Meet The Fosters : parenting

I'm going to put on a diaper and cry

TheFosters — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 02:00:00 GMT

I don’t know how to express this without it sounding a little weird, but here goes. I am needy sometimes. No, that’s not the weird part. And sometimes I want to be cradled and comforted and catered to. It’s true, I would sometimes just like to put on a diaper and cry about everything that I want and maybe just be a baby for a while.

“No, I don’t want to eat my cereal and no I don’t want any juice and no there is nothing you can do to get me to stop crying but I want you to continue to try.”

I have been through a lot lately and I don’t have to be rational, logic or even adult. I would be happy if someone would just pick me up, put their arms around me and rock me for a while. Okay, so that is the weird part. Did I tell you that I have been through a lot lately?

Somewhere along the way to becoming a daddy, I found that there was no more time for me. I don’t get the same attention from me or from my partner, but that is not a complaint, it is a fact—he has less time for me and I for him. The dreaded universe shift has taken hold. The cosmic forces have not only pushed everything out of alignment, they have fundamentally changed the dominant order. Planets that once were the center with all other celestial bodies in orbit are now the orbiters. And our little moon baby has become the sun.

I can’t be anything but a dad now and that’s what I want. But sometimes isn’t it going to be just about me? Can’t I be the center once in while? Why are there so many things to do? Can I have more than the small slice of free time that I get on the weekends—that precious two hours of Ty’s naptime on Saturday and Sunday to do everything and to take care of myself? How does one take care of oneself and partner and this old house and the dogs in such a small span of time? How do the rest of you do it? How do our friends who have two children under the age of three do it? How do Jon and Kate do it with eight? Whaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Now that Darrow and I are talking about number two, I have begun to fear that I shall never have me time ever again. And by me time I don’t mean being able to do household chores or the myriad of other things pulling on my coattails, nagging me around every corner, whispering in my ear, take care of me, and me, no, me next. Noooooooooooooooo!

No, me time is going to a coffee shop for however long I want with my laptop or drawings; taking a bath without plastic ducks floating by; reading a good book on top of the bed that doesn’t rhyme or have farm animals; going to a matinee with a bucket of popcorn and gummy bears that I don’t have to share. Miiiiiiiiiiine!

I know it’s out there—me time. My wonderful partner has offered to give me a break many times. I suppose I should take him up on it next time around. For now what I’ve discovered is that at night after Ty has gone to bed, when my eyelids start to droop, I can slip downstairs to our bedroom and go to sleep—just a little early. Our son has always loved going to bed. And maybe for now during this really crazy period I get to be a baby and have an early bedtime. Then maybe during the day I won’t be whining so much—just like a big baby.

--J

Boogie Wonderland

TheFosters — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:58:00 GMT

We succumbed to the dreaded end-of-summer family vacation, we tolerated the kitsch of the aging road-side amusement park.

We came, we saw, he conquered!

We had plans with other families for the Labor Day weekend but they fell through about mid-July. Then we shifted to visiting family, but that too disintegrated. By mid-August after every hotel room anywhere near the beach (our Plan C) was booked, we turned landward again in an effort to give it just one more shot. We have been a little beat-down by the summer in a lot of ways. I think I would have cried if we had all this time off around the holiday and didn't get a chance to escape for a few days. Then someone said something about Dutch Wonderland. Dutch what?

Think back, way back before Six Flags, Busch Gardens or Disney World, when in almost every city there were amusement parks planted right along side the local highway. Most had themes with lots of fiberglass storybook and fairytale characters, small colorful rides, miniature trains, a colorful ferris-wheel that wasn't but fifty feet tall. We aren't talking about the g-force, gut-wrenching high-tech rollercoasters or anything like that. We're talking schmaltz and kitsch and ever-lasting memories of spinning, twirling, rocking rides. Most of them are long gone. I remember Lincoln City, Oregon as a kid. It was as road-side a park as you could get--tiny rollercoaster, carousel with octopus and unicorns, donkey rides and really tall slides--but I imagine it no longer exists. I suspect it was dismantled long ago probably to make way for a condo complex or a shopping mall.

But there is one that still exists--Dutch Wonderland. And as the name suggests it's dripping with kitsch from the fiberglass life-sized but definitely not life-like Pennsylvania Dutch people to the gigantic salted pretzel.

In all seriousness, it was a fantastic place to take Ty that included a ride on a motorized car, a carousel, playing in a water park designed for little kids, and riding a train that circled the park. The great thing about the train was that there were seven or eight railroad crossings along the walking paths throughout the park, complete with lighted warning signs and moving gates. I don't know if Ty was more excited riding the train or watching it pass by as it moved through the park. You might notice from the picture below that Ty has this horrified look while riding the carousel with Darrow. He is actually shouting at the train passing behind me.

Without question the thing Ty would remember most if he could remember anything at all at his age would be the water park. He was a maniac, stomping on the ground where the water spouted up, sticking his head in the squirting fountains, squealing at other children who also splashed about. He even had a lot of fight left in him when I went to take off his suit and dress him. He continued to play and wrestle me during the diaper change. And though the park has been around for decades it clearly has not lost any of its appeal. Ty was sound asleep in the stroller before we even got him back to the car.

And though the park was a lot of fun, the hotel room had its own charms. Take a California King bed, a nice set of sheets and lots of fluffy pillows and you have one great playroom. I guess I was a bad daddy and let him jump on the bed and on me. We played pillow fight--actually I hit him with the pillows and he laughed hysterically. We had waffles in the hotel lobby--it was our own little hotel wonderland.

Some of the things we took away from Dutch Wonderland:

This place was a blast, close by and we should go back
We don't go away enough and sometimes just a night in a hotel can be fun
Ty is becoming a little boy

-- J

Christmas in July

TheFosters — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:30:00 GMT

I am a product of the cartoon and claymation era of Christmas classics including The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman. I think one of my favorites would have to be Santa Claus is Coming to Town. It is sufficiently corny, has plenty of holiday cheer and this strange sexual energy between Jessica (the future Mrs. Claus) and Kris Kringle. I believe that the claymation master in charge of the Jessica character was a bit of a freak. She's got just a little too much curve going on for children's programming, but I digress.

The really great thing about Santa Claus is Coming to Town is that there isn't just one villain but two. First there is one of the greatest, scariest characters ever developed--The Winter Warlock. Unlike the Abominable Snowman from Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, who was a pretty scary figure, Winter Warlock sounded evil and surely did bad things. I could imagine him being accused of torture or some other heinous act. As we all know however, Kris Kringle was able to warm his heart and turn him into just another Santa Claus convert. The second villain, who was not so much scary, as sinister, was the Burgermeister, Meisterburger. He was the mayor-like figure in the small town where Kris Kringle began to do his work-giving away toys.

For some reason he did not particularly like toys. Here are a few of his proclamations:

Toys are hereby declared illegal, immoral, unlawful AND anyone found with a toy in his possession will be placed under arrest and thrown in the dungeon. No kidding!

I hate toys! And toys hate me! Either they are going or I am going and I definitely am not going!

The epic battle begins where Kris, curvy Jessica and all of the little elves try to give the dirty, coal-smudged faced kids in the non-descript Eastern Europe town their toys. The Burgermeister Meisterburger takes them away, Kris covertly brings more toys, they get taken away, etc. This back and forth continues until the Burger Meister's persecution ultimately drives the Kringles into exile at the North Pole.

Okay so it is the middle of summer--Christmas is a good six months away, so why am I diving into the bucket of Christmas nostalgia? Well with the Fosters it always has something to do with fostering. I have lamented in previous posts about our interactions with our local social services agency and have described the difficulties in dealing with our son's case worker as well as our home worker. As incredulous as it may seem, we have been accused of being the Burgermeister Meisterburger.

You see our worker comes once a month to stand around and ask us silly questions:

"Does he have bibs?"

"Well, do you have any long-sleeved shirts for him?"

"Can you put a coat on him?"

"Yellow isn't a good color for him, can you change his shirt?"

Alright, so I made that last one up, but you get the idea. Stupid, a little insulting, but we have put up with her. Darrow sometimes refers to her as Aunt Clara, the bumbling but sweet character from Bewitched. She has always seemed harmless and maybe just a little dim. There didn't seem to be any reason to challenge her with something like, "what the hell does having a bib on him have to do with keeping our foster certification you f@#$ing freak?!" Sorry that just slipped out.

Of course all that has changed. As our relationship with social services continues to evolve (deteriorate) so has the way in which we relate to this worker. I think the stupidity and insulting questions were threatening to push us over the edge.

She arrived for one of her monthly visits, early as usual, hoping to find out something that she wouldn't find out if she were on time. As she often does, she made the remark about whether we had forgotten she was coming. "No Aunt Clara, remember we were meeting you at 5:30 and so now you have to wait at the door because I am upstairs changing Ty's diaper."

After I let her in, it wasn't long before the questions began.

So how is he doing?

What kind of foods does he like?

Where does he sleep?

He's walking, is he?

What kind of formula is he on?

Where are his little shoes?

He's doing fine.

Ho-hos and chicken wings.

In the crate with the dog

Walking-yes.

Formula-we've been trying to wean him from the little Jack Daniel's that we put in his Infamil.

No shoes, just callouses.

Then comes the most bizarre series of questions:

"So what does he like to play with, I mean what kind of toys." I guess she missed the Easter bunny that was sitting on the chair next to her; and the myriad of toys that were encircling him in his pack-n-play; or maybe she had forgotten the many times she had seen his room or our house littered with toys.

Silly me, thinking that she was asking some other question, I began to explain to her that he was in this phase where he was much more interested in playing with Tupperware rather than with his toys. He had discovered the joys of the Tupperware drawer while visiting my family in May. He was now into exploration, where he wanders around the house investigating everything, pulling everything out of drawers, that kind of thing. He would prefer banging plastic lids together rather than playing with his little people bus.

"Well, so let me ask you...can I ask you a personal question? Um, so do you believe that it's right for children to play with toys?"

Silence.

"Um, what?"

"You know does he have toys that you let him play with?"

I think Darrow and I might have looked at each other like, what did she just ask? For a moment I thought to answer her, but it was such a freakish question that I wasn't sure what to say. What, are we in some kind of cult, where children are deprived of the joys of playing with toys. It's the cult of the Burgermeister Meisterburger. Toys, I hate toys. There'll be no more toys throughout the land!

At that moment I couldn't respond to the question. Instead I motioned to her to come up stairs. I showed her the pile of toys in his room. Then we walked into the sun porch where a lot of his stand-up or push toys are located. Eventually we made it back to his pack-n-play full of toys. She didn't seem embarrassed after taking the "Ty's wonderful world of toys tour." In fact I think she went on to talk about some other inane thing that popped into her mind. I wondered at that point how she ever made it through the day. We managed to shove her out the door a few minutes later. It all seemed just a little too crazy even for Aunt Clara and it didn't make any sense but it seems like everything these days with these people--none of it makes sense.

Unfortunately these are the people who have a say in our future, so we are careful in how we handle them. We put up with their crap and then we get to joke about it in our blog posts. And although Christmas is a long ways off, I am so looking forward to it this year. I think this time around, Ty will be much more aware of what is happening. He might even be willing to sit in Santa's lap. And for me, there is really only one thing I want this year. I want to have my son for just one more Christmas.

--J

The Sharing of Waffles

TheFosters — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:41:00 GMT

Back on October 17^th, when Juan got the call from a social services worker about Ty – when Juan then called me at work to get my take– when I said yes and committed to being a father for the duration, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. Sure, I knew that my life was about to change but only in a general I’m-going-to-be-a-dad sort of way. I was willing, and as ready as I could be, to share my life with a child In fact, I expected that there was going to be lots of sharing, and I was ok with that.

Really. I was.

That is…until it was time for waffles.

Waffles are, for me, a delicacy. They are a treat to be appreciated and savored. I like to linger over them, taking the time to taste every bite – every drop of syrup and melted butter. I prefer to eat them at a cafe or small restaurant. The atmosphere is more waffle-friendly than big chains, though IHOP (avert your eyes, Juan) will do in a pinch. I can bring my iPod and a book or the newspaper and lose myself in the experience.

And when I say "waffle", I’m not talking about Eggos or Aunt Jemima. Both are good and will serve in a pinch, but they aren’t a replacement for the real deal. The only waffle that really matters is the kind made with a waffle iron. It should be round, take up an entire plate and be full of big, deep squares that hold gobs of butter and syrup.

Until last month, I hadn’t had a waffle since before Ty’s arrival. A couple of weeks ago, one early Saturday morning, I scooped up Ty and headed to a little spot a short drive from home. It was one of those perfect weekend mornings - sunny, cool and quiet. I was looking forward to a moment's rest from our mad mad Saturday mornings, and by the time I got to the cafe's door, my mouth was already watering. I could practically taste the sweet syrup and juicy strawberries.

Once at the counter, I ordered…

“I'd like the waffle with strawberries and maple syrup, please.”

The woman behind the counter, who didn’t look crazy a few seconds before, suddenly seemed more than a little off her rocker.

“And what will your little guy be having? Some of your waffle?”

Umm. Having? Waffle? MY waffle? Surely, she’s kidding. I do not share waffles.

“He’ll be having a blueberry muffin.”

I mean c'mon. A couple of days before The Waffle Trip, Ty shoved grits up his nose and then happily stuck his fingers in his mouth. His palate is not even close to waffle-ready.

I sat down and marveled at the lovely creation, almost afraid to put a knife to it. But, I was hungry and a had to move quickly, before Ty realized that his blueberry muffin and my waffle were not one and the same. Lately, he's been a lot more aware of specific foods and knows when he is not getting exactly the same thing as us. Of course, there are times when he simply doesn't want what we have, at least not totally. Grapes are a perfect example. Ty will suck on and chew a grape until all that's left is the skin, which he promptly lets slip out of his mouth and onto his shirt. I couldn't even stomach the idea that he might mash up a perfectly good piece of waffle and spit it out...or drop it on the floor...or worse yet, get it tangled in his hair. What a waste that would be.

So, intent on enjoying my experience, I strategically positioned the plate away from Ty and kept pieces of blueberry muffin flowing in his direction. I'm learning that redirection and distraction are key to managing a toddler. I'm also learning that toddler's cannot be ignored. As I start to dice up the second quarter of the waffle, I heard Ty grunt something like "mmm...mmmgggg...mmmm". I knew what that mean, but I tried to ignore it.

"More blueberry? Can you say more?

"mmm! mmmmgggggg!!"

"Juice? You want some juicy?"

I knew better. The little booger was after my waffle. My waffle. I tried the blueberry/juice distraction again, but only half-heartedly. I was starting to feel a little self-conscious (and creepy) as I sat hunched over the remaining syrup-soaked bits of waffle. And really, creepy and selfish is not a good look for me...or anyone for that matter.

So I gave in, maybe out of guilt and maybe for appearances sake.

w

I know I've got some learning and living to do when it comes to sharing. I'm thinking if I can get to the point of sharing my waffle, then the sky is the limit.

Chocolate cake is where I draw the line though. He'll have to get his own piece.

--D

Thinking of Baby Number 2

TheFosters — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:27:00 GMT

It's more than a little ironic that on one of my more sour and exhausted days, I write about wanting to add another child to the mix.

Since Ty discovered that the two little stubs below his waist actually took him places much faster if he stood on them, he has been relentlessly curious, determined, and stubborn. He examines, tugs on, topples and deconstructs pretty much anything within his reach and line of sight. This morning, I watched him careen around the living room, one compact bundle of energy and drool, stopping periodically to screech out something that could have been (if I didnt' know better) "don't you do that!", but it came out more like "dondooodooodat!" He then moved on, full of purpose. In a span of maybe two minutes, he had managed to investigate an outlet cover, the dog crate, a cabinet full of CDs, the doorknob to the sunroom, his activity table, and Mika's nose. I finally scooped him up and put him in his playpen. All that motion might not tire him out, but I get beat just watching him.

He's a crafty little guy too, in a cute sort of way. Yesterday while Juan was downstairs getting dinner ready, I watched Ty try to squeeze himself under one of the baby gates in an attempt to escape to the first floor. After he realized his head was hopelessly too large for the narrow opening, he pulled at the gate, let out a sad whine and turned to me with a look that said "Don't you love me any more? Free meeeeeeee!!"

So today, despite being exhausted by Ty's toddler-ness, #2 is on my mind again. This isn't really a new thing. Before we embarked on this journey a little more than a year ago, Juan and I had already decided that we wouldn't stop at just one kid. And now that Ty is a part of our lives, it's hard to imagine him as an only child. He plays well by himself, but he really comes to life when there are other kids around.

We have a lot to consider before we get serious about #2. We've got the usual worries that come with the territory of growing a family. Money is tight, time is short, and closet space is nearly non-existent. Money has been on my mind a lot lately. I changed careers a couple of years ago and now get a paycheck that looks disturbingly similar to the paychecks I received back in 1993. In fact, I made more money in 1992 then I will this year or next. I've been wondering lately if I was a little premature in deciding to change careers before starting a family. Technology wasn't always fun, but it definitely paid the bills.

I have a love-hate relationship with our house. At times, its purple and green cottage-like nature is very comforting. At other times, the to-do list seems formidable. Is this the right house to raise a family in?   Its old with small bedrooms and ridiculously tiny closets. The basement hasn't seen a remodel since the early 90s, and there's no decent space for kids to play inside. I'm not a fan of the ubiquitous brick-front suburban homes, but they do have a certain made-for-families appeal.

So all that aside, the most pressing issue is our situation with Ty. He's not our kid - biologically or legally - which means he could very well return to the life he had before October 19, 2007.   When? We don't know. It could happen this fall or next spring. We've been told this process takes on average 15 to 18 months from the day of placement. And the key phrase is "on average". He could be two years old or closer to three before anything becomes final.

What do we do in the meantime?  Take the chance that Ty is kid #1 and get started on #2? What if we do adopt another child and Ty goes back? How would we handle the loss? How would Ty's return affect his adopted sibling? Should we wait until the outcome with Ty is more clear?

There is one thing Juan and I know with certainty. We've had enough of DSS and foster-to-adopt. It's time to give domestic private adoption a try. For now, we cannot imagine having to deal with the same problem-ridden, broken system again to adopt a young child. It's a shame that we've had to come to that decision, but we've learned a lot in the past few months and have a much better understanding of what we'll tolerate and risk.

-- D

The Trip Home - Part II

TheFosters — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:45:00 GMT

How do you stretch a three hour nap over a four and a half hour flight...you don't

It has taken some time to get this down on paper. I think in reflection it is easier to find some humor in it. My predictions of an ill-fated plane ride home though dramatic, were pretty much on the mark. But really, what's a vacation without a little traveling drama? It makes the story a little more interesting for everyone. I would much rather hear about the crazy taxi driver who almost killed everyone, or the sudden thunderstorm that threatened to wash our beach hut into the bay, then, "we had a wonderful, relaxing time."

In an effort to have a repeat of our trip out, we tried to get young Ty to sleep as much as possible on the flight. We had kept him up late the night before and allowed him only limited napping in the morning. In the beginning he spent a short time fidgeting in the seats before the familiar fingers in the mouth trick which signaled it was time for nitey-nite.

It was nice to have him go down so easy. The problem though for us was how to stretch his two hour nap time over a four and a half hour flight. With a little more than 2 hours left in the flight, the little guy woke up hungry and fussy. We began with a bottle and some crackers. That bought us 15 minutes. Then he had some of the cookies that the flight attendant gave us and he played with some of his toys. After a diaper change and a few intermittent screeches we had killed another 30 minutes. That left us 1 ¼ hours left to fill. For a while Ty would focus on things in the seat, the moveable arm-rests, the tray tables, seat-belts. The screeches continued--just a few but they were more frequent and generally involved wanting or not wanting to do something. As we quickly ran out of occupying activities we resorted to the last resort--books. I realized at the time that even if I could maintain his interest in story-time, I certainly did not have enough reading material to last an hour. And I didn't think that I could read Spot's Big Adventure the necessary 17 ½ times in order to fill the 57 minutes left in the flight.

Unfortunately it was worse than that. Ty just was not in a quiet mood and not really into sitting listening to stories. He was a little attention-challenged and kept grabbing the pages and trying to close the book and becoming frustrated. Each time I took the book back from him in order to continue the story, he would screech. Then I began to notice the darting eyes-to the front, to the side, to the back. We were quickly becoming one of those horror story flights. You know, when the weary travelers lament about the screaming kid who wouldn't shut up during the flight. I realized that all he actually wanted to do was wander through the airplane--something he obviously couldn't do. His other preference was to wrestle the moveable arm rest and scream when he could not get it to move. At one point he began writhing in his seat and belting out some good long ones.

What's worse, there were other kids on the flight but they weren't being very loud, or perhaps they were but Ty was drowning them out. Not only were we loud, we seemed highly visible on the flight, because well, here are two grown men trying to handle this pre-toddler and I would imagine to most we were not doing a very good job.

I would like to believe that the giant Middle Eastern man in front of me and the scary looking long-haired woman behind us were really nice people under different circumstances. The few times I walked down through the plane with Ty, scary lady was standing behind our seats glaring down at us over her reading glasses. Besides the periodic glances over the back of his seat, the giant kept sighing and as we pulled into the gate he had a loud cell phone conversation intended for us to overhear, indicating to the person on the other end that this was indeed the worst flight of his entire life.

Are we to be banished from commercial flights? Should we be punished for trying to travel with a 1 ½ year old? And where were the flight attendants? Don't they have little airplane toys and wing pins and isn't that part of their job to distract little ones when their parents have exhausted all other options? I guess like everything else in the airline industry, they have cut out that service. Frankly, they seemed a little annoyed with us also--go figure.

By the time the wheels hit the ground, it was all starting to get under my skin even though I tried not to let it. The last 15 minutes were probably the worst since Ty had to be held tightly in our lap as part of our preparation for landing. There was a lot more back-arching and a fairly steady tirade of screams. I wasn't sure what was worse: his screaming or the hostility coming now from all around us. In the end though, we gave them all a really good story--in fact the best story. For the giant, it would rank up there with the worst ever traveling horror stories and he would live to tell it over and over and over.

It was our little bit of traveling drama. Not only does the giant and the scary lady have a story to tell, but so do I. So the next question is when is our next trip? Well, I hear that those crazy Californians are letting same-sex couples get married. What do you think--here we come Disneyland?!

The Trip Home - Part I

TheFosters — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:33:00 GMT

Wishing my son could grow-up around my family

On the last day, I think we were all ready to head back home. It was a good trip--the first time in recent memory that I had ever thought of moving back home. In those seven days I got much more than I expected out of being with family, not that I had low expectations. I felt their warmth in a different way than I ever had before. After forty some-odd years of being their son, brother, uncle, friend, I was now a dad. I don't know how that made me different or how it may have made them different towards me. In any case there was so much good in what I and my little family felt from them.

I knew that my parents would take to Ty. They have always embraced their grandchildren, making time for them, showering them with gifts and love, talking so proudly of them to their friends. What surprised me a little was how much my brothers took to the little guy and how quickly he took to them. For some time now, Ty has had this stranger anxiety which did not seem like it was going to dissipate anytime soon. He took a little time to warm up to my Dad, step-Mother and even my Mother. But George, my little brother picked him up like they were best buddies. They were cackling in a mirror, reading stories together, playing with toys. George is probably the most kid-like of all of my siblings. At times Ty put his fingers in his mouth and seemed content just to be held by George. We wondered if it was the family resemblance--George being just a younger version of me that enabled Ty to feel so comfortable, so quickly with his uncle. Or maybe it was just because he is George.

Then there is my brother Bill. He and his wife Pam live in a great old house on a ranch. They have dogs and cats and horses. In many ways being on the ranch feels like you are not just visiting family but it is like being on vacation. It was sitting at their huge farm table two years ago that Darrow and I first discussed with them the fact that we were planning to have a family. I sat at that same table watching the two of them now interacting with our son. It was in Pam's kitchen that Ty first discovered the joys of the Tupperware drawer. Who knew that two people could bond over some plastic.

After we got home, it didn't take him long to locate the Tupperware in our kitchen. My brother Bill immediately put the Tigger that they bought for him on his head in order to play with Ty. Ty kept giggling as he watched his long-haired, bushy-faced uncle be silly. It is just my brother's nature. He like Darrow is a Dad's dad. Any kid would be lucky to have him for a dad or an uncle for that matter.

Then there is Uncle Russell. We were lucky enough to see a lot of Uncle Russell--a big loveable man and another of those that will make someone a wonderful father. He too exudes the sense of calm and repose and care that seemed to make Ty feel comfortable. He pointed out the ferries crossing the water at the end of the pier.

Saying goodbye was harder this time. Instead of missing my family generally, it felt like it was amplified by the fact that I was not going to be near them all during this wonderful time for us. It is hard to be so far away when life continues to go on: kids grow up; parents grow older; people fall in and out of love; everything changes too damn much. A lot can happen in a year, or two, or three. Every time I go home there is this illusion that nothing should have changed while I was away. I not only miss them, I miss what is happening to them. What's worse, now they will all miss what is happening to me, to us, as our son continues to flourish. In some ways that is harder to deal with.

--J

Strangers Among Us

TheFosters — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 17:20:00 GMT

There is no time in my life other than this one as Ty's foster dad when I have been so acutely aware of strangers and their potential impact on our lives. Juan and I have encountered what seems like an army of people, many who claim to have his and our interests in mind. We've met others who, on the surface, seem to have the best of intentions and give us no reason to believe otherwise. But who are these people? What roles do they play? What power do they have to shape our lives?

Friend or foe?

Maybe it's the sheer number of new faces that engenders my suspicion. Eight months and 20-plus people later and the names and roles are a blur - caseworkers, their supervisors, attorneys, doctors, physical therapists, occupational therapists, continuing placement workers. You need a chart and flowsheet diagram just to attempt to understand the purpose and relatedness of all these people.

The current caseworker is undoubtedly the most confounding of them all. Technically speaking, she is the worker for Ty and his biological family. Unofficially, I think her role is to keep us as deep in the dark as possible about Ty's case. She offers nothing and, if it were possible, would answer even less. For instance, she picks Ty up for weekly visits with his siblings and parents, she never tells us how the visits go. On any given visit-day, we're not even sure if they occur. We are left to figure out the outcome based on a combination of things - the time she returns Ty, the amount of food, drink, and diapers remaining in the diaper bag, Ty's level of crankiness, and the day's horoscope and biorhythm readings.

This caseworker mentions the need for us to act as part of "the team" - one that works towards reunification - yet she provides no information about a number of things - disposition hearings (a longhanded way of saying "Ty's fate"), team meetings, or approaching milestones. Her attitude is inconsistent. Her email correspondences verge on being stoic, full of agency lingo about processes, policies, and imperatives. When she visits us at our home, she plays the role of the happy, child-loving young woman. She calls Ty "Boo" and speaks to him in a sing-songy voice that grates on my ears worse than the sound of a dentist's drill. "Boo?", I've found myself thinking. "I got your #$%@! Boo." I am uncomfortable with and angry about her familiarity, forced or not, with Ty while she provides little if any help and information to us. To her credit though, we've heard that she has told others that we are good foster parents and that Ty is very attached to us. So, who is she and what is she up to?

I don't mean to focus on her though. Maybe because she is our primary contact with social services, she then gets to be the object of my frustration and anger, as well as my suspicion and distrust. I've got enough of that lately to go around though, and sometimes it's directed at others in this foster-maybe-we'll-adopt process. At the last two hearings, I remember standing with Juan in the waiting area outside the mediation room, watching people go in and out of the room, and I wondered about their involvement in the case and in our lives. I noticed how they walked by, a couple people acknowledging us and others ignoring us completely. Some had in common an expression of busyness but in that self-important way - faces that said "I'm doing something important here. Don't waste my time." I guess you start to feel important when you have others' lives in your hands. What power. What authority. These people...theses strangers can decide Ty's fate...our fate.

I end up having the same questions about them. Who are you? Where do you fit in all this? Do you care at all about our lives?

Strangers, of course, are everywhere. I notice them more and I blame that on my new status as parent to a ridiculously cute, mobile little man. Very recently, Ty got over his stranger anxiety. Now, he's all grins and inquisitivity. Ty flashes that dimpled-grin in an instant and before you know it, some stranger is coming over to exclaim how cute he is. A woman who lives a couple of blocks from our house practically drove her car onto the curb one day in an attempt to pull over and talk to us about Ty. "You must let me babysit sometime!" she gushed while her husband looked on. I had never talked to or even seen her before that moment. Babysit Ty? Shouldn't we at least know each other for a full half-hour before she offers to raise my kid?

Ty has no problem waddling over to strangers and striking up an interaction. At times, I stand there uncomfortably. Not everyone always wants to deal with a 17-month old kid no matter how cute he might be. And Ty isn't exactly the best judge of character. My protective, increasingly paranoid nature kicks in. Child beater? Pedophile? Gingerbread house witch? Who is this person and what's up with the niceness towards Ty?

Ok, maybe I am paranoid. Demons are not lurking in every shadow waiting to snatch Ty into the darkness and devour his childhood soul. I tell myself that I do have reason for caution and suspicion. Like many of you reading this, I didn't make it through childhood without some bumps and bruises. I look back at my days as a little one and marvel at the level of mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright viciousness that adults sometimes displayed. One of my most vivid memories as a child was when an "uncle" took me to the playground and conviced me to jump from the top of the jungle-gym. "I'll catch you," he said. So, after some hesitation...I jumped. Unfortunately, he didn't fulfill his end of the bargain. I ended up gasping for air as I landed face down in the hard, hot sand, the wind totally knocked out of me. Talk about an empathic failure. There were a few other moments like that, moments when I was reminded that people are not always kind and that motives and issues are not always what they may seem. And even family and friends can be strangers sometimes.

Intellectually, I know I can't protect Ty and my family from hurt. And I wonder if my new-found suspicion and slight paranoia is more of a response to a lack of control than anything else. There is nothing we can really do about social services - the process, the cast of characters or the issues and motivations they present. I feel stuck, waiting and watching for signs that tell me that things will be ok. I scrutinize others in the hopes that I'll weed out the foes from the friends and make it through one more day, bruise-less and bump-free.

I'm sure there's a better way to go about things, but for now, this is all I got.

-- D

The Trip Out

TheFosters — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:20:00 GMT

So I don't have any horror stories yet to tell but we are only through day two of a seven day trip. I was so wound up by the time we were ready to leave for the airport that I wasn't sure I could handle screaming baby / evil passenger drama.

Ty and I had been to a doctor's appointment that seemed to drag on forever. First you check-in, then you wait, then you see the medical assistant, then you see the intern or resident, and finally the doctor appears a little over an hour after the appointment began. So I am already geared up by the length of time I have to entertain a 16 month old, coupled with the bad news that his specialist wants to do yet another test. I think she enjoys torturing my son. We both left there agitated and exhausted.

We sped home so we could pack up the dogs and cart them off to their doggie vacation. Try taking a baby and three, big, excited, fearful dogs into a dog kennel while serenaded by a chorus of the current canine residents. I was already feeling bad because I can't stand to leave the ol'lady of the house, Mika when we go on vacation. I have a fear that something might happen to her and I would not be able to be there with her. And to top it off she started giving me the shivering, quivering, daddy don't leave me at this awful place, bit. I had to scoop up the little one and leave without looking back. Also weighing heavily on my mind was the rescheduled hearing regarding our son's case that was just about to begin. We were not going to be able to stand outside the courtroom this time because this train was about to leave for the airport for one well deserved and needed vacation.

When we got home it was time to go through the list. Surely we weren't ready, would forget something, would regret not taking more time to pack. Darrow had beaten us home from work, had changed and was already doing the final packing and checking to make sure we were ready. I was beginning to realize that I could relax a little, not much, just a little. As our departure deadline approached, we began to load the car and were on the road just as we had planned.

Once we had parked the car and were on the shuttle bus to the airport it seemed like it was time to relax some more. Ty seemed a little perplexed by the whole thing. I don't think he had ever been on a bus before and I was certain he had never seen the inside of an airport. Security was a breeze, surprisingly. I guess they had figured out the whole liquids and baby bottle thing. They didn't even make Ty take off his shoes. We were also confused by the fact that no one questioned our authority to take this child on a plane for interstate travel. I had brought documents showing that Ty was our foster son and we had authority to take him out of state. Nobody cares--who knew. I suppose biological parents don't have to bring birth cerificates to prove "ownership" of their traveling children.

So we are off to the gate where there are wide open carpeted spaces. You could see Ty's little mind working, wanting to get out there and crawl around everywhere. A few times I had to retrieve a stray bag that had gotten away from us. For dinner we had luke-warm pasta that everyone seemed to enjoy, mainly because we were hungry. As we got near the gate, the agent began to announce, "those passengers who need a little extra time for boarding...." I always wanted to be one of those special people who got to board the plane first. Of course, just as they made the announcement, the little one started to smell. So I whisked him off to change the dirty diaper and while I was still wiping away his little behind, Darrow calls me on my cell phone to say the gate agent is giving him grief because they are ready to close the door. Hey, who can plan these things and it's not like I was taking my time or anything. So I get the little guy fresh again and we race in the stroller back to the gate.

All aboard. All aboard? All aboard the empty plane! It seems that because this is one of their maiden flights on this new route that the plane is less than half full. In fact all of the families with kids began packing up and migrating to the back of the plane to get away from the non-child carrying passengers and to spread out in their very own row. Besides the really nice people sitting behind us who played peek-a-boo with Ty, there wasn't anyone within a few rows of us. How great is this! Even if our son gets the screaming me-mes, its just us parents and kids and we are all in the back of the plane. Ty played and goofed around and screamed just once or twice and then he went to sleep in the seat between us. And there he stayed until the landing gear came down. It was a beautiful thing.

My dad was there waiting for us at baggage claim. It was good to see him, he is a great guy and I was happy to have our son finally meet him. At first Ty played shy, by turning away a little and putting his head in the nape of my neck. But it wasn't long before he was sitting in "Poppa's" lap. My father does not respond to grandpa. All of his grandchildren call him Poppa. We made the trek to his house and we set everything up in our room. By midnight (3AM EST) all three of us were safely in bed, snoozing away. It was a happy beginning to our little adventure.

Parents of Screaming Child are Choked by Angry Passengers...Details at 11

TheFosters — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:55:00 GMT

Somehow I have this fear and dread about our trip. Did we mention that we're going out of town? Finally, we have decided no matter what Ty's future is with us, that we are going to make this little guy officially a part of our family. He will be introduced to our extended families, thus the non-stop flight to the West Coast. Later this summer we are planning an up-state New York trip to hit Darrow's family.

Okay, so sometimes I can be the voice of gloom and doom, though not always, just sometimes, okay oftentimes. Up until a few years ago, I traveled a lot for work. Each and every time there was an undercurrent of stress that I carried with me up until the time I put my butt into the seat of the plane, then I could start to relax. My fear now though, is that we as new dads will forget something, or since this is the first time traveling by plane with a kid in tow that we will inevitably make mistakes and everyone on that plane will hate us. Here is the problem:

Ty is officially a toddler, mobile, active and does not sit still.
Ty is able when he is unhappy or hungry to let out the most blood-curdling scream that has ever emanated from any child, anywhere, ever in the history of children.
Ty is a very good sleeper if he is placed in his crib with room to flip and thrash. When in smaller spaces he tends to wake more frequently (please see item no. 2 above).

Wish us well. We will be reporting back periodically on our travels. Oh, did I mention we are on a night flight so most other passengers will be sleeping....make that trying to sleep.

--J

Cry Baby

TheFosters — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:00:00 GMT

Crying.

I hate to cry.

Hate.

My son cries at the drop of a hat. Periodically I notice tears on his face and remember that just 30 seconds ago he was trying to tell me something, some unfortunate thing I had done or failed to do for him: need food Da-da, need sleep, need diaper changing, need you to pick me up, don't need anything just felt like crying, Da-da.

I unfortunately have been acting more like my son these days. And actually I think I have him to blame. I don't think I have wept so openly and in so many public places in my entire life. And there is nothing that pains me more, regardless of whether they are tears of joy or sorrow. I don't have problems with other people's tears or my son's for that matter. In fact his little cry is so endearing that sometimes both us daddies have to chuckle--well that is if he isn't in real pain or distress.

Luckily for me it is easy to mask my tears during the winter months with Kleenex and a faux cold. I found out today that it is pretty easy to shed tears without being discovered while you are running. I mean tears, sweat--who's going to know the difference. And of course I just remembered why I was tearing up during my run at lunch today--something about his mother and the sadness I feel for him and for her (definitely another post). And now I am on the frigging train. Here I am writing this and trying to keep my composure as a few tears start to flow. How painful it would be for someone to lean over and to ask me if I was okay.

I don't know why the disdain for my own tears. It might be vanity--not particularly manly, dignified, or strong of me to cry in public. Okay, so why is a gay man worried about being manly you ask. I am not quite sure. I think maybe it is that men in general are not given permission to shed tears. I know that it has to do with my background. There wasn't a lot of open weeping from the men in my family. I think that has changed as we have gone through difficult experiences together. Still, I remember standing at the foot of my younger brother's grave the day of his funeral. There we all were, my big family struggling with the pain of losing someone close--suddenly, unexpectedly. And there is my great uncle, this little ancient gray-haired man from the old country. He comes up to me and grabs my arm and says, "You need to be strong for the family." What are we Mafioso now? In other words stop your crying you big cry baby. I was annoyed with him but I understood: it is their way on that side of the family.

Well the composure that I might have had back then has all but disappeared in the last six months. Since Ty came to us, my heart seems to not only be on my sleeve, but my lapel, my cuff, my pant-leg, even my shoe laces. What is that all about? Is this some kind of strange hormonal response? I don't remember testosterone acting like that. There have been a couple of times, okay, several times when Darrow and I have been hovering over his crib while he was sleeping and one or both of us just ended up in tears. Is it like this for everyone? I have the feeling that more fathers than would care to admit have similar experiences. So I am trying to embrace this new emotional reality, but I am also hoping that it subsides a little the longer I am a Dad. I know that there is nothing wrong with me or shedding tears in public. I think I prefer a mushy dad to the stoic unemotional dad any day. I just don't think I will ever get used to it--being a cry baby.

--J

The Tic-Toc-Tic-Toc

TheFosters — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:00:00 GMT

I don't like it when my son is afraid. What parent does? I remember the few times that I inadvertently frightened him and made him cry. I am kind of a softy so it was a little mortifying. But I quickly learned that I could turn his fear on its ear.

In our kitchen is a clock with large numerals and a really big face. It sits high above the door as you pass from the kitchen into the dining room. Well, Ty has always been fascinated by faces. We go to restaurants and his eyes bug over all of the people and their faces. I remember the night that he arrived at our house, as we were sitting in the living room I picked him up out of his car seat and placed him in my lap. As I spoke to him he looked up at me and seemed mesmerized. Every time he had a bottle his eyes were fixed upon my face. Sometimes I wondered what he thought when he looked up at this bearded faced stranger. How long before he began to see me as someone who loved him and would protect him from everything. At what point did he begin to look up and see me as dad, new dad, foster dad?

As he began to become more familiar with our house, I noticed that he would sometimes look up at the clock. I was never sure what it was about it that drew his attention. Then I began to recognize the shape was like a big face, the face of a clock, okay, duh. One day we stopped in front of it when I noticed he was looking up, maybe a little suspiciously. I put my hands under his arms and lifted him up over my head to get a closer look. He instantly began to flail and his face got this horrified look across it. I had never seen him frightened, so at first I didn't get it until he began to scream. I quickly lowered him and caressed his back and apologized. Ohmygawd, here I am supposed to be protecting the little tike and look what I've gone and done. He is scarred, scarred for life I tell you. In preschool the teacher will pull out a big cardboard clock so the kids can learn to tell time and my son will run screaming out of the classroom.

It occurred to me then that I can't let that happen, that maybe there was a way to make this big-faced clock not so scary. After he had calmed I began to tell him in my mommy voice (I will get to that in another post)

"Look at the tic-toc-tic-toc!"

Then I made the sound of an alarm clock, "rrrrriiiiing."

Then I asked him, "what time is it? It's 7:30!"

Though he smiled that first time he was a little hesitant to look up at it. Over time I continued to make a point of stopping in front of the clock, so much so that sometimes he would look up and begin to smile without me having to say a word. We still play the game when I point up overhead and ask him what time it is. He smiles and looks up. I have on occasion lifted him again to look into its face--maybe just to give him the opportunity to look into the face of his fears. Of course I don't lift him quite so quickly as the last time and I certainly don't put him quite as close. I don't know what he sees now but he doesn't cry. He just looks up and then looks down at me like okay, I get it, now get me the hell down from here.

--J

When My Son Speaks

TheFosters — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:32:00 GMT

I am not really worried about our son's speech development, even if I am reminded by physicians that statistically speaking, he's behind. I live with the little guy everyday. If his vocalizations were not growing more frequent and more complex over time, then I might be concerned, but it just isn't the case. The latest demand of him is to acquire at least a ten word vocabulary by June. What if he only has eight, or five or.....two.

"My son, the world is collapsing all around you without these ten words. You will never amount to anything if you don't pipe up. And no, I'm sorry but ‘gukum blik grlikm' does not count as three words." Now that it is May, I am beginning to feel his pressure--just 30 more days and counting. Ohmygawd, maybe I can bribe him with candy or massage his brain; practice verbal calisthenics; tell him that daddy will spank if he doesn't start spouting off a few choice phrases!

Really, I am just excited to hear his first little words. After being sick for several weeks with a variety of ailments, Ty has finally reached a state of wellness. He has been a chatterbox in the last few days. His vocal range continues to widen. I know he is saying things to us (and probably about us) but he has not yet crossed that great divide where he can be clear about his wants and needs so that we can stop being dumb daddies.

While he may be a little behind, he has a wide range of sounds that are more complex and varied everyday. Lately he's been on this low range, baritone kick--sort of a cross between Louis Armstrong and Fat Albert. Sometimes he is commanding us to give him more food and other times he's just yelling at a passing car on the ride home from day care. Then he started doing this wonderful little aria thing, but rather than it being like Maria Callas belting out something from Carmen, it is all screeches--only they are happy screeches. So rather than correcting him, we just screech back. Talk about enabling children with bad habits! Sometimes the little urchin explores the upper reaches of his vocal chords, and climbs one octave too high just outside of his little boy range. His mouth opens but nothing comes out, as if only dogs could hear his falsetto.

I am so excited to be able to actually communicate with my son. I mean what an amazing moment to witness--the very first time he thinks about something, then in his mind he formulates, then with his mouth he articulates. What a beautiful sound that will be. We know he knows how to call out to us, but I am looking for something a little more definitive than Da-da. On our personal blog after covering a different aspect of this same subject I received a couple of really great comments that got me to thinking.

The first:

Language develops at such a variable rate. One moment a parent is concerned about delayed speech and the next he/she is lamenting about the child's non-stop chatter! The wonderful thing is that since he is in a loving home with parents that create a language-rich environment, he will undoubtedly make astounding progress. Enjoy it Dada(s) the language milestones are truly the most astounding and fun...and I am not just saying that because I am an SLP.

Marissa

A rich language environment--I never thought of our home in those terms. Reading to him has always been more about it being fun and him being a little book worm rather than a concerted effort on our part. I know this sounds sort of brain dead, but it didn't occur to me that we could contribute towards his language acquisition in that way. So the more books we read, the more stimulated he is, the more articulate he will become. And the best part is that everyone really enjoys it--well, as long as we don't have to read "How Big is Baby Elmo" more than twice in one sitting.

And the second:

It's a miracle they learn to talk at all, I think. Your son probably knows dozens of words already and he just has to work out how to make his tongue and mouth get them out.

Psychmum

There are times when we both just sit there and listen to the things our son says. It is fascinating sometimes. You have to wonder if babbling is really the right word for what is happening. In addition to just exploring his vocal range, out of him comes strange, complicated, multiple-syllabic runs that are on the one hand incomprehensible but on the other totally unique. Sometimes it almost sounds like some other language. When he turns to the set of car keys that he's playing with and says "gukum blik grlikm", does it have some meaning to him? As alert and aware about so many things as our son is, do we wrongly assume because he is young and because we can't interpret what he is saying, that he is babbling? What if it all had meaning and there is lots of stuff swimming around in his head. What if Pyschmum is right and he already has dozens of words, even hundreds of words but just doesn't have the means to make us understand. I suppose a child psychologist might think I was being silly, but what a great thought--that there is more to the inner life of my child than I or anyone else will ever know.

--J

My Moon, My (Little) Man

TheFosters — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:25:00 GMT

I was one of those kids with the Vienna Choirboys kind of voice. I loved to sing. In my little elementary school every teacher had me perform for their class. At the pinnacle of my fame, I was the target of ridicule from classmates but more so from my siblings who were mortified by the fact that their little brother was "performing" in our school. Then I hit puberty and not only did my voice change, but I didn't even get so much as a baritone or tenor voice out of the deal. It basically went nasal, lacking completely in depth and struggled to remain on key. Even as an adult I can remember a friend of mine (that I haven't spoken to in more than a decade) who after happening to hear me sing, proceeded to ask me what I had done with the money that my mother had given me for singing lessons. So between the loss of my voice and taunting from others I pretty much put a cap on the old singing thing.

Well having a son has in essence brought my singing voice out of the closet. You see he doesn't mind that my voice isn't very good. In fact one of the things we have really enjoyed together is sitting down in front of my laptop and having a sing-along with one of our favorite videos. Here are a couple of our favorites in reverse order:

3. Love Song by Sarah Bareilles

Though it isn't the happiest of songs at least lyrically, the melody is ironically joyous and the video is really fun. The artist sits inside of this juke box and plays the piano for anyone who will come along and drop a dime in the slot. The song is really good for hand clapping and swaying together to the melody.

2. 1-2-3-4 by Feist

This song made popular by the Apple commercial seems to have become a hit with the diaper wearing crowd. The video and lyrics are kind of kooky with everyone dressed in crazy colors dancing around. But of course the best part is when she counts to ten, well sort of (she leaves out 7 and 8, and I am sure that the coffee-house crowd will ding me for failing to see the significance of that, but I just don't get it.). In any case this one is great for counting on fingers and toes while singing.

1. My Moon, My Man by Feist

This was the very first video that I played for my son. The lyrics are a little odd but the video is really fun because everyone is in motion, dancing on one of those airport moving walkways. I remember sitting at the dining room table, singing, swaying and clapping to the music with him in my lap grinning and babbling. It was at a time shortly after he had arrived when he was still struggling a bit, as was I. Those times always seemed to make us feel better even when one or both of us was having a hard day.

My son has given me so much in these last months. He has given me my voice back. He allows me to be silly and stupid and off-key. I can be anything I want to be without feeling self-conscious about it. It is something I don't think I ever could have done without him.

--J

Who are we?

TheFosters — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:12:00 GMT

We are Darrow, Juan and T. We are two Dads and a pre-toddler. We are an interracial couple with a bi-racial baby and three hodge-podge breed big dogs. We are as close to married as the law allows. We are diaper changing, baby food flinging, bottle juggling newbie dads who sometimes trip up one another in our effort to care for our son. We are a family like every family, but just a little different. And yes, we are foster parents, sort of unwittingly, but fosters nonetheless.

We are fun and games dads of the silliest kind. We have no problem making strange faces and odds noises in public in an effort to entertain our son. We revel in his beautiful smile and his hearty, infectious laugh. We cannot imagine our life without this amazing little boy. That is why we also periodically turn to one another in tears, because as fosters we find ourselves from time-to-time in a fragile state, knowing that his future with us is uncertain. So we live in the yin and the yang, the one side making the other side that much sweeter and poignant. And if we write about happy, silliness one day and sound like we are drowning in our fears the next, we hope that if you choose to read our posts, you will forgive us for sounding a little crazy. Sometimes that is the reality of the Fosters--welcome to our world.

--D, J & T