Women, Infants, and Children

The title is misleading as WIC can also be used by single dads so long as they meet the eligibility requirements. With the economy the way it is, every little bit helps. I know there is stigma associated with using government services such as WIC, and the workers are not always easy to deal with, but if you are facing choices such as paying rent or feeding the kids, then you should go apply. I'm not suggesting you go all Nadya Suleman just to get services or anything.

Younger children in foster care typically qualify regardless of the foster parents income. While the foster parent may feel they don't need WIC and don't want to deal with the hassle of it all, sometimes it is best to go ahead and get the foster kids signed up. This way when children go back to live with birth parents, everything is already set up and hopefully helps to increase the birth parents success in taking care of their children.

Even if you don't qualify for WIC, their website is a great starting point for online resources of information. Each individual state has more information listed on their websiste, some even have online SNE classes, recipes, health information, and crafts.

And hey, if you look around on those websites long enough you might even find out that your water isn't safe to drink.

Wordless Wednesday

Mommy Bloggers Addicted to the Internet

Anyone catch the article in Baby Talk magazine titled Hooked Online 3 Reasons Moms Are Addicted to the Internet? You know the one where they proceed to list FOUR reasons: seeking information, escape, connection/community, and self expression. And instead of talking about how you can balance things IRL with time spent online, they lean more towards Stay Away From The Evil Internet - It will Suck You In. The point of the article is that mom's should engage with their children, not ignore them in favor of teh internets, and I totally agree with that. It's the lack of emphasis on moderation and balance that bothers me. The author ends the article saying how she quit blogging 6 years ago which makes her so much better than us current mommy bloggers and now she freelance writes instead which of course just means she has a legitimate reason to ignore the kids.

Come on, Internet Addiction as a real diagnosable Mental Illness. Really? What will be used to treat withdrawals? Umm, doc I've got the shakes and my fingers keep clicking as if there were a mouse nestled in my palm. Finger splints so we can't type? Pirate-like eye patches so we can't see the heavenly glow of the computer screen? Online support groups and Recovery Blogs to help quell our internet addiction - oh the irony. What will be the indicators of true internet addiction? Will the lack of bathing be attributed to having a newborn or eight or be blamed on internet addiction just so one could get the great withdrawal meds? I can see it now, a hospital full of people petting their laptops saying My Precious in a creepy smeagol voice.

But back to the article, at what point do we start talking about real solutions to the problems at-home parents face: isolation, loss of previous identity, monotony of household tasks, stigma, did I mention the isolation? According to the article it is these types of things that lead moms (no mention of at home dads) to go online in order to fill the "void". Because men and non-moms go online in healthy ways ... it's just us pathetic at-home moms who go online to fill the void of living such uneducated unimportant existences.

One year without a foster care placement

One year ago today we got a call about BabyBoy. He was to be with us for a couple of hours to a couple of days only. I accepted the placement without talking to The Husband because he was at work without a cell phone and I didn't know the land line number. Birth Dad was threatening physical harm so instead of going to the hospital to pick BabyBoy up, the investigative social worker brought him out to the house. Gosh he was so tiny, 4lbs 11oz down from his birth weight of 4lbs 13oz. He was only two days old. The Daughter was so excited when I picked her up from school with a new baby.

Taking care of a newborn is infinitely easier when you aren't exhausted from gestating and giving birth. Infinitely!

Baby Boy turned one year old on Wednesday. He has started walking, clapping, playing peek-a-boo, blowing kisses, and clucking his tongue all within the past couple of weeks. Yesterday at his well-child appointment, he weighed 22lbs 14oz and was 30.5 inches long. He also got another round of shots which he took like a trooper. Today is a spend all day at the health department WIC recertification appointment. We will have his birthday party next weekend both to accommodate everyone's schedule and to space out other family members birthday parties. The Cousin turned 14 last Friday and had his party this past weekend.

So today marks an entire year without a foster care placement. When I mentioned this to our resource worker she said there hadn't been many pickups lately. Seems she forgot that the foster parent association officers know about every pickup because we pay out money for each of them. There have been many pickups lately. Several of which would have been a good fit for our family.

Had a semiannual review today. They always make me nervous. Thankfully all the fire extinguishers and smoke alarms worked. She didn't even check the medication lockbox or pool chemical closet. Good thing because that's where I hid all the dead bodies.

Wordless Wednesday

At the risk of sounding paranoid

At the foster parent association meeting, Ms Look At Me was reading the minutes from last month's meeting when she skipped over the sentence about me being elected VP of the foster parent association. She read the first paragraph, skipped the sentence about me, and read the last two paragraphs. I'm beginning to take it personally.

Happy Valentine's Day

H is for Heart

and Hippo

and Happiness


Do you think I give The Husband enough hints? Like a Jedi mind trick - This is the camera you are going to purchase for your wife before going to Disney. These are not the Droids you're looking for. Darn, didn't work.

Diary of a Spider

We happened upon another fabulous children's book at the local public library this week. It's called Diary of a Spider and it's both educational and entertaining. Spider writes in diary form of the things done each day, from molting to being friends with fly even though flies and spiders haven't always gotten along. The kids will learn a couple of things about spiders (arachnids, not insects) and the parents will be entertained (they have to play at fly's house after a small incident at spiders place), it's a win win. There is also a finger puppet playset of the characters from the book. Too cute!

Ranting

Today was one of those days where I didn't want to get out of bed. I feel like crappola. My body is fighting some kind of infection so the whole left side of my neck is swollen like a chipmunk packing nuts away for the winter. It looks lovely.

We skipped library storytime because I didn't have the energy to wrangle BabyBoy. He just screams and tries to get down and crawl everywhere instead of listen to the story. Plus today was their v'day party and I didn't buy him any cards to give out. I should have made more of an effort to go though because I needed to be around adults that I actually like.

Instead I spent my day with Ms Look At Me And Give Me Credit For Everything Even Breathing Air. Her acronym would be too long to remember, so lets just call her the foster parent of those RAD kids I wrote about previously. Only by calling her that, this rant will sure as shit blow up in my face. Oh well it's ineviteble anyway. Those who read my old LJ will remember when I ran for secretary and did all the stuff related to that since nobody was running against me and I had been told I was going to get the position, and then Ms Look At Me said AT THE LAST MEETING that she wanted to run against me for secretary. Then she proceeded to call around campaigning for the job. THEN when she got voted as secretary she said SHE DIDN"T WANT IT and that SHE DIDN"T EVEN RUN FOR IT. I was trying to be a good sport and a gracious looser but her denying that she even ran for the position was like a smack in the face. As a token "job" I was given a key to the resource center and was told I was in charge of cleaning and organizing it, which I did. I was also asked to sit on the Board of Directors, which I also did and still do.

Fast forward several months and the vice president quit fostering, so she needed to be replaced. The president nominated me and the Board of Directors unanimously voted for me. I didn't vote because I was in an argument with Ms Look At Me. She said in front of the CPS director and all the other people on the board of directors how I could be secretary if I wanted because she didn't want it, it was handed to her but she didn't want it, it was forced on her even. It felt to me like she wanted the VP job so she wanted me to agree to taking the secretary job so that she could then ask to be vice president. Even if that wasn't what she was aiming for, she annoyed me for not just owning up to the fact that she asked herself to run for secretary. At the meeting she also volunteered her husband for something and went on and on about how they don't need the board payment or foster parent association money and wanted the CPS director to know how much money they spent on their RAD kids and didn't ask for reimbursement. She was told that she could send the checks back and not cash them which she said she would do, but of course didn't do. It was for show.

Then last week we all met at the resource cneter to work because inspection is coming up and we aren't allowed to have things sitting on the floor but we had several dozen garbage bags of donations sitting in the floor. Ms Look At Me went on and on about how shitty the place looked and how she could spif it up, volunteered to make more clothes racks, etc. She asked me if we could throw things away that were nasty and I said yes, then when other people showed up she asked them the same question but said "I asked Mothering4Money but she didn't know". I spoke up and said that I told her we could throw outdated, stained, torn, etc stuff away. She just had to undermine me. Remarks were made about my age. People think I'm younger than I am, they always guess a decade younger than I actually am.

So, Ms Look At Me sent out this months newsletter but misspelled my last name. She insists on adding an s to the end, like I'm plural. I've corrected her on several occasions previously. At least she got my first name correct. Her husband calls me Jennifer and I have no idea why. My name doesn't start with a J and doesn't rhyme with Jennifer. Maybe I look like a teenage girl named Jennifer. The blurb in the newsletter was welcoming me as a VP of the foster parent association ... well, not me in the singular, me in the plural.

And then today at foodbank she asked me why I put safteypins on the clothes hangers, which I didn't do. They were donated that way from someone's yardsale. She then complained about how hard it was for her to take them all off. And she went on and on and ON about how she worked so hard at the resource center, cleaned it, organized it, etc and how it was such a mess before but it's so opulent now. After she broke her arm patting herself on the back, I suggested she could take over being in charge of the resource center and she said she already had but that the president didn't want to tell me for fear of it hurting my feelings. It took a lot of restraint to not be nasty. Instead I waited until the president was standing near us and then brought it up again making sure to tell the president that I prefer direct communication, and that it wouldn't hurt my feelings if she wanted someone else to be in charge of the center. The president of course denied saying that, but she loathes confrontation so I let it go. I could give two shits really as it was thankless work for me and took up my time, but of course Ms Look At Me wrote a thank you to herself in the newsletter for cleaning the resource center. She made sure it wouldn't be thankless work for herself. Then it was revealed that she took all those bags of stuff home with her just to get them out of the center for inspection day. That's not organizing, it's hiding. I guess I could have done the same thing when I was in charge, but our 1400 sq ft house is already packed and we don't have a garage or outdoor building. Ms Look At Me let us know that she had plenty of room in her 6000 sq ft house out on the lake.

Upon coming home this afternoon I noticed two huge piles of cat shit and mounds of cat litter in the driveway and I called and cursed out my sister's answering machine. Then I proceeded to feel guilty for taking my anger at Ms Look At Me out on my sister's poor innocent answering machine. Not that I'm not irritated at my sister as I've told her numerous times not to dump that in my driveway, but probably could have been nicer. Like maybe I could have shoveled it onto her front porch instead. I may still do that.

Well looky there, I've got a belly button

I followed a link and clicked on something and followed another link, all originating from someone's blog but who knows which one, and somehow I ended up spending hours too much time taking online tests. And all I've found out other than I tend to avoid household chores by "staying busy" online, is that my main intelligence type is a blogger Glorified Navel Gazer.

Your main intelligence type: Intrapersonal

Intrapersonal intelligence is the capacity to detect and discern among one's own feelings (self-knowledge) and the ability to use that knowledge for personal understanding. Individuals with this kind of intelligence are able to construct an accurate perception of themselves and use such knowledge in planning and directing their life.

Of course I also "scored 79 on the Bodily-Kinesthetic subscale" but didn't purchase the full report to find out what that means. I'm taking the procrastination test next. Bet I score off the charts on that one.

Methadone Addiction

Why is it placements always come when the house is a mess and a gazillion other things are going on? And why don't they ever come on Mondays instead of the end of the week, right before the weekend when you can't reach anybody for anything?

Today was BabyBoy's 12th Homevisit. His worker was supposed to be here at 10am. I was struggling to stay awake and wanted to take a nap while BabyBoy was napping. I was up all night again and have been looking forward to The Husband coming home so that I could get a decent nights rest (he didn't come home last weekend). So at 11am when BabyBoy woke up and his worker still wasn't here, I admit to being a little irritated, but she always runs late. At 11:10 she called and apologized profusely because she had forgotten about the homevisit but asked if she could come out at 12noon. Twelve came and went and she wasn't here. It was almost 1pm before she finally arrived and then she didn't leave until 2pm when I was on the way out to pick up The Daughter from school.

As I was leaving the phone rang and it was CPS needing a placement for a 17 year old on drugs, methadone specifically and possibly other stuff. I asked what kind of behaviors she was exhibiting, they didn't know. I asked if she had a Rx, they didn't know. I asked if I was supposed to let her take the drugs or what, they didn't know. I asked how long it would take to get her into a treatment facility because I didn't want my kids to witness the teens withdrawal, but they didn't know. Can I leave her alone in the morning while I take The Daughter to school, I asked. They replied "I don't know." So she was going to call around and get some answers for me, meanwhile I have dirty dishes, 4 loads of laundry, carpet to vacum, kids to tend to, and The Teen Room is currently packed with extra car seats, strollers, left over christmas junk, etc and needs to be tackled. Did I mention that I haven't slept a full night in weeks?

I'm online reading everything I can find on Methadone. Seems people take it to get off drugs, but its hard to find info about people skipping the first drug and going straight to Methadone. One website will say the people are mellow, another warns of people dying while on it, another says you can go days before the withdrawal symptoms start and yet another says they start soon and are rough. I feel like I'm cramming for an exam.

*EDITED to ADD - CPS got her into a Residential Treatment Facility so she won't be coming here afterall.

A Rastafarian Family

We don't normally watch WifeSwap, but we caught one of the shows a couple of weeks ago. Apparently it made an impression on The Daughter because she drew the above picture in her journal at school. They bring home their journal pages at the end of each month. By the way, "FAG" means Flag and "HAS" means House. The man's neck is bent like that because The Daughter ran out of room while drawing, and that thing on his face is a beard. No clue as to why she didn't draw the kids. Wonder what the teacher thought of this drawing?

I need ideas for guest speakers at foster parent association meetings

So as my new "job" as VP of the foster parent association, I have to schedule the guest speakers for the meetings, among other things. I need someone starting in April and I thought it would be a great time to have an accountant come talk about taxes in regards to foster kids, but April is notoriously busy for CPAs so perhaps some other month would be best. This year we've already had a meeting on Play Therapy and will have Stress Management and Water Safety next. In the fall we will have CPR certification. Last year we had someone from Early Intervention, a speaker on RAD, a GAL that we tormented with complaints, and watched videos on things from recognizing signs of abuse to what to expect when a child first comes into care. Now, I have some ideas but they may not be of interest to other members of the association, or we may not be able to get someone to come out and speak. I would like to have a beautician educate us on how to care for and style kid's hair (it drives me nuts to see white momma hair), a dermatologist to discuss how to care for different kinds of skin types including what to do for eczema and other skin conditions, a worker from the health department to discuss removal of lice infestation (so many kids come into foster care with super bugs that don't respond to RID), an interpreter or Spanish teacher to go over some of the key phrases foster parents should learn in order to calm a child or attempt to communicate with the child, perhaps someone to teach sign language, an Early Childhood Education specialist to talk about typical milestones, and then I would also like to have a meeting as a GPS refresher course. Anyway, I need more ideas. What does your association do? If they have speakers or training opportunities, what do they cover? What would you like to learn more about as a foster/adoptive parent?

Lurking in the Shadows

Come on Spring! I'm rooting for you. Who cares what the Groundhog says? Isn't the whole shadow thing dependent on what time of day it is anyway? Come on Mother Nature, work with me here. *chanting* Spring, Spring, Spring ... unfortunately, snow is in the forcast. Oh well, we'll just build a snow person and enjoy. Happy Groundhog Day!

Auditioning

I love to read and since I've already read all the foster/adopt books from the local library, I moved on to books on the new release shelf that looked interesting. I had heard that Barbara Walters memoir was interesting and revealed an affair with a married man, but that's about all I knew about it before delving into Audition. It took weeks to get through mainly because I was only able to read a little at a time before bed, but also because it's a long ass book and has a couple of parts where my eyes would glaze over from the name dropping. Are there any rich people she didn't date know? Seriously it was like a who's who of the world's upper class. Overall it was an interesting read; she is certainly a hard worker.