A normal baby?

Why can't we just get a normal baby who sleeps?  The Baby N woke up crying every hour and a half last night.  He was wide awake babbling from 12:30 am to 2:00 am.  I get so mad at him in the middle of the night and want to say to social services, "Move him!"  I don't really want him moved but he has been having some rough days and nights.  He demands to be held all of the time (which I want to be able to do because I know he needs that kind of attention, it's just hard with the other kids, working full time and trying to get home and get dinner made).

CC has been great.  We couldn't ask for much more from her.  She is pleasant, does everything we ask of her, tries hard in school and tries to incorporate herself into the adult parts of the family.  She still doesn't interact with the younger kids much but I don't know if that is a function of her age or her personality.  Both probably.  She was great last weekend when I needed her to babysit JC at BJ's football game while I worked in the snack stand.  JC was crying and wanted me but she just picked him up and took him away like I needed her too.  She really is a good kid so far. I am fully prepared for the honeymoon to end though.  I will be disappointed but I know it is a possibility.

BJ is probably going to move in with "his mom's cousin."  He has never met these people but he is "excited because they have kids my age."  That feels a little like a slap in the face. All of a sudden he is anxious to move on and is very sullen and grumpy around the house, especially if he doesn't get his way.  It's not really how I wanted to end things and I guess it is up to me to try to turn it around as much as possible and let him know that we are going to miss him. 

Sick days

Don't get me wrong, I am NEVER happy when one of my kids are sick.  Especially if they are in pain or super uncomfortable.  But, I will admit to occasionally loving a sick day when I am not the sick one.

JC threw up twice the other night.  At a very convenient time of 2 am. All over his sheets. So, both Andrea and I were up, (me, mostly for moral support because I am not good at at dealing with throw up - although I did put the sheets in the wash - without throwing up myself) Andrea cleaning the child and the bed, and me rubbing his back. Then he did it again about an hour later, but it was much more contained that time.

So, due to that and the fact that he felt pretty warm, we knew we could not send him to my sister's house - her daughter is just getting over an illness too (and they haven't seen each other in a week, so I can't blame her!).  This means I got to stay home from work! JC refused to wear clothes yesterday - only a diaper, so I had to bundle him in a blanket and bring him with me to to drop off BJ & Baby N to their schools.  JC threw up on the blanket on the way home.  So, after a bath for JC and doing some quick work-from-home- work we were both bundled on the couch watching Thomas the Tank Engine & we both fell asleep for about 2 hours.

I cannot remember the last time I had a such a glorious nap.  JC was fine the rest of the day, he didn't eat much - just had a smoothie, and even got up to play a bit for falling asleep for a 3 hour nap.  I got to read a book, straighten up a bit, make dinner and relax.  Even if I have a scheduled day off it's never this calm and relaxing because I know those days are few and far between, so I run errands and get stuff done.

I will take a non-scheduled sick day any day of the week (again, as long as no one was harmed in the making of that sick day).

Luckily, that giant bowl was never used

Treating ourselves

So, as everyone knows - parents need a break sometimes.  And, I am gonna say it, ESPECIALLY foster parents.  Now, while I do mean they need things like a night out or an afternoon away from kids and stress, I also mean that everyone needs a break - they need to have something, or a break from something, that makes them happy and less stressed.  For us that break is cleaning.

Ok, so we are lucky.  Our bio sons have always spent one evening a week with their bio dad.  It used to be at our house and he would come over after work, play with them, bathe them & put them to bed.  It was great, we had a whole free evening, EVERY WEEK!  And then their dad started taking classes, so those days started taking place Friday nights.  Awesome!  Then we started fostering.  Now he still takes the boys, and they spend the night at his house because he recently moved one town over from us, but we still have 3 kids to entertain.  Bye-bye night off!  That used to be our big break.

But, just last week, for the first time, we started a new break.  We had a house cleaner come in. We are going to have someone come to our house one hour a week, every week, and clean.  We don't hate cleaning & we are not terrible at it, but man, it's time consuming and trying to clean around 5 kids is VERY difficult, especially when both parents work full-time jobs.We both feel anxious and overwhelmed when the house is a mess, even if it's neat but needs dusting and vacuuming (well, that's more me than Andrea, I might be slightly OCD). And if we don't have time to clean, we get annoyed and frustrated and feel guilty about not staying up all night to clean.  Plus, it turns out these folks are WAY better at it than we are.  And now the kids HAVE to clean their rooms, put all their laundry away, get their stuff out of common areas once a week (if not more, depending on how things pile up) or else their stuff gets tossed.  It hasn't happened yet, but we are only coming up on week two. We are also forced to straighten up our bedroom, bathroom and all of our junk too.  It's a great motivator. 

As we discovered last week, there is nothing more wonderful than coming home to a sparkling house that you didn't have to spend 6 hours cleaning while not spending time with your family.  It's an awesome feeling that we carried with us all week long.  Totally worth it.

Who is this person?  Not me!!