A month went by, and I was still so exhausted, I could hardly move. Darryl kept telling me that I was in over my head, that I needed to tell The Agency that two boys were too much. The truth was that W was too much. He wasn't naughty, per se, beyond your typical three-year-old naughtiness, but his clinginess and neediness were taxing beyond anything I had experienced before.
Now, before you go judging and say, "dumbass, what did you expect," it wasn't like needy kids were new to me. I'm a teacher. I've juggled my fair share of kids in trauma, kids who needed nonstop attention in class (and out), kids who used me as a therapist, kids who counted on me as a surrogate mother, kids who I bought meals for, clothes for, school supplies for. Most of the time, this was all simultaneous.
But this was a new kind of neediness. Even Erin, when she would come over to visit with Bram, noticed it. "You are going to make yourself sick," she'd warn me. And she was right. It was physically, mentally, and emotionally draining me. I felt like I couldn't even enjoy Baby O because all my attention was on W, all the time. All. The. Time.
Even after a month had gone by, Darryl felt no closeness to these boys, and it made me cry. I felt like I was alone... and I had Tiernen!
It was incredibly overwhelming.
And the worst part was that I felt incredibly guilty about being burned out. I felt guilty that I had fought for these boys and now I was struggling.
What was wrong with me???
Darryl suggested I send them back, but I was ADAMANT that I would not. These boys had been through so much, I did not want to add to it. Plus, I was told that it was only a matter of time before they were going to their grandmother's home.
So I carried on, the best I could, and tried to enjoy it.
Of the more than 400,000 kids who enter the foster care system in the United States each year, about 32% are cared for by a relative other than their parents (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/afcarsreport25.pdf). This is known as "kinship care." Kinship care takes place when CPS gets involved and informs the parents that the child or children are going to be removed. They always ask first: is there a relative or friend who can care for the child?
It is my understanding that kinship care differs from when a family member enters the picture PRIOR to CPS getting involved. When children are cared for by relatives other than parents before CPS involvement, they aren't considered foster children (and aren't monitored). I, for example, would fall into this category: I started living with my Gram at 16. I wasn't "removed" from my mother's home. (well, unless you count being kicked out) I wasn't removed by the State, I mean to say. That way, I was off CPS's radar.
Once CPS is involved, it's a different story.
In the case of Baby O and W, they were exclusively with non-relative foster parents. When the case planner contacted me (shock!) for a home visit a week after the boys arrived, she told me that she did not expect them to be with me very long because their grandmother was planning on taking them, all three of them.
Now, this confused me. I mean, I think it is a great thing that the grandmother stepped up and wanted to take the boys. Baby O had been in care since three months old. In the case of W, he had been in foster care for more than two years of his three years on earth. The older brother had been in care even longer than that.
Where was she all this time? Had the grandmother just found out that her grandchildren were in foster care?
I never did get an answer.
But I was told that they would probably only be there a few weeks, 30 days at most. Kinship care always "outranks" any non-relative placement, even though it was my understanding that the grandmother hadn't seen the boys in years (and in Baby O's case, ever).
Either way, I resigned myself to it being short term, and that was that.
I have a friend at work who has six biological children between the ages of 3 and 9. I've already spoken about my friends that I met in foster class who have a sibling set of five (the oldest is 6). All I can say is GOD BLESS THOSE COUPLES.
I do not know how they do it. I just don't.
After three days of having three under three, I thought I was going to die. I was so physically and mentally tired, I could have fallen asleep standing up. I'm not saying they were bad kids; they weren't. Individually, they would have been a dream. Together, they were just a lot.
None of them were bad. How could you say a 9 month old was bad (and that's how old Baby O and Bram both were)? W wasn't bad, either. We saw none of the behaviors that had gotten him removed from his previous placement.
He was, however, extremely needy. He wanted all of my attention all the time. I could not hold or care for either Bram or Baby O because W constantly wanted me. He wanted me to hold him, sit with him and watch him while he ate, read to him constantly, talk to him... the concept of sharing or waiting his turn was not an option in his little mind.
After a day with us, he announced loudly, "You my mama!" I told him he could call me mama if he wanted to. He repeated it, almost like an order, a demand, 10-20 times a day.
Tiernen did her best to help me, but the caring of W became almost entirely my responsibility. Darryl worked nights and slept during the day. Only on weekends did he have any interaction with the boys. Even though Bram was home during the weekends, Darryl didn't really help. You could tell he did not feel connected at all to the boys. This made me really sad because there was a time when he loved Baby O. Now he acted like they weren't even there.
Because I was with W all the time, Tiernen had her hands full, too full, with both babies during the day. It just wasn't possible.
We came to the very, very hard decision that although we loved Bram and loved having him there, we simply could not have him at our house while the boys were there. I had to admit it to myself: I could not handle three kids under three.
Both Bram and Baby W were easy, easy babies. W was very needy. But can you blame the kid? He had been in more foster homes in six months than years he was alive. Of course he was needy. He was looking for permanence.
But I was exhausted.
Exhausted wasn't even the word. I was completely spent.
I called Erin and told her. She understood. She was ready to have Bram home. He was ready to be home.
Except I wasn't ready for him to be home. I would collapse in bed at 7 after the boys went to bed and I would cry because I missed Bram.
Darryl, the king of sensitivity, said, "well, you're the one who made the decision to send Bram home." I wanted to kill him.
The fact that I didn't, well, let's just say I was too exhausted. Had I been rested, he would have been a dead man.
Okay, here's the deal: kids in foster care are at a greater risk for developmental delays than children in the general population. This spans the gambit from drug exposure to neglect. (http://www.howkidsdevelop.com/fcCommon.html)
In the case of the boys, this was very apparent. Though he was a babbler at three months, Baby O had language delays. At nine months, when he came to us again, he wasn't even crawling.
W had fine gross and fine motor skills, but his social, emotional, speech and language development was definitely affected. He spoke like an 18-month old, using "me" instead of I and other baby talk. It was sad to see, actually.
During the one visit she had with them, I asked the grandmother why W's speech was so delayed. She answered matter-of-factly, "your speech would be delayed too if no one ever talked to you."
This made me incredibly sad.
And confused.
I mean, even if his mother was the worst mother in the world and never talked to him, he had been in foster care for two years. Hadn't his foster parents talked to him? Hadn't they noticed his delays?
I put both boys on lists for early intervention like Bram got in hopes of getting them some in-home therapy, but the waiting list was too long and we never got called.
If you live in, or plan to visit, Central New York during the summer, I highly recommend spending a day at the Sterling Renaissance Festival. I've been taking Tiernen since she was about three years old. My mother was visiting from Oregon, and even before the boys arrived, the plan was to attend that weekend and bring Bram. Now that the boys were here, I didn't think it was necessary to change our plans.
I did not think this through.
I dressed the boys in similar, but not matching, outfits: Batman shirts and camouflage shorts. They looked cute, but no one was going to mistake Bram and Baby O for twins (Bram with his blonde hair and blue eyes; Baby O with his black curly hair and dark brown eyes). I packed the very large diaper bag and we were off!
But not without some "issues."
Issue #1: Cars. My SUV was not equipped for three car seats, let alone four adults, so we had to bring two cars. Right away, Darryl said, "I'll bring Bram!" Tiernen and Bram rode in Darryl's car. The boys, my mother, and I drove in mine.
Issue #2: The ride. Baby O napped for most of the 90 minute ride, which was great. W, however, did not. He would not allow conversation that did not include him. He talked nonstop, interjecting with, "Becca, Becca," if I didn't directly engage with him immediately. I was happy to sing to him and with him and to talk to him, but after 90 minutes, singing The Wheels on the Bus gets old.
Issue #3: Strollers. When we learned the boys were coming, we bought a second stroller called a sit and stand. Basically, it is as long as a double stroller, where the baby (in this case, Baby O) can sit in front in a normal stroller set up and a preschooler can sit or stand in the back on a sort of bench. While this may be ideal in a mall or on the sidewalk, on uneven terrain like the hilly, rocky Ren Fest, pushing this was hell.
Issue 4: Bram hogging. Darryl only wanted to interact with Bram. He only wanted Bram in his car, only wanted to push the single stroller Bram was in, only wanted to change Bram, only wanted to feed Bram, only talked to Bram. Now, I understand that at this point, Bram had been with us for six months and he knew him best. But he really seemed to ignore the boys. I kept telling myself it would get better. (spoiler: it didn't)
Issue 5: Changing diapers. W was potty trained, so that was a non-issue, thank goodness. One of us just had to take him into the tiny bathrooms or porta potties, and he would do his thing. Because he had only been with us one day though, I felt the need to constantly ask and remind him if he had to go.
Bram and Baby O needed to be changed. There were no changing stations, hygienic or otherwise (and I've seen some gross ones), and so changing them involved putting down a blanket on the rocky grass and wrestling a wriggling nine month old who realized he could crawl off this blanket, bare-assed, and explore (unlike on a changing table). That was fun.
Issue 6: Food. At this point, I knew what Bram would and wouldn't eat. Though his parents were not vegetarians and fed him meat when he was home, when he was at Casa de Nix, he ate a vegetarian diet. As for the boys... I had no idea what they would eat. We ended up taking turns waiting on line while the other adults stayed with the kids under shady trees. The lines were LONG. We bought them cheese pizza and potatoes and spanakopita (all at separate vendors, I might add). It was HOT, so we got countless $3 bottles of water. I think they each ate about four bites.
Issue 7: Grabby hands. One of my favorite things about the Ren Fest is the crafters. I love going to the various booths and checking out the gorgeous items they make. This was impossible because of the strollers. When we did find a vendor where we could fit, one, two, or all three boys would unceremoniously grab anything and everything in their sight, resulting in a plethora of apologies and a hasty retreat.
Issue 8: My mother. I figured with four adults, we would be able to handle three kids. Nope. My mother was zero help. She had no interest in changing a diaper, feeding a baby, or anything even remotely useful. Her excuse? "I'm old." (note: she was 65 at the time). The truth is more like, "I'm lazy."
It was a very, very, very long day, but still, we managed to eke out a few happy memories. Darryl, per my prodding, took W for a camel ride and Tiernen took W on countless rides.
And I learned a valuable lesson: Ren Fests were not made for babies, especially not three of them at the same time.
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