#facepalm Part 2

Seriously, you guys. So much facepalming happens in the Young house.

(Check out the first post here)

One time at breakfast we were all drinking smoothies. All of a sudden, D turns his cup upside down on his lap and then freaks out. When we asked him why he did that he said “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

#facepalm

----------------

Andy: “Did you hear what I said?”

D: “Yeah.”

Andy: “What did I say?”

D: “You said ‘Don’t forget…blah blah blah blah’”

 #facepalm

----------------

LM: Mama, can I text Gigi?
Me: Sure. *hand him my phone*
LM: How do you spell "bring me some presents"?

#facepalm

----------------

D, pointing to a kid at school “He is my BEST BEST BEST friend in the whole world!!!”

Me: “Cool! What’s his name?”

D: “Ummm, I don’t know.”

 #facepalm

----------------

Andy: “Where did that sticker go?”

Little Man: “…Sometimes I like to eat paper.”

#facepalm

----------------

Andy: “Don’t forget to use soap in the shower.”

S: “Ok!”

*after shower

Andy: “Did you use soap?”

S: “No, because we’re out of soap.”

#facepalm

----------------

One morning I noticed that my makeup brush had been shaved. I asked what happened and D said he shaved the top off with Andy’s beard trimmer. Why, you ask? “I wanted to see what would happen.”
#facepalm

----------------

Quick Update: We have officially finished ALL the forms, evaluations, reviews, home study documents, hoop-jumping, and all other madness that goes into getting ready for the state to approve an adoption. Now we wait. DCFS has to sign off on all the above-mentioned hoopla and then we get a court date. Praying for a summer adoption party -- everyone's invited!

Privacy in Foster Care

Let me tell you something about privacy in foster care. It doesn't exist.

No, really.

Our life is an open book. Literally. There is a file at our agency that chronicles our lives. Among other things, it includes five page papers about each of our family's history, feelings toward our family before age 12 and after, about how Andy and I met, and names, ages, and current cities of all of our immediate family members (FYI family, they know how to find you).

Numerous people are in and out of our house every week checking things out. Caseworkers, licensing workers, therapists, teachers, court advocates, and more.

Tonight our caseworker was at our house waiting for some people we've never met to come to our house so our boys could see their sister for a few hours. During our conversation she brought up this very subject and asked us if we felt strange that our entire lives were on display and that people were in and out of our home all the time. I answered with something like "it's just part of foster care" or something like that, and we went on to talk about other things.

And then I found out how not private my life truly is. As an answer to some question, we were telling our caseworker that we will likely have more kids one way or another in the future. She seemed so confused. So I told her we weren't sure if we would adopt more or maybe have biological kids, but we'd likely have more kids at some point. She was shocked. "Wait, you can have kids?!" Oh dear. "We all just assumed you couldn't have kids. We've all talked about it and just thought oh they can't have kids. No way! Shut up!" Wait, 'we all'?! Awkward.

So, my loins are apparently a subject of public discussion in our agency office (and now I just made it awkward for you, you're welcome). If that isn't the epitome of lack of privacy, I just don't really know what is.

Here's what I want you to take away from this:

First, it's exhausting to share so much of our lives with a ton of virtual strangers. For two introverted people, it's work to give constant reports of how things are going so it can be documented in our open-book life. So, if you're feeling like we don't share enough with you, it's not because we are trying to keep our life a secret (although, some details about the boys' history we legally cannot share), it's just that we spend so much time telling and re-telling the details to foster care personnel, that the thought of rehashing it again is just too much sometimes.

Second, we considered a lot of factors before we decided to foster/adopt, but fertility was not one of them. I understand that many people are led to foster care after dealing with infertility. I'm sorry for the struggles those families experience, and I'm happy they decide to become forever families to kids who need them. But that's not our story. We decided to build our family through foster care first. I can't tell you if we'll ever decide to have biological children, and it doesn't matter to us. These children are ours, just as any other children who come into our family will be, in whatever way they come to us.

So there you have it. Just continuing the pattern of keeping our life as public record.

#facepalm

#facepalm

This is how we feel a majority of the time. But, the good news is, looking back over the last year or so, many of those facepalm moments have become quite hilarious to us. So, in the spirit of keeping things light on a day that started out (and ended) so hard, here are some of our favorite facepalm moments...

1. Once upon a time I walked into the bathroom and half the floor was wet. I asked D what happened and he pointed at the door and said "I tried to pee in the toilet from over there." #facepalm

2. From tonight, Andy: "Stop making faces at me." S: "I wasn't." Andy: "But, we're looking at each other and I can see you doing it." #facepalm

3. That one time Little Man threw up at the kitchen table and immediately said "Can I finish my breakfast?" #facepalm

4. Frequently S will come downstairs well after bedtime and say something like "My arm hurts...when I do this" (while pinching himself). #facepalm

5. Earlier in the year D had a little crush at school. The teacher told us he was being disruptive in class by throwing his snack across the room at the little girl he liked. When I asked him why he did that he said "I wanted to share my snack with her." #facepalm

6. Little Man came inside from playing and stated "I'M POOPY!" Andy replied, "Why did you poop your pants??" The answer: "Because I stayed outside!!" #facepalm

7. Before we moved, we all shared one bathroom. One time I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and sat in a puddle of pee. #facepalm

8. Conversation with my 9-year-old, about wearing his 3-year-old brother's clothes. Me: "D, why are you wearing your little brother's underwear?" D: "Because I wanted to." #facepalm

Turns out a lot of these moments are centered around bodily functions. Ah, life with boys.

"He said you were fat!"

A little while ago, through a series of unfortunate events caused by annoying red-tape issues within the system, D went about two and a half weeks without his medication. Both of the boys have ADHD, and are on the more severe side of the spectrum. At home we dealt with it the best we could, and found some semi-effective ways to help him focus and help us cope. School was a different story. The kid was outside of his mind at school. It was a rough time, but we all survived. I'm not really going to get into the whole story since that's not actually what this little update is about...

Anyway, after one of the rougher days during the medication gap, I was sitting with D on the couch rubbing his hands and feet (make note: I was touching his feet. Yes, I love this child), and asking him about his day. My poor little guy was so upset because another kid at school was being mean and hurting his feelings. I asked him to tell me the things that the boy was saying, so I could help him process how he should respond in the future. In the most forlorn voice he said, "He said you were fat!!"

Well after some more conversation I gathered that the kids were telling "Your Mama" jokes, to each other, and D apparently took it very personally. It was all I could do to hold in my laughter at this point. My little guy is so sweet and loves me so much that his feelings were crushed because of a "Your Mama" joke. Heart stolen. Again.

I wanted to share this story for a few reasons. First, it's flipping adorable. Second, while we do experience very difficult things in our journey with the boys, we are not without moments of "normal" parenting joy, and I want to make sure everyone knows that. Finally, while the majority of children who have been in the system for as long as our boys struggle with serious attachment issues, we are beyond amazed and thrilled that our children do not. These boys have readily accepted us as their mom and dad, so much so that D is upset when he thinks someone may be insulting me -- his mom. This is huge and wonderful. Please rejoice in this with us.

Thanks so much for all the messages, comments, prayers and other support you've shown to us -- we hope you keep sharing in our journey, and all the joy and sorrow that may come with it.