. The novel isn't bursting out of my chest like an alien, but random jottings certainly seem to with some regularity. Time to see if I can craft those into something someone will pay me to write.<br /><br />Constructive criticism on writing style, content, etc. will always be welcome over there. I'll be in thick skin mode when writing that one, and I'm especially interested in any criticism by anybody who happens to be any kind of writer, editor or publisher. And I'm REALLY interested in any contact from somebody who wants to send me bucketfuls of cash (used, nonsequential, unmarked bills are preferable) to write that type of thing for their publication.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17048852.post-54068105071752775092009-01-09T19:47:00.000-08:002009-01-09T19:53:28.333-08:00Defect Detected"Jake" does have a defect that is becoming apparent...he's kind of a jerk to some of the other kids at school. I don't mean a normal jerk...but it sounds like he's something extra special at times.<br /><br />There is one girl who is also a foster kid that goes to that school. We have done respite for her a couple of times, and aside from the fact that even death will not shut that girl up, she was pretty pleasant to have around. "Jake" told her that she would never get a date because she was ugly. He told her this twice. When confronted by school staff, he claimed freedom of speech and said he wouldn't have said it if it wasn't true.<br /><br />Chivalry is not dead, but it's on life support and I'm looking for the defibrillator.<br /><br />We are to apply some sort of consequences at home to go with the in-school suspension he earned himself. Problem is, there isn't much he really wants to do, so we can't prevent him from doing it. As a first step, we've banned him from watching TV in the basement for the amount of time he's in ISS, and limited his use of his game console. He'll probably have to help me finish the tiling in the basement tomorrow.<br /><br />Next step will be to eliminate the game console entirely. Next after that...heck if I know. Maybe make him make supper every day 'til he's out of ISS. He actually cooks pretty well...but he also seems to enjoy it usually. How do you "punish" a kid who's either apathetic toward or appreciative of your punishments?<br /><br />I can honestly say I've not run across this problem before.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565391786475786128noreply@blogger.com2