The Bailey Brag

Surely the photo below doesn’t break any privacy rules we agreed to since it doesn’t show any faces. I guess we’ll find out. I just wanted to share one photo of our boys’ first trip to the zoo this past Saturday. Our foster boys, that is. They have never been. They also went to a birthday party on Sunday at Pump-It-Up, or as our biological sons would call it, the “coolest place on earth”. They had a big weekend of firsts and a lot of fun. They were so tired at the end of each day. We learned just yesterday that they are leaving us on Monday so we’re happy we were able to squeeze in those fun things last weekend.We are devastated to say the least. We knew this day would likely come but not at such a short notice. I had conveyed to many of you that there was a meeting today to determine the future of our boys and I want to thank you all for praying like I know you have. Perhaps this is an answer to those prayers and I know that we aren’t always supposed to be pleased with the outcomes. The boys are going to live with their grandmother in Sweetwater. There are many, including myself, at DCS and CPS who are fuming over the outcome of today’s meeting because so many think it is a huge mistake to let them go now before the grandmother takes care of things on her end. God is in control of all so who are we to question the results.

Please keep all our boys in your prayers this week…pray that our foster boys will transition smoothly to their grandmother’s house. Pray that AJ will have a smooth transition to his new school as his grandmother is switching him on Monday to Sweetwater Elementary School. Pray that Tyler and Jordan will just be happy. Please pray for our boys and especially River…he and Tyler have become very big buds and are inseparable all day every day. Most of all, just pray for AJ, Tyler & Jordan that they will be set apart from all the statistics and triumph over this very bad hand they have been dealt. They are all very sweet, smart & loving little boys and all have an amazing future. I pray we have given them just a glimpse of Christ while they have lived with us and please pray that their grandmother begins taking them to church.

Seriously. I have no time. I don’t even have time to be sitting here blogging but I need a mental break from time to time. So I get up at 5:30 every day to wake up the one foster child up who goes to school, feed him, get him dressed and out the door to catch the bus and then I have about 10 minutes before more start waking up wanting food, etc. I do laundry all day, every day. I cook three meals (technically two only because I do not “cook” breakfast) a day. I home school two of the boys which takes up to 4 hours on some days depending on their work ethics. Lately, I have been doing a lot of spring soccer meetings and things and just last month learned I was voted secretary of our region’s foster parent association. Seriously? I wasn’t even at the meeting? How does a committee vote for a person who doesn’t even show up? So, since I was voted secretary and was responsible for taking the minutes I went to this month’s meeting this past Tuesday. I showed up toting a pen and a notebook and was immediately accused of being uber organized (which isn’t such a bad/wrong accusation) so they voted me president instead of secretary and gave the secretary job to the treasurer to carry both positions. I was stunned. Really? “You DO all know that I have 6 boys at home tearing my house apart at this very moment, right?” They all replied…”Yep. We all have 6 kids, too.”

So…call me gullable or vulnerable or whatever. Either way I am screwed. At least this bunch will understand if I don’t return a phone call or an email right away.

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Stevie Wonder Bailey

January 26, 1995 – January 13, 2010

Today was a sad day. Today our little Stevie Wonder went to sleep. We knew the time would come when we would have to make this decision. Stevie was stubborn. He wouldn’t give up.

We adopted Stevie about 3 ½ years ago. We were not in the market for a dog at the time but I was checking adoption agencies for my mom and came across this old guy who had been in foster care for ages because no one wanted a blind dog. I cried. I always want the ones who no one else wants. Stevie was blind with only one remaining eye when we adopted him and he was already 11 ½ years old. Setting myself up? Of course. Within a week of having him we had his last eye removed and for a while he was simply our old blind dog. About a year ago his hearing went and then almost immediately he just became very demented and confused all the time. He was plain old. In 13 days he would have turned 15 years old. Dogs just aren’t supposed to live that long especially without their sight. He had been blind for some time when we adopted him so he lived many years being blind. I decide a few weeks ago it was almost time because I began to worry about the ‘what ifs’ if I didn’t make the decision for him. We have six children in our home right now. Do I want this poor dog to stop breathing while I am home alone with these children? I also worried about our foster boys and how they would handle it. They have been through a lot. Seeing a dog die before their eyes wasn’t something I wanted for them. Our boys have known for quite a while that Stevie was on his way out and have had plenty of time to cope. It was still very hard, nonetheless. We told our two older boys, Wheat and Lake, a couple of days ago. We chose not to tell River, our 4 year old, until this afternoon just before I took Stevie away. Jason simply told River that Stevie is too sick now and it is time for us to take him to the doctor so they can help him go to sleep and then mommy and daddy are going to take you all to a movie. River said, “Ok. But can we get milkshakes, too?” Jason and I looked at each other with teary eyes and giggled a bit. We thought for a second we had narrowly escaped a meltdown. Just before I walked out of the room River came up to me and chokingly said “But mommy….I really want to go say goodbye to Stevie and tell him I love him”. Here came the tears. There are not many things in this world harder to witness than a child’s heart genuinely breaking before your eyes. I cried the whole way to Sweetwater to our veterinarian. I couldn’t stick around and I didn’t bring home his body. I couldn’t bury his sweet old body in the frozen ground. I am sure he left this world just moments after I left the office. I have a sweet friend who had been by our side for many years with our dog Atraeu and then Stevie and she promised to be with him when he went. I hate this part about the world…losing things we love. I have to hold on to the childlike faith I have held within me since I was little and had to deal with the loss of pets repeatedly. I have to know they are with God frolicking and perfectly whole again just as we will be. I totally told my children the same things my mother told me. I reminded them that Stevie was very old and very sick and hurting. It would be selfish of us to want to keep him here just because we didn’t want to be sad. Stevie needs to be happy and he is living with Jesus now and has a brand new set of brown eyes and perfectly good ears and is running for the first time in years because he can see where he is going and he isn’t afraid to run. If we didn’t think these thoughts how would any of us make it through things like this?

So as a parent I am torn. Our boys love dogs and so do we. We have now experienced the loss of two precious dogs since Jason and I married and began a family. Do we do it again or do we spare our boys the pain of losing them? As a child and seeing many of my beloved cats and dogs die or be killed I always immediately said I never wanted another pet because this was the hardest thing ever. Time passed and I always ended up with another furry friend. I am sure we’ll be there again one day. For now, we’ll remember Stevie.

My angel boy, Wheat, has been reading since he was about 4. I worry about him often because he would rather sit and read books all day every day than do anything active. He is already reading big kid books like Treasure Island and Moby Dick, you know, books we weren’t forced to read until high school in which some of us never read and just bought the cliffs notes.

The other night he was granted permission to sleep with Jason and I, something they all still love doing because we co-slept with all three of our boys up until just about 2 years ago when our king size bed just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Now they all rotate from time to time sleeping with us. So he was laying in bed beside me and we were all reading. I noticed he was holding his breath for several seconds and then letting it out repeatedly only to hold it again. I remember him doing this at a very young age and I don’t know why he does it. When it finally became a disturbance to my reading I asked him why he was holding his breath. This was his answer:

“Well, you know how reading is kind of like talking in my head? If I breathe while I read then I might not be able to hear the words.”

This sweet kid has so much traffic in his head he needs street signals. He told us this same night that one day he wanted to hand write a dictionary….whatever that means. I cannot wait to see how this child chooses to use his brain for the greater good.

River has a friend named Greg in the form of a wart on his right pinky finger. Greg has been River’s friend for a year or more. When Greg first appeared, River was not too thrilled. I quickly made up a story about how sometimes little friends in the form of warts hop on for a ride because they want to be a part of your life for a while, encouraging you and protecting you along the way. We often talk about it. When he gets discouraged about Greg, I remind him that one day Greg will decide to hop off and go protect someone else and that he should enjoy this time with him. River doesn’t tolerate discomfort or pain very well and the last thing I want is to unnecessarily put him through a lot of pain over one silly wart.

A few weeks ago River came to me crying his eyes out. Just when he had finally become content with Greg, Greg had two babies on the same finger. River said “Mommy, Greg had babies!” I guess it’s time to get the doc to take a look. River reminds me every other day about the ‘Greg babies’ and wants to go to the doctor to get them removed. He has no idea what he’s asking for.

There is just never a good time to sit and write. I am so busy but yet I don’t particularly feel it. I can just always think of other things I should be doing rather than writing. But it needs to be done. For me.

We have been very busy the last week or so. Things are finally slowing down and I am glad. There is nothing I despise more than for the holidays flying by without time to simply enjoy little things. We had our first snow of the season which was amazing! The boys had so much fun and were so pleasantly surprised to wake up to everything covered in a blanket of white. After several hours of play I was left with a mound of laundry but it was worth it.

Our original Bailey boys were also in a small drama skit as an opening to a beautiful little dance recital given by Lighthouse Artistic Ministries. They have been taking drama there for several weeks and were the only children in the class so the three of them performed their skit last Friday evening. It was so sweet. Hopefully I will be able to post a short video of it later.

Our three foster boys are doing well. They received their biggest disappointment this past Friday as they were “stood up” for a weekend overnight trip to their grandmother’s house. It was a trip that had been two weeks in the making with their mother and grandmother creating a great deal of hype over all their fun plans for the weekend. They have not been on an overnight visit anywhere since they came into our custody four weeks ago. They have only had two supervised visits with their family lasting only an hour and a half each. We were scheduled to meet the grandmother at the DCS office at 3 pm Friday. The boys and I were there but after 45 minutes no one showed. I was forced to leave and not wait another minute for them. It turns out that not only were they late in arriving, there were several misunderstandings involving rules for the weekend that the grandmother was apparently not going to abide by such as making sure she would be in the presence of her grandchildren at all times. These boys were taken from their mother and are not allowed to be with her at all unless supervised by DCS or an approved/cleared individual. The paperwork had been completed for the grandmother to supervise a visit but she was very mistaken as to what her boundaries were. She thought if she was running late to pick them up, her daughter (the boys’ mother), could simply pick them up in her place and take them on to her house. Wrong. She had also not taken Sunday off work and was apparently going to leave them with their mother then, too. Aside from all this, even if this were possible, the mother never showed up at 3 to pick up the boys. When I got home and had them calmed down I called her and she gave me multiple excuses about getting “caught up” and losing track of time. Puh-lease. Not only were the boys devastated but I was pretty ill, too. We had made several special plans for the weekend to do with our boys that we simply could not do with 6 boys, some being holiday traditions, and were not able to do them. We had not told our boys so they were unaware of their loss. Thanks to my mom agreeing to keep 5 out of 6 of the boys, J and I were able to get some shopping done on Saturday with only the 2 year old in tow. We have been so busy that we had not even purchased one gift for anyone. We are having a very simple gift giving year this year but there were a couple of things we needed to spend time shopping around for. My mom is a saint. She managed to decorate her entire house with 5 boys. Thank you, mom!

So our next adventure will be the amazing celebration of our Lord and Savior! The foster boys are scheduled to go to grandma’s again that weekend. If that falls through, I will be contacting the president!

After getting to sleep very late (early to bed, late to sleep…it’s a chronic thing with me), tossing in my sleep having had a very odd dream about my mom and an alpaca, then back up at 5:30 in order to spend 20 minutes with my husband… I am awake, fresh, and ready to tackle the busy day ahead of me which is of course chock full of a hundred things to do. So what do I decide to do to gear up for my busy day? Drink coffee and blog, of course. I just put one child on the school bus and the remaining 5 are still asleep so why not? Forget that my kitchen is a wreck from last night’s dinner, there is no less than three loads of laundry crammed in one basket screaming to be folded. Forget that I should be waking up 3/5 kids to feed breakfast, make them get dressed and do chores before their drama class. And forget that I have a list of things I should be writing down in preparation for my meeting with my resource parent support worker this morning and finding something to wear to Jason’s company Christmas party tonight. Need I continue? Seriously. If I am going to blog, it is going to have to push other things to the side. That’s all there is to it.

Yesterday we went shopping. When I say “we”, I mean myself and the 5 children who are not forced to attend school outside of the home. I can actually tell a difference with only one missing even though I still have 5 to care for. That one when couple with his 4 year old brother is a handful. When they’re apart, they are manageable. I thought fostering a school-age child would be difficult but so far it’s actually quite nice. The only major adjustment is having to make sure I do not forget to always be home when he gets off the bus. Although I am truly a stay-at-home-mom who never runs the roads shopping or doing mommy groups all day every day, I have never been bound to my house for any reason. I have just done it by choice. So it has taken discipline to remind myself I can’t hop in the truck to make a run to the bank or the post office when A will soon be getting off the bus. So, yes, the crack must be in our drinking water because I was positively on crack yesterday when I decided I could go by myself with 5 boys to spend the 3 foster boys’ DCS clothing allotments all in one trip. $200 for one, $175 for the next and $125 for the little man. You have to spend it all at one time so I had a spreadsheet of what they needed; pretty much consisting of everything except socks and underwear since we had already bought them that with our own money weeks ago. When the caseworker arrived to pay for it all, even being a bit late, I had only gathered goods for one child. She was less than thrilled but when she saw my two buggies filled with nothing but children, she understood. She was nice to help me collect things for the remaining two boys and after a total of 2 hours in Target, we finished. All the boys got one giant bag full of new clothes and a new pair of shoes. Whatever they need after this is up to us. In my opinion, for babies who grow out of clothing quickly, there should be more than one allotment issued. I’m just sayin’.

When we got to the truck and all bags were loaded, all kids strapped in their car seats, I issued a warning to all that for the next 5 minutes I did not want to hear a single noise….”or else”. I just sat in the driver seat and took nice, long and deep breaths. That’s the best time….when I am in the truck and everyone is strapped in car seats. If any one of you wants to come hang out, please do. We’ll just have to go sit in my truck.

So as if shopping with 5 boys isn’t crazy enough…..while I was shopping, the boys’ caseworker called and said she needed to pick up A from school and T from me and take them to the dentist. This was a 2 hour notice. I felt blessed to even have that. So instead of taking everyone home for lunch as I intended, I got the privilege of taking them all out to Chic-fil-A for lunch. It was bitter sweet because T had never eaten there before. I later learned that A hadn’t either. Have I mentioned how many odd looks I get when I am out with my crew and all the many “Are these kids all yours?” and the “Where’d you get all these boys at?”. Since after lunch I shed yet another boy and was down to only 4 I decided while the crack was still in my system I should stop by Earthfare for some food. Luckily, Wendy, my fellow-former-foster-parent-now-mom-to-six-kiddos-friend works there and walked around a bit with me and then proceeded to check me out (charge me for my food, not look at my bod). This was all I could handle in one day. We came home, put up groceries, and then the boys came home from the dentist, one having had two cavities filled. God made 8 o’clock bedtimes for days like this.

I delivered a child to elementary school today for the first time in my life. I remembered the smell from when I went…it never changes. I am so thankful that I already know A’s teacher, his teacher’s aide, the school secretary and many others as I have coached one or more of their kids in soccer or I grew up with them. They all plan to look out for A. They are all so happy for him that he is in a loving home, wearing clean clothes,  shoes with no holes and someone willing to help him with his schoolwork at night. He is very behind in school since he has been primary caregiver to his younger brothers for so long and has been tossed around from couch to couch as his mother ran around never offering them stability. Please pray for him today. I am sure many kids will ask him where he has been for two weeks and that has to be hard for him to explain. So I am down to 5 kiddos during the day now and I think it will be nice. A is very sweet and largely well-behaved but fights with his brother, T, almost every hour or more. Hopefully with a bit of separation again they will treat each other more lovingly. All the boys have their 2nd visitation with their mother today, supervised by DCS, of course. This was hard for them last week as they still missed her quite a bit but are now much more attached to us so perhaps they won’t all be crying when I pick them up. The baby, J, cried his eyes out when I dropped him off at the church nursery yesterday morning. That was different. He didn’t do that the first week. He and I have cuddle time at night, rocking with a bottle (yes, he just turned 2 but I am sure he didn’t get this as an infant and I would hate for him to have Reactive Attachment Disorder because of it when he is older). I think the cuddle time has helped he and I connect.

So we’re all doing well…everyone is adjusting better and better each day (the foster boys, anyway). My boys have a ways to go but I know that deep down that know that these boys need us and that no matter how badly they are becoming frustrated by the additions, they will appreciate it. Thank you all for your prayers and help! There is another court date on December 8th where I am assuming the judge will give the mother a time frame in which she needs to have a job, a home, and all the means to care for her children adequately. From what I see and have heard, she has done nothing in the 2 weeks we have had her children.