Grief/Loss and Soft Green and Yellow

We are continuing on in our PRIDE classes. Last nights topic was grief and loss. I have to say, it was kind of a tough topic for me. It really hit home in many areas. I can see where this has affected my step-children and our China kiddos. I can see the areas in my own life. It also brought up issues for the foster kids...some of which should seem obvious, but weren't at least in my mind. For instance, birth order. A child could go from being the oldest in his/her home to being the youngest in the foster home. A child in their birth home knows where to sit in the living room or at the table...but where do you sit in the foster home? What if you as a foster child are taken out of the home in the middle of the night and they forget your purple blanket and you NEED your purple blanket to sleep and to comfort you? Loss.

Interesting. Our homework for last night was to make our own grief and loss chart. Which was super depressing, but also interesting to reflect on.

On another not so depressing note...I chatted with a gal who has been fostering for about a year. She gave me some good tips on things to have on hand, prior to foster babies showing up. I hit up our local thrift store and scored on 50% off day. I bought up a lot of basic stuff 0-6 months...mostly in soft green and yellow....though I have to admit, that little pink stuff is a lot more appealing to me.

"Homestudy"....Really?

No questions about if we have a fire extinguisher...really?
No questions about where we keep medication...really?
No questions about...anything really except:
What are your parents names...really?
Where were you born....really?

SW unable to answer lots of Foster Care questions....really? (Ok I'll give her a break...she's new.)

It was the most odd "homestudy" we have had to date. Apparently Idaho is very lax in their requirements for the home. We need a baby gate and we need to get the kids rooms switched around after one of the big kids leaves next month...but "only before you have a foster child placed in the home...remember it could be short notice..." Really?!

REALLY?! That's all?! Oh and we needed a count on the number of exits, the number of smoke alarms and the number of carbon monoxide detectors....but didn't actually count herself...just took our word for it. Really.

Week 2

We only have one class this week and it was last night. The topic: attachment. It was really good. It's interesting to look at our kids (both adopted and homegrown) and see where they fall on the attachment continuum. Our first homestudy is today at 3pm. I have no idea really what the home requirements are for foster care. I guess we will find out!

PRIDE

So...John and I started our PRIDE (Parent Resource for Information, Development, Education) training for the state of Idaho to become foster parents. From the research I've done, it looks like several states use PRIDE.

We are now 6 hours into our 27 mandatory hours and it's been ok. We got a ginormous binder with every rule and regulation you can imagine. It's kind of freaked John out a bit. Which I must say, drives me a little crazy. Having been through 2 international adoptions, you would think, this would be no big deal....ah...yes...but then I remember that I am the one who did every scrap of paperwork for both adoptions, made all the appointments etc, etc. If it were up to John...I think we would still be working on paperwork for our daughter (who came home in 2005)...or it would have been abandoned altogether. While this is not a comment on his lack of paper organization, it's just saying that we work best, when I do the paperwork and tell him when to show up. For him to sit through hours of foster classes...it's not his favorite thing to do so far (though they do feed us dinner and his comment yesterday was, "well-at least the food's pretty good.")

It's opened up a lot of conversation. As foster parents you have the option to foster kids of all ages or of specific ages and genders. We have decided that we will foster kids 0-24 months and the gender debate is ongoing. I'm not sure where that will end up.

For those of you who don't know, we are hoping to expand our family through Fost/adopt. At some point I can see us just fostering, but right now our goal is to expand our family and give a home to a child that needs a home....or children...we haven't decided yet and will go where the Lord leads.

Our "first" homestudy will be this next Tuesday. In reality it's homestudy #11 since 2004. With all of the international requirements, we have walked this road...um...just a couple of times before ;-)

Today!

Today we begin our foster parenting classes through the county. I have no idea what to expect, so it should be interesting...plus they feed us dinner...so there's something else to look forward to..?

Also I quite randomly found a foster parenting podcast by Tim and Wendy. It's been a lot of fun to listen from the beginning and glean tid-bits of good info. They have just signed adoption papers for their girls placed with them through foster care! You can check out their blog and listen. Just follow the link on the sidebar or click here.