Vodka goes in the freezer

You can learn a lot from a 6 year old foster daughter.

 A few days ago H (my son- 12yrs old, almost 13) asked if he could have a glass of cranberry juice with his dinner and as he's pouring it, Big A informs him that vodka goes in cranberry juice. Oh yay, now H will have something fun to share with his friends. Great. It actually wasn't the first time I'd heard her say that but now that her speech is clearer it's harder to miss the inappropriate things she says. I interjected and said that vodka is actually not for kids but that juice alone is ok and closed the subject, or so I thought.  We don't drink alcohol very often at all but I got a bottle of vodka recently to go with some grapefruit and cranberry juices I bought because it sounded good! (Plus having 3 kids just makes me want --need?-- to drink sometimes. Don't judge.) Mind you, I do not talk about drinking alcohol and I keep it out of reach and put away up in a high cabinet. For the sake of time I decided to put the vodka next to the juice in the fridge. No sooner had I done so, I hear "Vodka goes in the freezer."  I hadn't said anything about it being a bottle of vodka but obviously she had seen one before and knew what it was. A tiny little blond girl knows what a specific type of alcohol bottle looks like and knows what to mix it with. Maybe she'll be a fabulous bartender someday?

And at least she's not telling the dog to get out of her f*&%ing way anymore... (yep, she did that in the first few weeks she was here. She also acted like a wild monkey in many ways, because she pretty much was, due to some pretty severe neglect and isolation but I'll post more on that another time...) I have to seek out the humor in our lives right now, otherwise it's just overwhelmingly depressing because we don't know what's going to happen in the future of these girls. Plus things are just hard and challenging a lot of the time and if I don't laugh I'll cry. I have a huge list of challenges that we deal with on a very regular basis but one that relates to this post so far is the hyper-vigilance that Big A carries around with her everywhere. She is kind of like a puppy around the house and follows me everywhere. She always is asking where everyone is (immediate family members that aren't home in the moment) and wants to know what they are doing and she always asks me what I'm doing whether it's obvious or not. She calls out for me if I leave the room. She won't really allow herself to be in a room alone unless it's bedtime or quiet time. She also can't really sit down and focus on a task or play with a toy or game for more than a couple of minutes. She will watch TV for as long as I let her and so I have to limit myself, as it's the only way to get anything done around here!

If I get to the car before her and open the door first she panics until she can get her door open and get in the car. Once we park she immediately asks if I'll open her door (child locks are on) because she's worried I am going to leave her in the car. She's also always worried that I'm going to leave her home alone and is usually a little panicked when we are headed out the door and outside to the car. I'll also say, she's not verbal about these fears and worries. It's taken a long time to figure out what causes her to freak out. I now know more or less her list of worries and that has helped a lot.

She also asks "Why?" to everything I say. She used to say "What?" to everything I said, wanting me to repeat it back. When I stopped repeating she eventually stopped saying "what?" thank goodness! And her first answer to questions and instructions is "no." Every time. Even if it's something she wants or likes she will almost always say no first, then yes. I like to call her Major Contradictor. I admit, she is a tough nut and hard to like sometimes. She doesn't want to be here, she thinks her abusive and neglectful parents walk on water and does not understand at all why she can't be with them. Up until recently she didn't even like to refer to me as her "foster mom" and would always instantly correct anyone who referred to me as her mom. Now that she understands the term "foster mom" a little more she is more open to it but it has to be that specific and will not let anything else slide. I wonder if it's an instinctual thing, to cling to your parents no matter how neglectful and abusive they are?  Like in caveman days, the little caveman children would follow their parents along so they could be fed and kept alive. An instinct of survival.

I actually think that watching her little sister bond with us has helped her to be more open to us emotionally and she is able to trust us more which is nice to see. She is by no means a "monster child" (said for the benefit of my foster mom friend L :) and does have a very sweet side which is so very nice to see when she's willing to share it. She is starting to trust but she still watches my every move and asks me why I'm doing things. I'd give you an example but it really is anything and everything you could think of. And she likes to tell me what she thinks I'm doing wrong. And those are usually funny. Like vodka goes in the freezer... :)

Today

My friend M encouraged me to just write and don't post chronologically (I had to use spell-check to get that right!) and I'm taking her advice. I think that's part of why I haven't blogged is because I used to journal and then sit down and copy it here. All in order, nice and tidy. Since I don't deal with tidy anymore (I'm changing diapers again people!) I'll just toss my old ways.

I don't journal anymore because my brain is too fried at the end of the day! I bought a new, shiny, cute little journal months and months ago and it sits empty and blank on my bedside table. I look at it, if that counts! But usually that makes me feel guilty about not writing so I just don't even look at it most of the time. I'm pretty sure it has a fine coat of dust to keep it company. It hasn't started whispering to me yet so I take that as a sign that i'm still mostly sane, just too lazy and unmotivated to write. Yay me!

So here I am, with 2 little girls. Sisters. I'll call them Big A (6 yrs. old) and Little A (2 yrs.old) here for the sake of privacy. We are well into the easier stretch, past the honeymoon and it's being over and the crap that goes with that. A peace has come with school starting and implementing a very predictable schedule. Finally. I really thought I wouldn't be able to do it for much longer, they were very high needs at first and being that we didn't have much experience with this, it was hard-- In a much different way than fostering has been hard in the past. This young age is a lot different and both girls have a lot of difficulty with communication and that has been a big problem. But we are all figuring each other out and that is comforting.

Today they have been here 5 months. It's a bittersweet time because we have worked hard for and established some consistency for them and so they are a little happier, a lot healthier, and making up for lost time on so many fronts. Too be honest they are two completely different kids from the ones that showed up on our doorstep. I'll talk about that more in another post, or two or three. It's a big story. Their improvement is the sweet part. I think the bitter part is the fact that there is talk of returning them "home" (a very relative term. In this case it means back to their birth parents who did not take good care of them) by the end of the year. And that fact in itself is also bittersweet (maybe I should change the name of this post?) because sometimes they are just. so. hard. We are at a point where if we get too much more attached to these little gals, it's gonna get way harder emotionally.

I can feel the turning point and it's now, today, last week, next week, tomorrow, I'm not sure. We've tried to create a safe and secure life for them and intertwined our hearts in the process and they thrive here even as they long for their parents who didn't care for them. It's so darn painful to watch. Can I use that word again, Bittersweet?

I should blog

So even my dad is asking me to blog so I probably should. I have 5 months of fostering to catch up on and am a little overwhelmed by the idea of documenting everything because it is ALOT! Just wanted to share that i will be getting started soon. Maybe this post will be a good start. I'm just so far behind! Ugh! I have no point to this post other than some motivation for myself by typing a few sentences... Who's listening here? (just wondering...)