Building foster sibling bonds with a toddler

While Crocodile doesn't quite have the intensely tumultuous relationship with Rhinoceros and Dinosaur as Cricket did, they are not always major Crocodile fans.  Part of it is because 2-year-olds do destroy most things you're trying to do when you're 4 and 7, and his social skills for cooperative play are limited to playing hide-and-seek poorly.  Can't help it, he's 2.  Part of it is that he needs a lot of my attention, and I'm sure they're jealous for it.  I also think it's hard to suddenly have a toddler sibling rather than knowing them as infants and watching them grow into the terrible twos.  I know it can be hard as a parent at times.

So it's nice when they have great sibling bonding moments. Tonight we had a blast playing together at a splash pad, no one really getting mad at each other for spraying or splashing each other. 
I just noticed Crocodile had been calling Dinosaur and Rhinoceros the same name (as he also does with his sisters), but now he's started clearly saying different names for them now. 

And Dinosaur and Crocodile had a sweet moment the other day.  Dinosaur has these stuffed "puffles" from Club Penguin that he adores, but all have been missing for who knows how long.  Crocodile found one and brought it straight to Dinosaur with a grin on his face.  Dinosaur was not only thrilled and thanked him several times, but keeps bringing it up.  "Do you remember how kind Crocodile was when he found my puffle and brought it to me?  That was so nice!"  It's very sweet.  I need to tie in that he is a part of that, that by being kind in our house, he is teaching his brothers to be kind by his example.

Another quote indicating the state of our household

"Can we get a baby instead?"

And some words including "hate."  This is so hard.

I'm trusting God to take care of all three children better than I can on my own or with B.  He gave us a year that Dinosaur and Rhinoceros adjusted to our foster children so easily that it was strange.  He gave us a year to learn the system a bit before these challenges.  He has called us, so he has prepared us, even though my heart sinks when I hear and watch the boys' reactions to Cricket.

Stretching

I am very much being stretched as a parent.  We had some bad days, then a couple of pretty good days, now today was very difficult again.

Here are several things that just don't work in our household anymore that I depended on:

• screen time captivating the attention of all children
• lots of unstructured play time
• pretty loose supervision
• internet breaks for me here and there

I'm trying to address the most difficult times of the day: mornings before school and after nap time.  The best times are outings out of the house, and nap time and evenings go all right.  I think after nap time is going a little better.  Our current plan of attack is go immediately to snack with puppet role-play as Cricket starts to perk up, and then sensory play.  I have never done role-play with my kids, but they are loving it and practicing positive behavior.  I haven't seen it trickle over to the actual situations they deal with, but let's just hope it does with more time.  Heck, if it never does, at least I hear some nice words while they have finger puppets on their fingers.  Then sensory play seems to be a good way for them to parallel play, though I still need to intervene on sharing some things.

As for mornings, I just made up a 15-minute increment schedule with clip art.  They want to play in the morning, but it's the kind of loud play that draws in the other kids, who are either supposed to be doing something else or who can't resist the potential for conflict.  Or if I try an assembly line to get all the morning prep done in stages for all kids simultaneously, they are in each others' faces way too much.  So, I bought some kid headphones and I'm giving each kid a designated time to listen to a book on CD.  Here's hoping this helps.

I read The Connected Child from the library once, but I've picked up my own copy to pore over now.  I become more and more concerned that there is more to Cricket's story than her official reason for removal, which didn't sound like much.  Or she is having an exceptionally difficult time settling some other reason.  Or this is the way it always is for toddlers separated from their families, and I'm just naive.

So, I'm using all the ideas I can.  I have to pour into these difficulties with ideas and effort, but I know I also need to breathe and surrender control.  But it feels like there's so much at stake.

My plans, God's plans

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. Proverbs 16:9

It's no big surprise.  Plan things out for your family, and God will show you the true plan.

We were certain that by limiting our age range to six months younger than our youngest biological child, we were preserving the birth order.  No "virtual twins" for us.  Not that virtual twins are a bad choice for others, but they were not in our plan.

Well, our new gal Cricket is one year younger than Rhinoceros, but they are virtual twins.

I would bet money that no stranger could pick out that he is one year older.  They are the same size, and she is faster and stronger.  She is a big sister and acts accordingly.  She is also more of a "do it myself" personality than he is, so that makes her seem older as well.

When Rhinoceros met her, I picked him up from a friend's house and put him in the car.  She was asleep in the car seat, and he talked on and on about the baby.  I tried to explain to him that she is not a baby, but I believe that she's in the same convertible car seat as our foster babies established that she was a baby.

Today, when Cricket wants to tell Rhinoceros what's up, she's been calling him Baby.  "Baby, that's mine!"

So, we have two toddlers, both convinced that they are not the baby in the household.  So much for my birth order plans.  God, weren't You supposed to send us a meek wide-eyed little toddler?  One that Rhinoceros could be a helper and leader with?

But I trust that He has prepared us in ways we don't know.  And I trust she is with us for a reason.

Interview with Dinosaur

Dinosaur turns 6 years old very soon, so I thought I'd do a birthday interview on being a foster brother.  Seriously, this kid loves babies, sometimes a little too much.

Me: What is your favorite thing about taking care of babies?
D: Holding them.
Me: What is the hardest part about taking care of babies?
D: Nothing.
Me: Is there anything that makes you sad?
D: Nothing.
Me: Tell me what you thought when Pterodactyl came to our house.
D: Happy happy happy!
Me: What about when Beetle came?
D: Happy happy happy happy!
Me: And what about Caterpillar?
D: Happy happy happy happy happy happy!
Me: What have you learned since we started being a foster family taking care of babies?
D: You talking to me about it.
Me: What did I say?
D: You said that you were taking care of babies with us.
Me: Tell me what you thought when we said goodbye to Pterodactyl and Beetle.
D: Happy sad-ish.
Me: What was the happy part?
D: By saying goodbye.
Me: What was the sad part?
D: I didn't see Pterodactyl again, but Beetle, he came here two times.
Me: What do you hope for the future in our family?
D: Well, taking care of Caterpillar.
Me: And what do you think about saying goodbye to him?
D: Well, he's so ready to go with his grandma.
Me: What do you want to teach Rhinoceros about taking care of babies?
D: Talk about the babies and talk which names they are.
Me: What do you want to do when you grow up?
D: Take care of babies and kids and have ten babies.
Me: What else do you want to say about being a foster family?
D: About the Caterpillar and he's so cute and they can ride away and ppppht.
Me: Do you like seeing me type your words and sounds?
D: Yes.
Me: Anything else you want to say today?
D: His butt.
Me: No, I'm not going to type that.
D: Well, his mouth.
Me: What about his mouth?
D: He smiles so much.  And that's it!
Me: Indeed.

Fears

In my wonderful, wonderful moms group at my church, one woman talked about how when God is calling us, or possibly calling us, to something, we should write out all of our fears and pray over them.  We will find that God makes a way in all of them, even though it's rare that the concern is removed entirely.  He does work in us, or He does work in the circumstance.  We prayed about Dinosaur and Rhinoceros and how foster care would affect them.  I wasn't always good at naming that fear in a prayerful way, but I know I did at least a few times.  So far, God has provided above and beyond what I could have imagined, not only comforting them during times of loss, but putting hearts in them to love these babies, even learning a love for giving and caring for others.

So, here's a big old list of my fears right now with foster care.  Days like this I wish my blog was known among my friends and family, because it would let all those people that call me a hero know that I am scared to death pretty much all the time.  What was scarier than bringing my oldest biological son home from the hospital knowing that we were solely responsible for his care was?  Bringing home someone else's newborn from the hospital.

I fear a long-term placement that turns adoptive, bringing us to face the dilemma of choosing to put a child through one more loss or choosing to limit our fostering capabilities to help more kids.

I fear a long-term placement that breaks Dinosaur's and Rhinoceros's hearts with the goodbye.  And our hearts, but I know theirs are so much more tender and young.

I fear of a series of short-term placements that slowly drain us to the point of not being able to handle the frantic life of fostering.

I fear caring for a newborn that's as fussy or fussier than Beetle.

I fear trouble in our very secure, happy marriage directly resulting from a difficult placement.  (Funny enough, I typed sexure instead of secure.  Apparently I feel our marriage is secure and sexy.  Ha!)

I fear getting laid off and having to find another job that fits fostering so well.

I fear cheering on birth parents to reunification only for something horribly tragic to happen after the child returns to a parent.  This article about kids who should have been removed or remained removed is one of the most horrifying things I've ever read.

I fear never making a positive impact with birth parents, because I'm too shy, too aloof, too awkward, too privileged.

I fear that keeping with our age and capacity limits will result in a child being placed in one of those bad foster homes, just because we couldn't stretch ourselves a little further.

I fear having toddlers placed with us who have behaviors that I can't handle well, or trauma and loss that I don't know how to comfort.

I fear isolating myself from friends and family who aren't foster parents, or becoming proud because I've weathered more than they have.

I fear foster care.  Thank You, God, that You are bigger than foster care.

****

I wanted to add that I'm taking the next week completely off of foster care reading and blogging before we go on the call list again next Monday.  I was planning to do this just because it seemed like a good idea, but I know it won't be easy, as I get lonely in my foster care feelings and seek out connection on the internet, and thankfully I've found a LOT of foster care connections.  However, I think it will be a good kind of fasting, and if I get lonely, I will just come to this post and pray over one or all of my fears.

8th Day - Family of four

I completely forgot about 8th day yesterday.  Since trying to do this later in the month hasn't helped my memory, I'll probably switch to 1st day next month.  We did go to the children's museum, though, so I have a few fun photos from that.  I go here often with Rhinoceros, but going as a whole family was a special on-a-fostering-break treat.

My processing of Beetle's goodbye seems to be following the same phases as Pterodactyl's goodbye: Phase 1 - Sadness, Phase 2 - Tranquility.  Going from three kids to two does feel like a breath of fresh air, even though I know I'll gladly do it again.  But I really appreciate sleep.  And spending time with my husband without baby and/or children on us.  The last time Phase 3 was a bit of longing and loneliness, so we'll see how that goes.  I'm going to try to keep a little busier this time, while still savoring the break.

Now B and I are hashing out what to do after this break, mostly regarding Pterodactyl's future little siblings.  We're thinking long and hard about life with twin newborns.  We might have more doubts, especially considering the strict safe sleep rules that make it nearly impossible to care for two babies and still follow said rules.  If we decide to go ahead planning on that placement, we need to decide if we stay off the call list to make sure we have enough time off, or if we just stay on and see what happens.  Only God knows what the future holds!

For all those so worried about my bio kids and fostering

This morning, Dinosaur and I were having a fun chat about what grown-ups do, and I asked him the usual "what do you want to do when you grow up" question.  Most recently, his answer had been fix cars (one grandpa's career) and fix computers (dad's career).

But today he said, "I want to help people.  And take care of a baby."

My eyes filled with tears.  This is my son that has never tended toward helping or caring for others.  He didn't say this after I gave birth to his younger brother.  He said this after he saw that we take care of babies, and that this helps people.

I know they get less attention because we're busy with fostering.  I know they feel the goodbyes with more confusion and hurt than they express.  Beetle is scheduled to move one week from today (but you know how foster care goes), and I ache when Dinosaur declares how much he loves Beetle, and Rhinoceros asks "Where's Beetle?"  But oh, what they learn.  I need to remember to pray over these little guys, that their hearts grow, and they grow up to do much more to love others than I ever did.

Foster brother love

This week is craaaazy with little sleep and lots of appointments.  Plus I'm teaching 3 nights this week, whereas when Pterodactyl arrived, I was off work.  It's not going to get easier, as we have 6 hours of training to complete this month, too.  Couldn't that have been offered in January, guys?  But we're doing okay, and I'm remembering that it's not about us, and not about getting recognition/pity that we're inconvenienced by this or that.

Now, on to a little story about each of my bio sons reacting to Beetle.

Rhinoceros likes to identify lately.  "This is a coffee."  "This is a sun."  Heaven help you if he's wrong, and you wish to correct him.  So, he saw Beetle tucked into my Moby wrap and identified, "This is a baby.  This is Beetle."  Later that evening, I was helping him with his pants and he patted my chest and looked down my shirt.  I reminded him that this area is private, and he finally said, "This is a baby?"  I figured out he thought I was somehow hiding Beetle down my shirt or inside my body.

Dinosaur loves babies, apparently not just Pterodactyl.  He talks about how cute Beetle is and that he loves him.  I had a few minutes before work and told him I had time to read him a book.  He asked, "Can we read the book about Pterodactyl?  I want to show it to Beetle."  It was comforting to me to know that he's processing that the two babies have something in common: they come here, they're cute, and they leave, but we can still remember them.  Maybe he hasn't connected all of that yet, but it seems he's working on it.

Dinosaur has also made a Mii on our Wii for both Beetle and Pterodactyl, joining about 50 others, as creating Miis is his favorite hobby right now.

Introducing Rhinoceros

Two things to report:

1. We're back on the call list for foster placements as of today.  No clue how long that wait might be.
2. Rhinoceros had his 3rd birthday yesterday!

So without further ado...

5 Things about Rhinoceros

1. He is a peacemaker.  Maybe that's reading into things a bit at 3 years old, but he is really one of the least aggressive children I've ever met.  He has hit me once, and he upset himself from doing so and started tearing up.  He flees rather than fights.
2. He is a sweetie.  While Dinosaur has this monotone low little voice and gets the crazy eyes when he gets excited, Rhinoceros is almost always sweetness.  His little high-pitched airy voice, his little walk, sweetness.
3. He is sneaky.  He is definitely the kid who will not make his presence known and then you suddenly wonder where he is and find him with a half-empty bottle of maple syrup.  He has also put more objects down our vents than I could possibly count.
4. He loves cupcakes and singing happy birthday.  This has been his main pretend play for the past six months.  It had me stumped for a theme for his actual birthday, since he doesn't really have a favorite animal or character or anything.  He just likes candles on cupcakes.  So, I just put threes on the cupcakes and called it good.  He sat quietly, eyes lit up, as if he'd waited for that moment all his life.
5. He's generally quiet.  It's not that Rhinoceros can't talk.  It's just that he evades most communication.  He's also in this phase when you give him two choices, and you can't for the life of you figure out which one he is actually choosing.  I think he'll get more talkative as time goes on, but in general I think he'll be a quieter child.  He'll probably continue to use it to his advantage: see #3.

 Rhinoceros and Fostering

Considering Rhinoceros was only 2 years and 4 months when Pterodactyl was placed with us, and that he wasn't the most verbal 2-year-old anyway, there wasn't much we could do to prepare him.  We've talked to him a little bit, but we mainly had to trust God that we were making the right decision.  Even apart from fostering, I braced myself for his adjustment to a baby in the home, replacing him as the youngest.  When Rhinoceros was born, Dinosaur had quite the phase of acting out as he adjusted to his presence.  But when Pterodactyl arrived... nothing.  Rhinoceros went on being his quiet happy toddler self.  He liked to lay down next to her and give her a single kiss (while Dinosaur attacked her with kisses and we had to pry him off of her).  No new behavior issues that we could trace to her presence.  I can't promise this will ever happen again, but it was a big relief.  B and I really had a much harder time adjusting to a new baby than Dinosaur or Rhinoceros did!

Rhinoceros asked about Pterodactyl when she was on visits, wanting to know where she was.  For awhile, he would take attendance at our house:  "Mommy?  Here.  Daddy?  Work.  Dinosaur?  Here.  Rhinoceros?  Here.  Pterodactyl?  Here."  (With real names in toddler dialect, of course.)  This made me concerned that when she left and didn't come back, he would have a hard time processing it.  To my surprise, he didn't ask about her at all for at least two weeks, in spite of me talking about her.  Finally, he saw a part of a bottle and said her name questioningly.  Then he moved on to play with something.  I have no idea how his little mind has actually wrapped around this, but he seems to be doing okay.

I'm sure every child is different, and I have no idea if our transitions in the future will go so easily.  I'm sure it's giving me a false security as we dive into the next adventure, but hey, sometimes I think a little false security can't hurt.  I'm thankful for all of us that the boys have had a pretty easy time with fostering so far.  I hope not to take it for granted.

I like these snow pictures for the blog, because while I can share my bio kids' pictures if I want to, I like that they're not 100% recognizable.  And bundled up kids are cute.

Introducing Dinosaur

 Since we don't have any foster kids in our home right now, I thought I'd take a little time to write about my biological kids and how they've done with fostering.  I'll start with Dinosaur, our five-year-old.

5 Things about Dinosaur

1. He loves music and dance.  One of his favorite things is to turn on some music and make up his own dance moves.  Many of these are inspired by Dance Dance Revolution, another favorite of his.
2. He loves all things silly.  If you will rough house with Dinosaur, he will be glued to you for the rest of the time you're in his presence.  He is also big into silly rhymes and nonsense lately.  I'm a sucker for his big grin.
3. He knows his dates and times.  At age 2, Dinosaur became obsessed with clocks, finding them wherever we went and making clocks at home.  Before he was 4, he could tell time accurately, and he loves to live by a schedule.  If you need something to happen by 8:15, just tell Dinosaur to remind you when it's 8:15.  He remembers and focuses on dates as well, remembering when we visited family or what day his preschool started in Sept. 2012.  His memories are always expressed in his sweet and peculiar way, reciting how old people were and what day it was.
4. He loves school and reading.  Dinosaur did not look back when he went to preschool or kindergarten.  He likes the activity of it all, and I think he thinks it's all for him.  He has a fantastic kindergarten teacher and has just flourished there, reading far beyond what I expected him to at this age.
5. He is not big on empathy and conscience.  If I'm going to brag on my kid with most of these, I'll throw in a weakness.  I'm pretty sure no punishment or consequence has ever made Dinosaur feel bad for something he did wrong.  He is also pretty unaffected by others feeling bad, and has never been one to try to make people feel better.  Some of this is normal 5-year-old self-centeredness, but I really do think it's part of his personality as well.  I have a double dose of empathy and B has a... meager dose.  It's a good balance, so I hope Dinosaur finds his double-empathy match some day.

Dinosaur and Fostering

Dinosaur welcomed Pterodactyl eagerly and was enamored with her babyness.  He would baby talk to her constantly, sometimes in his own odd way ("It's so dark in your mouth!").  Every time someone came from the agency to our home or we dropped her off for a visit, he would inform all social workers, "She is such a cute baby."  This was a bit of a surprise to me, as when his biological brother was born, he ignored him as much as possible and acted out to get attention.  With Pterodactyl, he adjusted quite easily and happily.  He was a little too happy at times, and getting millimeters from her face and just not leaving her alone. 

Pterodactyl is black/Hispanic and Dinosaur and Rhinoceros are white with white blond hair and blue eyes.  Dinosaur processed a lot about skin color through Pterodactyl being a part of our family.  He attends a school with more than 50% non-white students, and our church is more racially diverse than most, but the immediacy of having her in our home brought up more conversations.  I think this was very positive, and while it wouldn't be a reason alone for us to foster, I'm grateful we had many opportunities to talk about race and people who look different than us.  He hasn't seemed to pick up the lessons we try to teach him about taking care of others and sharing what we have, but I'm hoping they will stick with him over time.

Probably the hardest part of foster care for Dinosaur was the ambiguity.  We tried to prepare him for our first placement, but we couldn't tell him on what day a baby or little boy or girl would come to our house, which doesn't sit well with his calendar obsession.  We tried to prepare him for when she would move, but first we thought that would be in June, then September, then October, then November, and finally in December we had one day's notice.  While I think that made it difficult for him to understand what was going on, he wasn't upset by it. 

Saying goodbye wasn't emotional for him, and he's been hard to read in this transition.  I've had to intentionally ask him how he's doing, or I don't know if he would have talked about her at all.  For the week after she left, he said he was sad a few times, and confused once.  This was all matter-of-fact, no tears, though the one that broke my heart was, "I want to give her a kiss."  He did love kissing her so much and she brought a little extra joy to his life.

He is looking forward to a new little one in the house (and of course wants to know WHEN), though there was still some confusion if this was a baby in my tummy and why we weren't getting a kid his age.  We've had lots of time for me to focus attention on him and his brother, as we had a week in Canada for the holidays, a week home during school break, and now school has been cancelled two days due to weather.  Then today he came down with a fever as well, so maybe I'll have extra time again with him tomorrow.  We may start to drive each other a little batty, but I think there's a reason God is giving me some extra time with my big little guy.