My husband is on the “phone” with a duckling
So the duckling is standing next to him and her “phone” is a cat toy
He is on his phone

She told him that the banana had something to say
He said what
She said “banana says you are fun”
He said “that is a very nice banana”

And then …..

She just told him that he needs to get her a real phone like he has and he told her to get a job
She is four

😂😂😂😂😂

ducklings

Dammit
I don’t bake
I hate baking
I have mastered box cupcakes
My ducklings have been watching Christmas cookie baking videos all damn day
It is their new favorite

Stupid YouTube
There is not enough wine in the world for me to bake with three ducklings
It would be a disaster
Can you even begin to imagine the dumpster fire that it would be? Dumpster fire

Who wants to grab my ducklings for a bit soon and bake with them? 😂
I am not doing it
Don’t even ask me or offer me advice
I am not doing it
Read my post
Not
Doing
It

ducklings

Want to make kids giggle? When they hug you goodnight
Pretend they are squeezing you to death
Gasp
Cough
Declare the end is close
Like really get into the role
Very bugs bunny dramatic
Hang your tongue out of the side of your mouth
Like earn those giggles

Call them boa constrictors

My ducklings giggled and told me that my little ducks could never be snakes and squeezed harder
😂🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐥🐥🐥

ducklings

Holy cow! 🤦🏻‍♀️ Currently we have tears in my house because a treasured sequin unicorn stuffed animal is missing a leg and has a hole in it

No I have no idea where the leg is. Come on now – we can’t find socks or hats so don’t expect me to find a damn leg

Like seriously – how am I supposed to fix that 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Do I have any friends who are good at stuffed animal operations? Like I told her I would find a doctor for her plush sparkly unicorn

Why do I open my mouth? How am I going to accomplish this one. I need a stuffed unicorn doctor stat

He needs a fake leg and a few holes stitched up 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

My three year old duckling says I am not “her grownup” so she doesn’t have to listen to me

My four year old duckling responded to this with “um it is dusty’s house so you better listen or she will breathe fire”

My six year old duckling responded “that would not be lovely at all. No one has ever seen that”

😂😂😂😂 🤷🏻‍♀️

fostering was never easy but writing helped a lot ….:. This was 2019 and this happened ….

Due to the fact the girls were so stressed (from all they have been through in 36 hours) that they slept on and off all day in school – guess who is wide awake and giggling right now 😂😂 #thisisfostercare #ineedwine

Today was rough. I won’t lie. We had some tears, some funny moments, some sad moments and a lot of questions I couldn’t answer. But we also had a lot of giggles, a dog in a unicorn headband (poor Darth Vader) and lessons on bathroom etiquette for baby alive. Oh and a giraffe stuffed animal joined us for dinner.

Tomorrow will be better – or it won’t be – either way – I got hugs when I picked them up from daycare and smile when we hugged them goodnight. I also had the joy of walking around most of the day in a short that had a youth snot stain on it from some tears this morning. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

But hopefully they forget that I agreed to wear a Jojo bow to work tomorrow so I “don’t forget about them” 😂😂

I wonder if a giant rainbow bow is dress code 😂

One day at a time and tomorrow I should hear if we are adding a baby to the chaos that is currently my house 😂

A month before Via Colori Kentucky
Oh what have I gone and done this time 🤦🏻‍♀️

In 2019 – I watched a 45 year old man get into a serious conversation about poop with a three year old 😂😂😂 I need wine

Day 4 of stomach grossness

After my teenage daughter’s stupid f$#*in alarm went off at 6:30am for no damn reason and woke me up- I emerged from bed in a sweatshirt and fuzzy pants due to chills – I was still freezing cold. Freezing cold in the heat of summer. What is this absurd BS?

After pushing aside the thought of barging into said teenager’s room and hurling her damn phone through her window, I zombie shuffled to the kitchen because I desperately wanted coffee.

I was determined to get coffee. I didn’t care if I puked for hours, coffee was the only thing on my mind. I almost made it to the Keurig when my stomach flipped upside down and tried to eat itself. The curse words that ran through my head would probably get me kicked off Facebook if I typed them out.

Four days in and I can tell you that I absolutely abhor the tiles in my bathroom. Every single one of them. I also hate that my extra toilet paper is kept neatly in a closet, out of sight. Like who really cares if someone sees your extra toilet paper? I don’t anymore. I am flaunting my pack of angel soft. It is right next to my toilet.

After counting the tiles in my bathroom for the 185,764,763th time, I made it back to the kitchen. I made my coffee. Two sips in and instantly regretted that decision. My stomach is currently flipping inside out. I believe it could win some twirling competition. And it so loud. Like shut up already – I know that coffee was a bad idea. Sheesh.

Today is my day off. I am training trauma informed care for eight hours tomorrow. I have only eaten a spoonful of mashed potatoes and a bowl of chicken broth with some plain ramen noodles since Tuesday … food is the devil.

This is war and my stomach is winning. If the shivering from the chills doesn’t end me – my stomach definitely will try to hasten my demise.

I will be victorious though and when I am well, I am taking a sledgehammer to my bathroom walls. Because those tiles are hideous. And when I finish the bathroom, I might display my extra toilet paper like trophies on a shelf within reach of the toilet.

Headed back to bed because I am freezing cold and I am afraid of my weakened state as I might do something crazy – like try to function as an adult while be eaten alive from the inside out 😂😂😂💩

My husband and I are discussing the possibility of fostering again. Helping kids weighs heavily on us but so does the immense and super intense trauma left behind from fostering. We probably won’t do it but at least we are slowly healing enough to discuss it.

Last February, I had what was as close to an emotional breakdown as I will ever come. The last foster experience we had absolutely tore me to shreds. It hurt my husband. It hurt my children.

I have zero doubt that it did lasting damage to the children we were tasked with helping. The system failed those children and I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t undo the hurt and I couldn’t even help make the future better. The inherent failure of the system broke me.

Holding a very traumatized four year old in crisis at a psychiatric facility for hours and hours broke me. My husband holding her 21 month old sister while she cried and cried broke me.

It also did serious damage to my psyche and really was bad enough that I couldn’t process the extent of the damage until almost a year later.

I used to describe fostering as the most heartbreaking but rewarding thing you could do. That opinion hasn’t changed but it shifted to being more heartbreaking than rewarding.

It is the act of making yourself completely vulnerable to a child who has been hurt and a system that is failing.

Willingly making myself that vulnerable is the hardest thing I have done to date. And I run a huge event, have a demanding full time job, a house that needs love, a family, needy pets, and juggle a metric crap ton of stuff all the time. Vulnerability is harder.

After the events on that cold and rainy February Sunday in 2020, I systemically and deliberately walked away from all of it over the next four months. By May of 2020, I had cut almost all ties.

To this day, there are only a handful of people who know what happened because it was so horrible that when I talk about it, all those ugly feelings come right back and I haven’t figured out the right balance of clinical observation and raw emotion to describe it.

I couldn’t process any of it while still immersed in it. Work. Fostering. Writing about it. Advocating for change. Advocating for foster parents and support for foster parents. I was all in 24/7… until I wasn’t.

I walked and shut that door. And I made the decision to not open it for a long time if ever. I am not sure I could or even want to be that vulnerable ever again.

Or that financially stressed again. Yes there is a stipend but damn – let me tell you – kids are expensive. And I tend to go overboard. A smidge. Still paying off debt from our years of fostering. I mean we bought a bigger house to do it.

But there are days that we discuss it because we are good parents and good foster parents. I suck at bending to the system when it fails these kids and those who want to help and I suck at keeping my mouth shut for kids that are hurt. I suck at saying no when I can help. I suck at listening to advice about my well being. I also suck at taking care of myself.

I walked a fine line of it being both my career and home life and frequently questioned if it would hurt my job. It did eventually. I had little faith left in the system I worked in or the people who worked the system. I hated that part. I mentioned that I was all in 24/7. I also never questioned the damage it was doing to my family. Or to me.

No longer working in the system has given me a break I desperately needed. We worked with and fostered 11 different kids in six months between September 2019-February 2020. In the four years we did it actively- we almost never said no. I used to joke that they could call with a kid who ate people’s faces and I would say yes and get the child the coolest hockey mask. I was all in. 24/7.

It was a lot and we never took stock of our mental well being. My husband, the amazing human he is, walked with me. It broke his heart again and again until finally the hurt was too much. The hurt came from how bad the system is. The hurt came from knowing we had little power to really do any good or make huge changes. That hurt that I ignored because I couldn’t understand it until… well until I could.

I didn’t take stock of the mental health of my family through the process. Or my own. Now in reflection, I see that and am making changes to self care in profound ways.

That doesn’t mean I don’t feel a need to change the world- but you can not fill a bucket if yours is empty. It has been a long time since I have posted about foster care … and today, today might be the beginning of healing that is so desperately needed.

And maybe, just maybe, we will someday step back into it – a little more guarded and lot more knowledgeable without it being 24/7. Today is not that day, but today and days in the last several weeks mark the moments we acknowledge it and move forward to whatever the future will hold.

 

Can I just say this? Every foster care placement I have had has been different. Different ages and back stories. However, all but one (because he was young man and didn’t need anything- trust me I tried) has started with me taking kids on shopping sprees for clothes (cause they usually need it) and fast food or sushi for dinner.

Every single one.
It works for me and the kids. Breaks the ice and gives me a chance to include them right away in something just for them.