It is about to get real all up in here! I am up to my elbows in poop. Poop controls my life. How you may ask? No I am not about to share my digestive history. My foster kiddo came to us with bathroom issues. Because she lived such a transient life there was not always a place for her to do her business. She was often told to hold it for long periods of time. Also her diet was not healthy and very unbalanced. When she came to us she weighed 22 pounds being just shy of 5. As a result we have battled her bowels for some time. She would go for DAYS without pooping. Then BOOM! There it was. So over the past few years we have found that a little miralax in her morning beverage has helped. There are some days I need to bribe her to poop. Yes. Bribe. I will admit it I have given my kid chocolate to poop. I am sure it goes against all sorts of psychological suggestions but gosh darn it if she did not do it then poop will rule our lives until she does. For the sake of sanity and less laundry I would bribe her. There was a time when she had been admitted to the hospital for a fever of 105 for 3 days. This constipated her even more. Once her fever broke the doctors said she could go home if she pooped. At that point I would have promised her tickets to Disney World hand delivered by Elsa riding a rainbow colored unicorn. Thankfully she did end up pooping! My husband and I did a happy dance! She has a daily chore chart and on that chart is has a place to mark off if she pooped. Poop. Poop. Poop. It is exhausting. Along with my foster kiddo I have a special needs dog. Yes. Dog. She also has bowel problems. She is on special dog food to help her digestion. Daily conversations with my husband revolve around the color, quantity and consistency of our dogs poop. Yes...color.
Why am I sharing all of this. Foster parenting is hard. It deals with lots of issues such as food and clothing and parent visit and tears and sleep issues and yes even poop! One thing you need to have is a sense of humor. We can laugh about it. We even have taken to assigning a likeness to the poop the little girl gives us. You know you have hit a high point when she says her poop looks like the elf hat of Elf on the Shelf. There have been the Elf hat, a pencil, a pancake (???) a soda can (ouch!) a doughnut, a leaf and countless others. So in the mists of life's poop you need to remember to have a sense of humor. Laugh. Laugh a lot! In the end even the poop is worth it.
0 Comments
WARNING....fostering a child is not easy. You are asked to unconditionally love a child that is not your own for an undetermined amount of time. You are asked to provide for them. To navigate their scary new life with them. You are asked to cart them around from appointment to appointment (believe me there are a lot). You are asked to treat them as one of your own. Sounds doable until the but comes.....ready for it....but you have no say in that child's life whatsoever. Most parents are given a year to work their parenting plan. There are always those strange cases. I am talking generally here. A year to correct the reason to having the child removed. In that year they maintain full control over their child. If they say no hair cuts....then no hair cuts. If they say you can't take the child out of state...you can't take that child out of state. No ears pierced. No cell phone. No social media if old enough. Most cases the foster parents are the last to know about anything. In our case we were lucky. We had a wonderful case worker who kept us informed as much as she could legally. We had a fantastic CASA worker who kept our foster kiddo's needs as her top priority. But even with a great team we still were not a party to the case. We were allowed to enter the court room for hearings and such but we had to sit by and watch it all play out. All the while keep loving on a child that could be removed. In our case the parents were not able to complete the parenting plan. Sadly as the year passed it was clear that reunification was not an option. We are awaiting our adoption date as I write this! We are one of the lucky ones. We laughed. We cried. We prayed. We held hands. We cleaned up messes. We encouraged. We spent money. We taxied around. Here comes another but....BUT WE LOVED! Unconditional love. The kind of love that can restore broken hearts. The kind of love that can mend a wounded soul. The kind of love that makes a family!
|
Archives
November 2017
Categories |