The Girl's Photo Shoot

I took the girls to get pictures done, they are 1 1/2 and just over 2 1/2 now. Since they seem to be changing so quickly, I wanted to get their pictures done . So here are some of my favorites, very image heavy. 

Just sweetness, I love how they are holding hands: 

So sweet how M is a good big sister, she was really making sure Charlie did exactly as told: 

M was dying to sit in this chair as soon as she saw it, she really guided the photog on what she wanted: 

Miss Charlie looking all sweet and innocent. She is a real spitfire, so don't let that innocent look fool you:

The girls jumping and dancing around together: 

Let them always dance and laugh as carefree as they are here. They love each other so much and are so cute together. I loved watching them sing, laugh, dance, and play while they were getting their pictures done: 

And my favorite! They were so happy and cute and sweet at the end of the session. This is a true representation of my girls. Always talking and telling secrets and laughing together: 

My sweet, sweet girls!

When Court Goes Well

Yesterday was baby Charlie's 6 month permanency planning hearing. The Social Worker called Monday to say I didn't really need to be there, but I had already scheduled it in my work calendar and knew it wouldn't take too long, so decided I would go.  I hesitated on going but then someone said I always go because I want to hear firsthand what is happening. That made complete sense. We only live 6 miles from the courthouse and aside from parking it is very easy to get to.

Most times you sit on the bench just inside the main area not in the gallery, but behind the attorney tables. Once for Miss M I sat at the attorney table and yesterday I sat at the attorney table with the state attorney and the SW. The judge has the opportunity to ask you questions as does the state attorney and the GAL attorney when you do show up.

It was very routine, they wanted to get a status update on the adoption, it is staffed, the next step is to review the adoption home study and the team will need to review our suitability. It is likely to be the same team that reviewed it for Miss M, so that should go well. The placement date will be set and we have 30 days to file from placement date, then we will file and wait our 30-90 days for the court to approve. I am not nervous about that process at all. 

So, onto court. Yesterday was the last day her GAL was going to appear before that judge because he is moving out of state. Let's just say everyone loves this GAL. He is so thorough, nice, caring for the kids, follows all the visitation schedules, and a volunteer, too. We love him and he really cares for all his kids and Charlie. Before we went on record the judge joking ordered that he was not allowed to leave the state of North Carolina, that he had to continue to live here and serve the kids of NC. She said a lot of sweet words about him.

Then we went on record and the SW stated her case of where we were in process, the GAL attorney didn't ask any questions. They asked me how she was doing. Then the judge says, "I recognize you. Did you attend one of the adoption celebrations the county does?". I told her yes I did for my now two year old. (Here's an article from about that day) Funny that she remembered us. Each year the county does a county wide foster care adoption celebration where they hold court and put the courts seal of approval on all adoptions. The judge then asked how many more kids were we going to adopt. I said that if our SW had anything to do with it 1-2 more. I think my hubs would have said "we're good", LOL. 

The next was the GAL offered up his summary that she was doing great in a great home and he was very happy how her case plan was going and court was over. 

It went really well. It is still so amazing to me how we got so lucky to be blessed with these two great adoption stores from foster care. 

Good Bye's

In my extended foster care support network three foster mom's are saying their good bye's to their foster babies this week and last and I can't imagine. I am one of the ones who hates the question from strangers, "won't you be sad to see them leave". I have no idea the depth of their sorrows, but I do know that it could have just as easily have been me.

Miss M was an adoptive placement, but I still think back over my anxiety level that first year we had her. I was so nervous and anxious and even after the adoption went through, I still was waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never did, but my anxiety was real. I remember asking the SW in September, "they can't take her back away from us right?" This was over a month after the finalization.

Charlie was not placed as an adoptive placement, so there was a real possibility that we could fall in love with her and have to say good bye. My anxiety level was not as high, though. I think part of it was that I couldn't live like that for a year again and needed to live in the moment. Part of it was we had been through a placement before and I was settled in my family thinking if she did have to leave, at least we got to meet this amazing baby and positively impact her and show her unconditional love.

I am not going to lie and say I never had my moments of panic. I am sure most foster parents have. I was getting ready for work one day and we had Toddler Radio playing on Pandora. The song "You are my Sunshine" came on. I think it was the first time that I ever really listened to the lyrics. It sounds like such a happy melody song. But, when I was thinking of Charlie and her being my sunshine and having to say good bye, I started crying. It was if it was really happening and I couldn't control it. Of course, it didn't really happen, but the feeling I had in that moment can't be matched by anything much scarier. I still almost tear up when I think of that song.

Those ladies/families that are saying good bye right now, I don't know how they really feel, not having been through it myself. I know they are feeling a huge loss. They don't say good bye because they want to, they do it because they love the kids they are fostering and they know they are doing the best possible thing for them. They are stronger than most people. I know they also get asked the question about being hard to let the kids go or get told "I don't know how you do it". But, they do. They give these kids a great foundation for their future and hand them off into the sometimes unknown and can only hope for the best, that a family has truly turned around. They grieve deeply when a child leaves their home.

You Are My Sunshine:
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When the skies are grey
You'll never know dear
How much I love you
So please don't take
My sunshine
Away

The other night dear
As I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
When I awoke dear
I was mistaken
And I held
My head
And cried

You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When the skies are grey
You'll never know dear
How much I love you
Please don't take
My sunshine
Away

Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/ricky_nelson/you_are_my_sunshine.htm

Call Two Years Ago

Two years ago today I got the call from the Social Worker that would change our family forever. A 5 1/2 month old baby girl, 99% adoption. It didn't take us long to decide to say yes. I called Hubs first to tell him all about her. He didn't hesitate at all. I will never forget when he said "you can make the call." We would be her third foster family and they would only place her if we were willing to adopt. Of course we were! We were given the option to meet her first but we declined, there was nothing that meeting her could do to change our minds. I then got to start calling family and letting them know that a baby was coming to our home that week.
In a flurry of calls that day (Tuesday) and the next it was decided that she would be placed with us on Friday the 8th of January. It would be a very long exciting three days of thinking about her. I started gathering a few things for the baby, a crib, moving the room around, a few items of clothing (that all ended up having to be returned as we were told she was a petite little baby so I bought 6 months, she was already in 9-12 months when we got her). I also bought the carrier that I said would be the first thing I bought if we ever had another baby, an Ergo so I could carry her.
People at work joked and called it my three day pregnancy.
It is all still so surreal how it happened and how Miss M came into our lives forever.

Court This Week

I know not many foster parents can say this regularly, but court was great. It was better than expected this week. It definitely had its sad moments, but I really feel we are moving forward with an open adoption so it doesn’t have to be entirely sad.

Court opened and immediately the judge called the four lawyers into her chambers. Everyone looked shocked like this doesn’t usually happen and why is this happening. I had that brief moment of fear that something was going wrong and they were going to take sweet baby D. I was afraid that something went wrong with the relinquishment. But, they came back and no one looked shell shocked. It seemed to be okay. There are four lawyers because there is one for DCS, one for the GAL, one for mom, and one for dad.

Mom and Dad did not need to be at court since they relinquished but I think they wanted to make sure things were okay. I looked at it like they needed a little more assurance that baby D was staying with us like they had decided and wanted.

The first thing the judge asked was about paternity and Dad did have a paternity test and he is her biological father. Then the State got to say what they prepared. They basically said that Mom and Dad were active in the case, attended visits, foster parents were active, the bio parents relinquished and that foster parents wanted to adopt. The GAL Lawyer asked if there were any concerns and Mom and Dad’s lawyers had no questions.

We got asked a few questions by the lawyers like how she was doing, any concerns, and any parameters set on visits, etc. The judge commented that we looked very happy.

The Judge spoke to the parents first and commended them on making sure their baby girl was taken care of, making the best decision for her, and realizing that they loved her so much they knew that maybe someone else needed to do the day-to-day care of their baby. The judge said the SW, GAL, foster parents, and parents showed the way the system should work with everyone working together.

I can’t say what made this case different, but everyone was engaged and looking out for baby D. She had a very proactive Social Worker, her GAL was always available and made sure she was spoken for, we had a great mediator, and we were involved. Bio parents were welcoming and involved. I just go back to the very first visit when dad walked in and his first words were “I am so grateful to you two for taking care of my baby”. I think it set the tone going forward. I always made sure that they were kept up-to-date, I liked sending pictures, and I liked writing notes on how she was doing and what she was doing.

Whether the goal is reunification or adoption, I think this is how it is supposed to work, a whole unit of people working together and looking out for the best interests of the child who can’t speak for themselves.

We set the first visit with her parents the day after Christmas. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I think it is going to be a good thing. We met mom and dad on Monday and set up the visit and at court Tuesday mom said she already took the bus by the location and she knows where it is. I got an address and contact number for mom (I hope it stays reliable, it is her mom’s number and the address is the shelter). I reluctantly gave them my number. I had meant to research getting a number to use for them, but I think it will be okay. I don’t think they will abuse it.

I struggle a little with what I will tell Miss M going forward as we don’t know her dad and her mom stopped showing for visits the visit before the final visit (after faithfully showing up for almost the entire year). I will have a few years before she questions why D has another mom and dad but she doesn’t. I just don’t want her hurt by it.

Bad Hair Day

I have been struggling with M’s hair a little lately. I think part of it, maybe feeling a little insecure. I know perceive that I am judged more as a white woman doing her hair. I am learning slowly but surely and some days we have really good hair days and it looks super cute and some days I struggle and it looks a bit rough. I need to experiment a little because I just don’t feel like she needs to rock the twists in pony tails all the time. I mean there is only so much you can do to make it look different, 5 pony tails with braids, 7 pony tails with twists, barrettes on the ends, no barrettes, scrunchies, colored bands, bows, no bows, etc. I want her to be able to wear it down, but I haven’t been able to master that yet though without a 30 minute detangling session afterwards.

I also want to make sure I am taking good care of it. So I read a lot about products and have spent a good bit experimenting with products. I know I got her conditioner down and I like the leave in I am using, but not sure if her shampoo is getting it clean enough while still helping and not doing any damage. Sometimes I only condition and sometimes I wash and condition (never washing more than once a week except this week which I will get to in a minute).

I read a lot of blogs on hair and follow one in particular pretty closely, Happy Girl Hair. Ironically, I think M’s hair is very similar to her one daughter and Baby D’s hair is very similar to the other daughter. I also recently started reading Chocolate Hair, Vanilla Care. I used the latter to learn a new style, rope twists and flat rope twists and decided to try it out.

I left M’s hair out yesterday knowing I was going to wash yesterday or today. It was pretty cute, but her dad just rolled his eyes. Last night I washed it, got all the stuff together and styled it. It took about 2 ½ hours and I was so proud of myself. It turned out pretty darn cute for my first try and I was excited that it would probably last 2-3 weeks. She was so good and patient through it all. I took one picture of it.

Her Hair:

Fast forward to this afternoon, we went to the pool but it was closed so we came back home and I decided to cook dinner. I let Miss M watch some TV and started cooking. The show was almost over (all 30 minutes of it) when I hear her say “Ouch Mama”. I rush over to the couch to find her comb stuck in her hair, her hair and face covered in hair grease, her hands covered in hair grease, nice little hand prints in grease on my couch (about 5 of them). Her hair style was ruined and that was just the start of it, she had used about 2/3 of the bottle of hair grease on her hair mostly.

I was so mad, not just at her, but at myself for leaving her hair stuff out. Who knew she could open the bottle. We finished last night around 11:30 and I was tired and didn’t want to mess putting it back in her room where the baby was sleeping. (Will never make that mistake again)

I had to wash her clothes and wash her hair four times and I didn’t even remotely get most of the grease out. It is so bad. I re-styled it tonight in larger rope twists but I think I will need to wash again soon. I just have no clue how to get it all out. Ugh! It is also not how I planned to spend my Sunday night before a busy week. The washing and re-styling probably took 2 hours.

I know people that don’t have a kid with hair to do won’t really understand how crushed I was when I saw what had happened.

Hubs says I should just keep taking her to get her hair braided but I don’t think that can be the only solution; I need to be able to fix it, too. I am learning, it just seems like it is such a steep learning curve. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, this is what I wanted a little girl to do her hair and dress up. It doesn’t mean it can’t also be a little stressful.

When I feel really bad I tell myself it took me almost 30 years to learn how to take care of my curls and I still have bad hair days, so I can’t expect myself to know everything right away. People love to be helpful and tell me, Miss D’s hair will be easier. I am not so sure, it will be different, maybe a little easier in the sense it is closer to mine and the dude’s. I think I will still need to learn some. I also don’t want to start the mindset that it is hard because I want her to love her hair (I LOVE her beautiful curls, I love how cute she looks in the water and bath with her curls circling her face). It isn’t hard, it is just different than what I am used to.

I didn’t take any pictures of the mess. At one point I did laugh to myself that I actually had something worthy to send in to Shit My Kids Ruined. I was just too caught up in trying to fix the situation.

Race and Adoption

In some ways I feel like we have it easier in the TRA (Trans-Racial Adoption) than others. C looks like a blend of us, M is brown like daddy, D is also brown like M and Daddy. Me and C are the only ones that don’t have a match in the family. Yet, in other ways it is still just as hard. I still have all the worries I read about on blogs of other trans-racial adopters. I worry do we have enough people in our lives that look like M and D? Do we have enough role models (or as Mama C calls them People of Power)?

There are a few things that I have sought out that I feel good about.

I started an interracial playgroup when C was 1. I did this for a few reasons, I wanted him to see other families that looked like us, other families that looked different, and make some friends of all different races. I am pretty happy with the long-term result. We made a lot of good friends and we continue to expand our circle and he gets to play with kids that are all different shades of tan/brown. I realized after we adopted Miss M that it was even more important that she also see other adopted kids in the playgroup (which we already had).

The girls’ pediatrician is black. I didn’t pick her because she was, we saw her once for a sick visit at our current large peds practice and loved her, not because of her skin color but just because she was that awesome. Also, the other pediatrician we see there was a foster parent and adopted two of his foster kids. How lucky is that, that we happened to stumble on these great resources?

One place where I tried and failed was joining an “African American Playgroup”. I still feel so disappointed at how I was excluded. I am glad that M wasn’t old enough to see us get slighted. We went to two of the play dates and I mistakenly thought I was welcome. When I asked to join their discussion/planning group on-line I was given the run-around and then finally told “it's just sticky... some folks would not express themselves freely if they saw an "outsider".” There it is I am an “outsider” and not welcome. I was and still am in shock. Aren’t we all just moms with a child of color? Doesn’t M deserve to have friends and be in a playgroup with kids that look like her? Maybe it is only about me and because I am white. Who knows? In the end I decided that it doesn’t matter. M has a best friend that is also adopted and we love their family. We see them a lot. M also has baby D who is only 15 months younger than her and what is better than a sister. So maybe she didn’t need it after all. I do worry as she gets older and makes friends in school that are also black, will she get teased because her mom is white. I hope not.

She has family that looks like her, her grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins. She has her daddy that looks like her. Her birthday party will be diverse. (Yes, that is one of my crazy worries). I can’t help but cast judgment when I see other TRA Families and see their pictures and their kid is the only kid of color at parties, at their own birthday party. I know it has to be hard, but we have to make an effort, right?

New Baby

We have a new baby. Well, she is now 7 months old. I can’t believe it. We decided after the adoption of Miss M, that we would foster and/or adopt again. I thought we might have to wait a while so we went back active mid-January. Well, January 31^st we got a call at ten a.m. about a 3 month old girl. We picked her up at 3:00 pm that day. It was the funniest thing to tell C that we got a baby on the way home from work. Her case is not as clear cut as Miss M. Miss M was 99% sure adoption from the first phone call and was a quick whirlwind of placement, Termination of Parental Rights, file adoption, adoption finalized in one day shy of 7 months. Baby D is still in limbo and will be in limbo for at least 5 ½ more months. I am so surprised at myself, I was such a ball of nerves with Miss M and it was all pretty clear-cut and fast and easy. This will be longer, less clear, more work, etc. But I just live day to day in the present knowing that today we have her, tomorrow we will probably still have her, next month she will probably still be here and most likely she will be spending her first birthday with us. After being nervous all last year and I was still nervous even after the adoption was finalized, I think my mind just said you can’t stress over what you can’t control. Now, don’t get me wrong I have a few moments of worry and anxiety, I can’t imagine us losing her, we love her, and we want her. But we might not get her. It will all depend on what the courts determine. We do know that they won’t review her case again until November. So as of right now, we have her until then. That is unless someone in her family comes forward and is found suitable to care for her.

Now about Baby D. She is a tiny little baby at 14 pounds. She is alert, loves to be held, super snuggly, and firmly attached to us. She is vocal, which is good and bad. Boy does she have a set of lungs on her. On the rare occasions she gets mad, everyone knows it. On the good side she “talks” all the time and it is super cute, she says geeee geeee and babababa and dadadadada all the time. She interacts when you talk to her. Her smile and her laugh light up the room. She smiles the most at C and Miss M. She has been a good sleeper from about 4 ½ months on. Both kids adore her so much. Miss M “reads” to her all the time and calls her day-do and baby. C dotes on her and holds her and calls her day-day bay-bay. He loves to help out with her and let her sit on the couch with him while he watches TV.

I like to say for the most part we live in the moment as a family of five. I always knew I wanted a big family and still love it and smile when I say The 5 of us. They are the most amazing kids and I feel fortunate each and every day that I am blessed with them, I love being their mom.