Today was the first visit between Sweet Pea and his mom without my presence.
We have good news and bad news.
Good news~
The girl who transported and supervised is awesome. She was at one of the visits a while back in which he screamed the entire time, so she knew the potential for meltdown. We discussed it in advance and she understood why I was concerned. OK. not just understood. She acknowledged it.
***That sounds stupid but other foster parents can attest that acknowledgement of our concerns is hard to come by.***
She asked some good questions, including how Sweet Pea is with strangers. I had to say that I didn't know. I am always with him! If I'm not with him, he's with my husband, and then usually at home. So I wasn't sure how he'd do even with her.
I sent toys and stuff to keep him occupied and distracted.
I put him in his own car seat.
He had a long nap and a big bottle right before leaving for the visit.
He was in a great mood.
Bad news~
Mom was 40 minutes late.
He screamed within 60 seconds of her arrival.
He continued to scream the rest of the visit.
Back to the good news~
He didn't cry in the car.
He was laughing and playing with the case aide before mom's arrival.
This shows that sadly, he hates his mom. She is the only person that he freaks out about.
The case aide is documenting all of this.
She told me mom kept making her comments that 'he needs to get to know me again' (she did this all the time with me and I just kept my big mouth shut) and the case aide called her on it. She told her he'd never even seen her before and was perfectly fine. mom cried.
The ugly~
So yeah, it's sad he had to be traumatized by the visits. But I cannot tell you how peaceful it feels knowing it's not me, it's her.
I kinda feel like an asshole.
But not really.
We'll see how it goes from here. I know they will continue to do the one hour visit with just Sweet Pea and Mom, but no word on how the 2 hour visit with all the kids will play out. I just don't see how a single case aide is going to supervise the visit and juggle Sweet Pea while he screams his head off.
And more good news, I think I'm making some progress on self soothing at bedtime. Last night and thus far tonight, he's put himself to sleep. I am knocking on wood and so should you. Really. Find some wood. Give it a knuckle. Now. Please.
6 comments:
I knocked on my window woodwork for you.
BTW, on my screen the color for the link to posting comments is so light I couldn't see it. I had to drag my mouse over the text to highlight it to find it.
Is it wrong that the entire time I was reading that sweet pea had a meltdown with "mom" I was thinking that maybe she would think parenting him would be just too much trouble and sign away custody?
And, no, you are not an asshole. I would feel exactly the same way.
I'm knocking on wood right now for you and can you offer ANY and I mean ANY advice about getting a 2 year old to sleep.
I hope you get to keep sweet pea!
I will knock on anything you would like.
OK, knocking on my desk here . . .
This statement
"I kinda feel like an asshole.
But not really."
sums up how I feel about the bio's of my foster son 95% of the time. It's a strange feeling.
Love your blog.
Post a Comment