Mama S here. Today was a day that started like no other. That simple line makes me laugh as we start each day with my singing up to the girls the song by Phil Joel:
Today, it could not have been more true.
Hello, Mama S here. So much to say, so little time in the day! Within the past few weeks our family has grown from three to four. Little Lady, who you may recognize as the teenager that has stayed with us from time to time over the past few years has come to live with us. We are both beyond excited, and exceptionally devastated.
Mama S here. A few weeks ago I got home and furiously disassembled our bedroom. Why? Trauma. Our little has struggled with sleep, her bedroom, nighttime since she moved in. We have tried many different solutions over the past 15 months to help settle her mind in those precious moments when she should be sleeping. A few weeks ago we had enough. We moved our bed to the same level as hers.
Mama S here. As parents to a kiddo that struggles with self-regulation and self-soothing we turned to meditation and mindful reflection early on in P being placed with us. We did not know where to start or what to do but we knew that something had to happen or we were facing explosion after explosion of frustration and rage. Cue to the most wonderful quote from the Dalai Lama:
Continue reading “47. Guided Meditation”
Mama S here. As a Foster Parent Champion I am often reaching out and chatting with people who are interested in becoming foster parents as well as catching up with current foster parents. The biggest topic of conversation that existing foster parents bring up/chat about and what I bring up with prospective foster parents is that the general public has no idea what it is like to be a foster parent. They can’t. But they all think they do.
Mama S here. Yesterday was a day like any other. I was at work and had a bunch of meetings where I can walk attorneys through a piece of software they don’t want and has less information than the one we are replacing. I got to work and looked at my calendar and saw a name that gave me a shudder. For 3 weeks I have been told many things about this person. They are grumpy, they nitpick everything, that if they say something positive is the time to worry, etc. I told someone I had a call with her that day and they cringed and said they were sorry to push them off on me. I took a deep breath and walked back to my office in dread. I picked up the phone, dialed into the conference line and decided I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Mama S here. Have you sleep trained a toddler? Perhaps you are going through that right now. If so, you know all the stall tactics that kiddos bring when they are avoiding sleep. “can I get a drink of water”, “I have to go to the bathroom”, “please read me one more story”, and on and on it goes. Simply maddening.
Continue reading “44. Sleep Training a Pre-Teen”
Mama S here. The third post in this series about how we respond to P. Saying YES as often as we can. I was chatting with a friend the other day and we were talking about how we feel when we hear the word no. How we feel when we hear that we can’t do what we want. As an adult, how does it feel when you have the best idea ever and you pitch it to your boss and they say no. How does it feel when you tell your partner that you want to do something with them on Friday night and they look at you and say No? Doesn’t feel good does it? It stinks even if you can reason out why they are saying no. Your boss may go on to explain that it isn’t in the budget. Your partner may say they already had plans. Still stinks to hear no!
Mama S here. I have been getting great feedback from people on our blog. We have hit over 40 posts in the last 2 years and we have no signs of stopping. People love to give ideas and encouragement on the blog and our fostering journey. I have had a few people tell me that they think the blog is great, but they would rather listen to our story than read it. That got us thinking. Then we got busy. It was just last week that a dear friend prompted me again to thinking about vlogging and I decided there is no time like the present!
Cue to today and our premier vlog post. I am going to go live on our 2 Moms in the Foster Lane Facebook page and introduce our family, what we have been doing these past 2 years and, over the next few vlog posts, catch the watchers up to the present. After I have a few vides under our belt and we are caught up to the present day I will start to write the blog post and do a vlog video. This way we are capturing the largest audience we can.
Please feel free to jump on the FB live videos and type in some comments and thoughts. I’d love to hear from everyone!
Until next time,
Mama S
Mama S here. To continue on from my previous post about boundaries we are going to jump in on our war against the word maybe. If Mama A and I say that we maybe will do something once every couple of weeks, I would be shocked. What do we take such a hard stance? Security!
Mama S here. I figure it is best to start with the biggest topic that people have opinions on with Mama A’s and my parenting. Boundaries. People look into our lives and don’t understand why our “no’s” are so firm and why we almost never say maybe. They don’t see how many times we re-frame what would have been a No to a yes. We are going to explore that today.
Mama S here. I’ve written this post so many different ways. In my head and on paper and it just don’t seem to come out right. I will try my best and please ask any questions you have. Our little came to us not knowing many of the skills that you might expect an older toddler to have. One example is how to bathe. For the first few weeks she lived with us we just let her do what she was going to do and took notes of the outcome. Then we tried prompts before she went into the bathroom. Then we moved to sitting outside the bathroom door and gave verbal prompts of what to do. Then we washed her hair in the sink to show her how to do it and what it should feel like. Nothing was making a difference.
