Fork Tender

Growing up, not being much of a cook, I wasn't familiar with this term until just a few years ago. Using common sense, most could deduce what this term means--holding form and being firm on the outside but when speared, mush on the inside. Last week's visitation for Baby and her mom left me reeling from the fact that I, in all actuality, am fork tender.

I have a gruff and snippy tendency that I try, poorly, I'll admit, to mask in most situations but that's only covering up a big blob of feelings inside. Deep, deep down, most might confuse me with Mother Teresa. I joke! But really, I am, if nothing, a compassionate person.

It's really hard to explain why Wednesdays leave me feeling so broken down. I wonder if some of these feelings are just isolated to me or if most foster parents feel the same way. The ones I have talked to have had very disinterested birth parents so blessed is Baby that her mom still wants to be a part of her life but with that comes more face-to-face interactions for me and more confusing feelings. I'm sad for her mom, I'm sad for Baby, I'm mad at her mom, I'm jealous of her mom (that she gets to waltz in and be a two hour hero while I'm doing the day-to-day), I feel used, I resent Baby (for being so demanding at times that she takes me away from my own children), I love Baby, I don't want to love her too much...truly, these are things that course through my head all the time. Am I treating her fairly? Am I treating mine fairly? Could we take the new little brother coming in two weeks? Would I even want to if I could? What if rights get terminated? Would we adopt her? I'm just a mess. Six days out of the week, I know what our normal is even if I torture myself with some of these questions but that one bloody day throws it all out of whack. And when she came back the last time, she wouldn't smile at me or even establish eye contact with me that evening. Forget kisses or hugs. I figured that once she went to bed, she'd wake up smiley again, forgetting that confusing mess. But she didn't and, when she would look at me, it was with those same questioning eyes she had when we first got her in January. I wondered aloud to Brent if I was just being overly sensitive about it but then the daycare workers commented to him about it unsolicited. I feel like it took about 48 hours and prayers being lifted up to get back to normal so of course I'm anxious about tomorrow (if we still will have visitation as storms have knocked power out all over town). I need to do more praying about this and, for now, limit my face time with the birth mom till I get my head/heart on straight.

Double Doozie

Oh, just that title makes me hungry. I lost myself for a moment thinking of those wonderful $4.50 creations at American Cookie Company, is it? Anywho, I laid down to take a wee nap on Sunday and I felt like I had drank too much communion wine or something. The room was absolutely spinning. I found it really hard to rest because I was so dizzy. I was still having headaches all day and ditched Financial Peace so I could get some peace of my own while everyone was gone. That night, I stayed up until 2 am just because every time I laid down, I felt like I was going to barf. Then, I finally did and got a little sleep. I've been struggling with this for a few days and then when I had to get off the phone with my sis because I felt like hurling, I made a doctor's appt. My mom and I were running down the list of what could be wrong (preggers? type 2 diabetes? blood pressure? brain tumors?) haha, ok not the last one. Went in today and I was ecstatic to know that I just had two ear infections! It was so weird, because in all fairness to my mom and her "medical degree" she suggested that first, but I never had any pain. Isn't that funny how our minds can race though and turn situations into something so much bigger?

Beatle and Birdie got their flower girl dresses in today for my sister's wedding. They are just precious! Birdie going down the aisle is going to stress me out. She's so cantankerous. She's at that age now where she's mimicking things and it's so cute! Today, she started "shhh"ing with her pudgy fingers over her pursed lips. She's seen us shhh her screaming mimi of a foster sister too many times, I suppose.

We found out from Baby's caseworker that, if we weren't prepared for it before, to prepare ourselves now that we should be in it for the long haul. She projected to stay until Halloween but of course anything could happen. I'm learning so much from this experience. One of the things is that she's just intrinsically different than us. She's been through a lot, I know, but her coping mechanisms are different than my girls'. And she's SO much louder. Have I mentioned that already? :) She just bellers. It's startling really. Beatle really has a fondness for her and we do to. We hope to be a bright beginning for her. We do ask for you to pray for us and her mom as it's very much of a question mark if she will even go to her great aunt and uncle's in OK.

Aunt Becky comes this weekend and then my family after that! We're looking forward to some company. It's been a little while.

My Life as a Model...

Ummm, yeah. Stupid moment of gumption. What a ridiculous situation I've gotten myself into now. Our church is having an event on May 7th for our preteen girls called Secret Keeper Girls. A woman who is my age and looks unbelievably like Barbie (she intimidates the frick out of me) is in charge of getting models projecting a "healthy" body image (i.e. could sit on top of her and eat her portion of lunch). They needed several different sizes and were having a hard time getting an outgoing person for one of the sizes so I felt compelled to help...the problem is that I'm not that size...yet!!! I went home after her pleas and was talking to Brent about her need and pulled that size of jeans out of my closet and said if I could put them on and zip them up, it would be a sign that I should help. They zipped right up! So the next day, I called her up and told her that she could count on me until I found out that they are doing a throw back to TV characters with these models and the size 14 (me!) is Alice the maid off of the Brady Bunch!!! Horror!! Are you kidding me?? Being my size, I need all of the help I can get and I don't want to be a maid! Being a size 14 in my old, old American Eagle jeans with a muffin top is much different than wearing an all white smock with matching white sneakers! My body is not smock material. Anyways, I have three choices: 1) Squeeze into that white dress and look like a lumpy tube of toothpaste, risking the possibility of ripping the back while everyone admits to their friends they didn't think I was really a size 14. 2) Call the exceptionally perky, beauty queen and explain to her that I was just jerking her chain and stick her with the slot to fill in a month or 3) Eat 1,200 calories a day, continue my running and working out and be a confident size 14 again by May 7th! Well, I'm choosing #3 even though I'm still nervous that I might, in ignorance, actually be choosing #1.

Free the leashed children in America! Not! I'm actually in the market for a leash for Birdie. I'm really considering it. Aren't I playing right into the foster mom stereotype? Don't judge me until you have two small children in your care. It's so hard because she's getting so fast and I have to be so thoughtful on the order I get the girls out of the car or Birdie is at risk. She's not exactly mastered holding my hand yet--trying holding a pixie's hand with another baby on your hip...can you say scoliosis??? Plus, we're taking her on a cruise with us and I've never cruised before but I'm just thinking that if God, the Almighty, trusted Mary and Joseph to be the Earthly parents of His son and they still lost him at a family event, I should definitely get a back up plan!

Risk-Taking Party Mustangs Reject Sheets of Doom and Reading Monkeys (wait, what?)

I haven't felt this way since college. I was hunched over my computer earlier, praying that God would make time stand still so I could make a deadline. That confirmed that I don't EVER want to go back to school. No it wasn't a paper. I was entering items to sale in a consignment event in our area. I put in 125 items and it took me exponentially longer than I thought! But it is done, I made the deadline and I get to sit back this week and watch the money roll in. The best part, it's all free money. I love it when people pass clothes on to us. I could probably count on my fingers and toes the clothes we've bought in a store for either Beatle or Birdie. Not many, my friends. This latest load was given with permission to take what I wanted for the babies and to sell the rest at a yard sale. It would probably be nicer to pass them on to someone else, but not as resourceful. :)

Baby turned one this weekend and we had a lot of fun just having a simple little party on the back deck. Baby's mom found out what church we went to/worked at and showed up Wed night. That caused a little stir and she was advised to try a different church. I know she was wanting to see Baby on her birthday and I know how sentimental I get on first birthdays so we were able to arrange an unsupervised visit at Chick-Fil-A on Saturday and it all went well enough. (BR kept our girls at home and I had a friend meet me up there just in case it didn't.) I just always come home with a suitcase full of emotions and I'm not sure where to put them when I "unpack" after a visit like that. Maybe I'll get used to it, maybe I won't, all I know is I feel a little lost and confused after interacting with her and Baby.

Beatle's still working on her reading and writing. I feel like I'll have a reading-monkey on my back until summer. Meaning, that while her teacher has been awesome at trying to help us find solutions, she's made it very clear that this is the final push. Mush, mush you dog of a mother! Summer's more mine and Beatle's speed. Our motto: We'd rather be crafting. We're doing "sheets of doom" for a few minutes every night. Yes, Beatle's dubbed worksheets as "sheets of doom" already in her young educational life. For what she may lack right now in other areas, she makes up for in creativity. She told me tonight that I need to help her stay focused on her worksheet because "it starts with dots on the side and then, next thing you know, I'm drawing pictures". One of our personal favorites from a few months ago has a girl screaming on the backside of a "sheet of doom"--one of those really good, Charlie Brown screams where the head is tilted back and the mouth is exaggerated. Beatle single-handedly designed and helped me decorate Baby's cake--a onesie with a #1 on it. The cake-making even went awry when we were making the second layer and she adapted the mistake and suggested we make a bib with it. It was perfect! I understand my attitude trickles down to Beatle, so I just want to put it out there, that I'm trying to be really positive about school, this is just my outlet to vent sans listening ears.

This weekend she went to play outside and came running back in screaming within no time. A bug was flying through the air and landed smack on her shirt. Laughing, I couldn't identify him so I scraped him off her shirt while she was jumping around screaming. Her dad and her put him in a bag to take to school today so the science lab could identify him. After school, as soon as we walked in, there he was crawling across the floor. Cue the glass-shattering shrieks again. (I love that scream. It's hilarious. I can totally see why boys would drop bugs down girls' shirts and do other mischievous things just to hear it.) She starts screaming for her dad who's not home but even when I tell her that she's still just standing there screaming for him. She's going to try to take him back to school tomorrow, hoping that he won't use his super-buggy strength again to escape.

I like being this age. I think it's because I learning more of who I am and I'm accepting it. I had an epiphany on Sunday morning. For years, I've felt labeled as "irresponsible". That really hurt my feelings and drove me crazy because I didn't feel irresponsible. If you trusted me with a task, I would see it through. I'm a natural born leader, that I knew. How could I be consistently irresponsible and be a (usually) effective leader? It didn't help matters that I was a relatively young mother; that only reinforced the stereotype. My aha! moment was when I realized that I'm NOT irresponsible but I AM a risk-taker. Sometimes the two can get the same haircut and dress alike but they are definitely two separate things. I love adventure and risks and sometimes that plays into the hands of looking reckless to some but I know that my God created me with that chip and I can't help but think that He likes people like me. I'll take a walk on the wild side with Him any day.

I'm going to leave you with some things you might want to keep in your back-pocket for various social situations, for instance, the term "Party Mustang". It was coined on Saturday by Beatle when she was rarin' to participate in some birthday parties. Also, it's nice to comfort your Anglo friends when you start bonding with other fellow ethnic people by telling them, "It's Ok. You wouldn't want to be an Indian anyways; it's really hard work." Not sure if she's talking directly about the hunting and gathering or the nomadic lifestyle...also, the ethnic friend has the last name Santiago so, I'm thinking she probably wasn't 100% as to what Beatle was referring to either...seeing that SHE'S MEXICAN! :) Adios!