Bella the beautiful.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated on what’s going on with Bella.  Or maybe it just seems that way because everything has been changing approximately every other day.

I’m ready for things to settle down, but it doesn’t look likely any time soon.

 

 

Don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but Mom is MIA.  For over two weeks now, no one has heard from her, no one knows where she is.  I can only speculate as to what is going on – having either to do with giving up hope that her life can change or drugs, or both I suppose – but like I said, only speculation.

 

This has thrown a wrench in things.  Visits had already been cut down, and had been scheduled for Wednesday evenings through Friday evenings.  That lasted a whopping two weeks before Mom went missing.  Dad is working is butt off to pay the bills and get his girls home, so he’s not home during the week to be able to watch them during a weekday visit.  Because of Mom’s disappearance, it had been two weeks since Bella last saw her Dad.

I scrambled and made about 50 phone calls last week to put together a visit for last weekend with Dad.  To my knowledge (not saying much, since we’re the last to know everything) Dad has only been progressing in the case and working very hard to get his girls home, so I was determined to get he and Bella a visit.

Brian and I ended up just driving her down to her Dad’s house (we live an hour and a half apart) on Friday night so that he could have her for the weekend.  It turned out to be a great way to show the caseworkers how invested we are in getting her back home, as well as a great way to build our relationship with her Dad and show him our support in reunification. 

 

In other news….

 

 

Check out that hair!

It’s getting long now!  And it is incredibly curly, thick, shiny, and beautiful.  She loves for me to put a rubber band in it in the front, which mostly just makes it stick straight up, but I think at this point, she deserves to wear it however she wants!  After she gets out of the bath sometimes I put some mousse in it and with her curls defined it is adorable.  Every time I do it I’m reminded of how sick she was when she came – with not a hair on her entire body! – and now she has a beautiful headful of hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows!

We just went to the doctor today and everything came back great.  She is getting healthier by the day!  They’ve been tracking her more closely than they do the average patient, and they said they can see a difference in her weight gain and nutrition during times she is mostly with us vs. mostly at home.  Makes me nervous.

 

We’re still waiting, impatiently, to hear anything more from Make a Wish.  I called them three times last week.  Like I said, impatiently.

 

If you made it this far, I’m impressed.  Just wanted to get an update posted!  Off to go on a bike ride with my girls!

Child Abuse Prevention.

 

April is Child Abuse Prevention month, so I figured if I’m going to write a post on it, I better get on it!

I’ve spent some time this month thinking about what we as foster parents can do to prevent child abuse (ya know, in all my extra ‘thinking’ time.).  This might seem silly, some people would probably say that by fostering that is exactly what we are doing.  In some ways, they are right.

 

Most of the time, though, it seems that we as foster parents are acting as a band-aid on a much, much larger issue – a system of issues really.  Don’t get me wrong, it is a necessary and very much needed band-aid, but a band-aid none the less.  I’m not going to pretend that I have some ven-diagram of all the issues surrounding foster care, or a thesis on how to fix it – but just in my time as a social worker and a foster parent, this is what I’ve come up with:

 

I think one of the most important things that we can do to prevent child abuse is to form strong and open relationships with the parents of the children we serve.  I know this isn’t always possible for a million different reasons, but I think that often times it is possible.  By developing real relationships with bio parents, we can work as support for them, we can cheer them on in their efforts toward reunification, and we can work as parenting role models.  All of these are crucial for a system that is going to work toward healing families.  As if those weren’t good enough reasons to form relationships with bio parents – it can also lead to a more lasting, long term relationship with our kids.  If our kids end up going home, and we have a good relationship with their parents, it makes it more likely that we will get to keep in touch with the family, and in doing so, we can keep tabs on how things are going – good or bad, and therefore preventing child abuse.

Forming these relationships is not always easy, but as long as it’s safe, it’s always best for our kids in the long run.

 

Another (obvious) thing we need to be doing is to be active in our kids’ cases.  To advocate for them always.  To annoy caseworkers when they need to be annoyed, and write letters to judges when they need to be written.  After all, we’re working for the kids, not for the caseworkers or court.

 

I think the other thing that we can do, that is oftentimes hard for foster parents, is to truly be for reunification.  We’re never going to send our kids home to ideal situations, and there will always be risks, but if it is safe our kids need to be home.  If we can really work toward reunification with the families when it is possible, in the end it is going to help to make ‘the system’ work.  If we can rally behind reunification when it is safe, then there are more foster homes for kids who truly cannot go home.  Sometimes it is really hard when it hits so close to home, but when reunification is possible, it is our job to help that happen.

 

What are your thoughts?  As foster parents, how can we help prevent future child abuse? 

Processing.

  Let’s see.  Where to start?

 

Well, I caught the Virus From the Bowels of Hades *VFBH* (that’s the proper name.  or maybe just what I call it.  It is definitely the appropriate name.).  You know how lovingly children share their germs.  If we could universalize their willingness to share germs, our lives would be so much easier. 

Anyway – I had the VFBH for approximately 11 days.

Holy. Cow.

High fevers upwards of 103.  My entire mouth swelled up.  I couldn’t eat.  For 11 days.  Have you ever had to drink Ensure?  Avoid it. 

We got the VFBH from Bella.  That’s one of those nuggets that people rarely share about fostering.  Kids coming from *less than ideal* environments can bring all kinds of *less than ideal* ailments with them.  Lice, scabies, thrush, random rashes, VFBH’s.  Sometimes they’re just part of it – and life goes on.

But I’m pretty sure that if I had taken a picture of my mouth last week and posted it on the blog   …..   you would never ever foster.  So I won’t.

In other news, we are in the thick of processing all  that is going on with Bella.

Recently she’s started role playing her situation while she and Sylvia are playing pretend.

She role plays that she has a meeting to go to and that at the meeting they are going to decide if she can go home.

She role plays that she is going on an overnight visit and explains to Sylvia how much she will miss her while she is gone.

She role plays that she is going to court and that the judge has to make big decisions.

It breaks my heart to hear her.  She should be pretending to be a Mommy cuddling her baby.  She should be pretending to go to work, or pretending that she’s going grocery shopping, or pretending that she’s going somewhere with her friends.  Instead she’s pretending things that she shouldn’t even be able to imagine, things much too big for her four year old little mind.

But, I also know that this is how she is processing what is happening, and that it is good for her to work through these situations in her mind.  For her to be able to imagine an end to her situation, and for her to be able to try to make sense of everything that is happening.  When she’s playing pretend is the only time that she has to have any control over what is happening to her at all.

 

She’s also started asking questions about what will happen to me and Sylvia when she goes home.  As a foster parent it is difficult - I rarely have much more information than she does (which is ridiculous.) – and so answering her questions is usually just some vague bs’ing done in such a way as to aid her healing rather than open fresh scabs.  I pray that we’ll be able to stay in contact when she goes home, and that we’ll be able to serve her family in whatever ways we can to benefit Bella.  We’ll see.

They’ve started having visits in her home, which makes everything about 200% more difficult.  It is a necessary step toward going home, but I wish they would wait until reunification is imminent.  Emotionally this wrecks her.  She pays an emotional toll for it all week long, which means that we do to.  We’ve been dealing with pretty significant defiance and tantrums that are obviously triggered by the visits. 

Foster care and reunification is always a catch 22 it seems.

Her treatment is going wonderfully.  She’s healthy as can be, which is no small blessing.  Seeing how her health has turned around since she’s come to us makes me ache inside at the thought of her returning to an environment that was keeping her sick. 

 

Anyway – long and boring post, but wanted to get a brief update posted.

 

Always so much to process.  Always.