Escaping the Time and Space

Does it seem that I have disappeared? Fallen off the planet? To some degree I have. I have been trying to make sure that I post at least once a week (originally, I was working on once a day). Becoming a foster parent has taken up far more of my energy or time than I have ever anticipated. This is not necessarily a bad thing, just a reality. As we are intensive foster parents, the needs of our new child have been eating into our time in unforeseen ways and truthfully completely out of his control too. Because of his needs there are multiple appointments a week which are compounded by the requirements assigned by the state for his oversight. I know that there is a part of me that wants to yell, “Give us a break!” I can only imagine how he feels. Everyday, someone else is in the house asking him more questions. I understand their need for oversight, but maybe they could do it while assisting with his homework, watching one of his basketball games, or helping us get dinner together. Frankly, these day to day activities would probably speak more to how life is going than their intrusive sit down visits. I must say that all the people are quite pleasant (thank goodness) and truly have DS2’s best interests at heart, but this system seems to really bog down real life. Some days he can’t even get his homework done before basketball due to their visits. Once we ended up eating hot dogs because I didn’t get the chicken in the oven properly and had to leave DD overseeing it. It also seems that so many of these visits are redundant. Couldn’t one Social worker report to the other two instead of each of them having their different responsibilities and assessments? I hoping this will slow down over time, but we’ll see. I surely welcome any helpful suggestions from anyone else that has had to deal with this issue.

Some of the time constraints are of my own doing as we opted to maintain his therapist and other mental care in a city which is 45 minutes away, but I felt the poor child had had enough transition without taking away more people that he had built relationships with. I do find it funny though that people who chose to work with children only seem to be available during the day. Doesn’t it seem odd that we would want to take a child who is already struggling at school and make it basically mandatory to take him out of school in order to get proper mental and physical care?


Funny homeschooling moment related to this: Although DS2 is in public school, I am still homeschooling our other two children and among all these crazy time constraints, I am trying desperately to stay on top of their studies. The other day when we were waiting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, DS1 and I ended up having an impromptu art appreciation lesson. As any homeschooler can attest, the best curriculum plan is to use what is around you.