fostercool

we won’t be getting the placement after all. this was our decision. after spending time with the five year old we found out there were some behaviors we just aren’t prepared or capable of dealing with.  

she started calling me “mommy” within the first half hour of meeting me. i feel so guilty for saying no. 

my mom came over to help paint yesterday and she brought a TON of stuff. barbie dolls (i’m not into them - unrealistic body expectations and whatnot - but i don’t turn down free toys), coloring books & crayons, a spiral art set, puzzles, a game, and a hopper. i think we’re set for the one night.

the five year old is coming over friday afternoon and i’ll be taking her to her overnight with mom.  beardo is leaving early saturday morning for a conference and won’t get the chance to meet mom so i’m hoping i can remember everything to tell him. the csw says mom is pretty laid back & hasn’t caused any problems for the current foster family. i’m hoping that is actually the case.

the 5 year old girl is coming over on friday to spend the night with us so we can get to know one another.  beardo leaves for a conference in philladelphia saturday morning so it will just be the 2 of us before i take her to her visit with mom.  i need to sort out childcare this week because her head start program ends on april 11.

i’ve checked with some of my professors to make sure it’s ok for me to bring the infant to class if my mom can’t watch her.  

we have no toys for a 5 year old. what do they like?  

crazylovewords said: Ask lots of questions! What they tell you up front is VERY DIFFERENT from the picture that a child actually presents as, especially a child who has been in multiple places. Even if everything is GOLDEN, better to know EVERYTHING.

i spoke to the CSW for about 45 minutes.  i feel like i have a really good picture of the 5 year old and situation as a whole.  the CSW wants us to do respite with her before placement to make sure we can work well together and i agreed that that would be best. beardo is being really calm and has agreed to think about it this weekend.  he outright said that if it was just the 5 year old he would go ahead and say yes.  it’s weird knowing we could go from a family of 2 to one of 4 in just a few weeks.

i just got our very first placement call.

details: caucasian, 5 year old girl, no major issues - health or otherwise, currently in placement (for the 3rd time).  she is in head start and will be moved to another home after the last day, april 11.  mom is 8-9 months pregnant, the baby is due in early may and will be placed into care from the hospital.  mom used meth & (possibly) heroin during month 7 of her pregnancy. mom is in treatment and each child will do one overnight visit per week.

the 5 year old is being moved because there is a possibility that the baby will be Hep C positive & the current foster parents don’t want to risk infection. if you know anything about Hepatitis C then you know their fears are completely unfounded. it can only be spread by blood-to-blood contact and, since i’m not planning on becoming blood brothers/sisters with the baby, i’m not too concerned for our health.

have i mentioned that beardo and i are moving this weekend? we’re buying a house tomorrow at 9am and the movers arrive at 11.  i’ve actually been joking with beardo that we’d get a placement call in the middle of moving for an emergency placement.  this is a great deal better, i guess.

because the placement is a couple weeks away we have a few days before we need to let the CSW know either way.  i know beardo is going to freak out.  if it were up to me i probably would have said yes right away. for now, i’m just going to continue packing and watching Veronica Mars.

tuesday morning our apartment was robbed. i have to say that we have the most polite burglars. we figure it was someone with access to a master key to our apartment complex because they unlocked our deadbolt & locked up when they were done.

the only things missing are my laptop, kindle, & their respective chargers + my phone charger. my phone charger & kindle charger are very similar so i figure they took both to save time. nothing in the kid’s room was touched & nothing was destroyed.

we really got off easy. our neighbor was also robbed &, again, they only took a couple of things & left a lot of costly stuff untouched. thank beyonce, we have renter’s insurance that will cover everything. i’m just upset because i lost A LOT of school work.

davethomasfoundation:

If you are considering adoption, or in the adoption process, you probably have heard about the Federal Adoption Tax Credit (ATC). Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusing information about the ATC and I would like to clear that up for you. It is understandable that it is confusing because the rules keep changing.

The ATC is available for adoptive parents who have adopted a child who is not their spouse’s child. It is available for foster care adoptions, private domestic adoptions, and international adoptions. The rules for each type of adoption are a little different.

Read More

it turns out beardo & i have been licensed foster parents for a few weeks now. i guess no one thought about telling us. i emailed the head CSW about a week ago to ask if we were licensed & if our physical license would be mailed to us or if i needed to go pick it up.  she emailed me back a few hours later saying that our license would be mailed from the state’s main office in the state capitol. nothing about whether or not we  were done & finally licensed. i emailed her back this afternoon asking if there was anything else we needed to do since we hadn’t heard from anyone with children’s division in a while. the response i got has left me needing to write some things down in my burn book.

this is the whole email she sent me, verbatim:

“I believe I answered this email before about Central Office sending these out sporadically.  I’m not sure what your rush is since you are licensed in the system whether you have the certificate or not.  But…whatever.  I just got some in the mail and will be sending them out today or Monday.  (Our secretary is not here right now, and I don’t know if she’ll be back today.  She does the mail.)”

holy shit. and what the frak?! no one ever told us we were licensed. every time we thought we were close to being licensed there turned out to be 6 more hurdles we had to jump. no, you never said anything about the licenses being mailed “sporadically.”  and, seriously, fuck you and your passive aggressive underlining.

i know your job is difficult & i know you’re busy, but didn’t take up way more of your precious time composing that snotty email than just saying that you would be mailing our license to us when you received it? you just had to add “But…whatever.”? now i know why everyone is so excited about her possible retirement at the end of this year.

so. yeah. we’re licensed & all that jazz. i thought this would be an exciting thing but i’m mostly just pissed off right now.