Please excuse my neglect. My last class is in a few days and I am sooooo overwhelmed. As part of the class we have to write an autobiography about ourselves and our family. I haven't even started yet. I still need to get furniture, car seat and I still have some paperwork to finish up. I plan to use this weekend to finish everything up. The classes have been pretty steady and I have actually grown attached to some of the other familes. In other news, my mother just got a job offer in Kansas and while I'm super happy for her, I was really counting on her to be here during this process. I'm looking on the bright side at least we will have some place to visit. Make sure to say a prayer for me and my mountain of paperwork!
I went to the doctor today to get my physical and maybe I'm just being too sensitive but it really irked me that my doctor kept asking "How are you going to do this by yourself?" I wanted to say the same way millions of other men and women raise happy healthy children by themselves. People always ask "How can you have a foster child and work? Where will the child go while you're at work?" I just want to say "They'll stay at home in a playpen" Anyway that's my vent she did inspire me to renew my membership at the gym which I'm very proud of :-)
I had my first home visit today and it was not as invasive as I expected. She didn't even look around my entire house she just wanted to see the room that the child would be sleeping in. She was surprised at how much stuff I had gotten already. The majority of the visit was just signing and going over paperwork. My licensing worker is nice and since my classes end on March 12th she said I can expect to be licensed sometime in April. She also told me that there is a need for my age range which is 0-3 but there are also a lot of families with that same age range. After this visit I'm pretty much at ease about the process from this point on.
I haven't forgotten about you all. There just hasn't been much to update and I don't want to ramble. I have my 5th class tomorrow and to be honest, I'm ready for these classes to be over. They're helpful because they help you understand what's going through a child's mind when they are placed with you but since I am fostering infants I feel like most of it doesn't apply to me. I have started getting the room ready and I plan to go shopping for furniture in the next couple of weeks. Oh! I also have my first home visit on in 3 days so I will update once that's done. Well back to work for me. Have a good day!
Ok so I never mentioned this but before I decided to become a foster parent I volunteered for a local nonprofit organization called the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition. They help foster and adoptive parents by providing respite events, training as well as gifts on birthdays and holidays. Anyway, I went to one of our meetings tonight and I met a girl who was just listened a few weeks ago with the same agency I'm working with! She was so nice, she gave me her phone number and said I can call her if I have any questions. Her and her husband are also respite providers so I will have someone I'm familiar with in case I need respite care. I'm so happy I met her she was full of great advice. She said since she has been licensed she has gotten 4 calls, all for infants but no placements yet.
I just got home from my second class and about a third of the class wasn't there. We did get a little snow today so maybe people didn't want to drive or maybe the first class scared them away :-/. It will be interesting to see if they come back. We talked about the basics, how to support emotional, physical and social development and things like that. We talked about taking vacations with foster children and leaving foster children with babysitters. I was shocked to hear some people ask if it was ok to leave their foster children with their 14 and 15 year old children! What would make you think that's ok? I don't know maybe it's just me. Anyway, I'm tired.....GOODNIGHT!!!
My first class was a success! It didn't even seem like it lasted 3 hours. I wasn't the only single parent there (thank God!) The class was about half and half. I was shocked to see as many African American people there also. We learned so much in such a short time. We even watched a movie about difficult foster children. The other parents were soooo nice. I was also surprised at how far some people are traveling for these classes. I'm super lucky because the classes are literally five mintues away from my house.
I have heard people say that they use scare tactics to try to scare people away who are just trying to adopt infants but that wasn't the case here at all. They let us know that there are infants available and it is possible to adopt. All in all it was a great class and I'm already looking forward to next week! I'll keep you all updated.
