Halloween Recap

Yesterday afternoon, H & K and their sisters visited with their mom, all in costume. Right about this time we heard that Ms. Tioga had suffered a break-down, so we left to help him. The problem turned out to be the starter solenoid. When it was replaced, I took the kids home to carve jack-o-lanterns, and some of the neighbor children came over to help.

Our pumpkin lanterns came out great, and finished off our haunted front yard decorations! With our yard ready, Tracy came over and we took the kids out for a round of trick or treating.

Here are some of the ghouls that came to our door looking for tricks or treats.  There seemed to be fewer kids out this year compared to past years, especially given that Halloween fell on a Saturday.  There were also fewer homes with decorations and offering treats for the kids.  Maybe this is due to the poor economy.

Later in the evening A’s mother, step father and little brother came over and the kids went out for a second round of trick or treating!

In the morning, the kids took stock of their treats!

RV Sitting in Ms. Tioga

We are waiting inside Ms. Tioga while my Dad, in my car, is out buying a replacement part for her. The boys and I just returned from a visit with H & K's mother. Once Ms. Tioga is back on her feet -- er, tires -- again, we will return home and carve our pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns!

Halloween Day!

The long awaited day has finally arrived, and Dave’s Haunted Home is ready! This morning we put the finishing touches on our front yard decorations. The fog machine is filled and tested. The strobe and black lights are in place. We even opened the bags of candy and mixed them up in a bowl in preparation for “treating” those that dare ring the bell of Dave’s Haunted Home! We tested some of the candy, too, because you can never be too prepared. ;-)

Here all the spooky residents of Dave’s Home (except the fish)

pose for a photo to commemorate Halloween 2009

Tioga George Arrives!

My dad and his trusty steed, Ms. Tioga have arrived for a Halloween visit! This is a bit of a surprise because he usually travels south in the fall to stay warm and keep his solar powered bank of batteries charged.

Like the readers of his blog, I can’t wait to find out what he’s got planned.

My dad and Ms. Tioga

H Minus One Day

Halloween is just one day away, and there was pandemonium in the house this morning. There is a parade at school today where the kids can show off their costumes. Of course they have to be worn over complete school clothes, so the kids were trying to work that out. In the afternoon little K’s first grade class will take a field trip to a pumpkin patch. Then, after school, the day care has put together a fantastic, multi-room haunted house!

Here are some photos of the haunted house at the day care.  I love a good Halloween crescendo!

This was a cool use of black lights!

What Happens to Kids After Foster Care?

Most of the kids I’ve looked after have returned to a biological parent. This usually happens within six months to a year. Sometimes, though, the parents are unable to get their act together, and after about 18 months the county switches from trying to reunify the child with his or her parents, to trying to find a permanent, stable home for the child.

This has happened to me twice so far. The first time was with my third full-time foster child, and it was quite traumatic. He was placed with me just before his 11th birthday. Within a year his mother was murdered while trying to purchase her drug of choice, methamphetamine. From our perspective, she just disappeared one day. Months later a fisherman found her body wrapped in a carpet.

I became the legal guardian of this boy and he stayed with me until he was 19 years old.

Waiting

(This is a continuation of a thread on how I became a foster parent. Click HERE to view the previous post in this thread.)

After my foster parent application was approved by Gateway Residential (a private foster home agency) I waited for my first foster child placement. After a month or so I became antsy, so I joined a local foster parent association and attended a few meetings. It was through this association that I first learned about respite care.

Respite care is basically kid-sitting for foster children by other certified foster parents. If a foster parent has to leave town for a while and can’t take the kids, or for some reason needs a short break from the kids, they can request respite care. The foster kids are then temporarily placed in a different home – the home of a respite care provider. The length of time may be hours or days.

Since my first placement was taking so long, I signed up to provide respite care for other foster parents. Through this process I met brothers L & C, who were 10 and 7 years old.  Later I met brothers C & B, who were 6 and 5 years old. Little B was a terrific kid who had the misfortune of being afflicted by cerebral palsy, mostly in his legs.

L & C during a respite visit.

Kid Questions

I am starting a new topic thread called “Kid Questions”. The kids often ask me amusing and very thoughtful questions, some of which are not that easy for me to answer. For more technical questions I usually look the answer up on the web. (What did we ever do without Google and Wikipedia?) But from now on when this happens I will write a post about their question in the hope that readers will try to answer it. In this way maybe I'll be able to get the kids a little involved in some of the posts, too.

This first question came up about a week ago after the kids and I watched most of the movie “Titanic”. (I skipped over a few kid-unfriendly parts.) Anyway, H asked me if the ship would have sunk if it had hit the iceberg head-on instead of scraping it along the side. This blew me away! This from a kid who doesn’t yet know his times tables!

I am purposely avoiding looking this up on the web to see what the readers of Dave’s Home have to say about this surprisingly insightful question.

The Therapy Waiting Room

Here we are once again waiting while one of the kids is in therapy. Today K & A were actually getting along together, playing with the medieval castle and Lego blocks. Some days I have to keep them in separate corners of the room, one with the Legos, and the other with the castle. I’ve often thought that being a parent is a lot like being a cop!

Birthday Party for Former Foster Kid J

Would you believe it? Today there was a birthday party for another one of my past foster kids. Now not-so-little J is eleven years old. He was my 14th foster kid, and was placed with me back when he was seven. I think it’s so cool that he and his parents have chosen to stay in contact with me!

The main party event was a piñata!

K really liked the trampoline, or "jumpoline" as he calls it.

Business Trip

I had to fly out of town this morning for a one day business trip. Tracy graciously agreed to help get the kids to and from school. Thanks so much, Tracy!!!

My flight took off at 7am, which meant the kids and I had to wake up around 4am! We were all like zombies piling into the car to drop the kids off at Tracy's house.

I watched the sun rise on my flight out...

...and watched the sun set on my way home!

Business trips like this are another reason having a good support group is a must for foster parenting.

Ask Dave Question No. 2

Every week I write a post about a question sent to me by a reader. This week I received three really good questions, so I decided to write about all of them!

The first question was, “What do you recommend that the family members or close friends of foster parents do to support them? What do you wish your family or close friends knew about your life as a foster parent?”

After giving this considerable thought, I would recommend that the families and friends of foster parents try their hardest to treat the foster kids just as they would their own kids, or the children of their relatives. I think foster children get the most out of the experience and feel most comfortable when they feel just like everyone else around them. In my particular case I can truthfully say that my family and close friends do just that, and I thank them for it!

The second question was, “Have you ever had a foster child that you could not handle? If yes, how was it resolved?”

The answer to this question is absolutely, YES, several times. This is always a very difficult thing. On one hand the last thing any foster parent wants is to force a kid to switch homes again. Statistics show that kids that for whatever reason have to move from one foster home to another end up more troubled than those that have a more stable foster experience. On the other hand, caring for a kid with behaviors that are out of your comfort zone is very disruptive to the house and everyone in it. I can usually cope for a while – a few months, at least. I try to get professional help for both the child and for me, I pray for a quick reunification, and I tell myself that it’s only temporary. Eventually, though, a child like this always has to be moved to another home. Often it is to a special group home staffed with professionals.

And the third question was, “As a foster parent, do you make general medical decisions for the kids in your care---such as deciding whether they should be vaccinated against H1N1?”

The answer to this one is yes, I do make general medical type decisions like this for the children. However, if there is anything controversial about the decision, then I try to get the parent’s concurrence. I just went through this with H & K’s mom, who believes that a flu shot she once had gave her the flu. Our combined decision in this case was that the kids will not receive an H1N1 flu vaccination this season. A big part of my decision was that I read that this flu has only been dangerous (thus far) to those with a pre-existing medical condition that left them in a weakened state to begin with. Both H & K are very healthy.

Thanks everyone for some really terrific questions.  I look forward to more!  If you want to read about other Ask Dave questions, click HERE or select the Ask Dave topic thread in the right column.

Another Birthday Party

Like I said, October is a busy month for Birthdays. This afternoon H & K’s youngest sister celebrated her 10th birthday at a bowling alley with friends and family. As you can see from all the photos, good fun was had by all!

K with his sister, the birthday girl.

The whole crew.

Soccer Cheering Section

This morning we met up with Tracy to help cheer one of her kids in a soccer tournament. Afterwards the kids played for a while on a pretty nifty play structure.

Best Laid Plans

Well, we didn’t put back up any of the Halloween stuff, and we didn’t make it to the home and garden show today. Our plans got derailed when I decided to do some yard maintenance first – trimming hedges, mowing the lawn and running the sprinklers one last time. You see we can’t water the lawn once all the new decorations are set up. Anyway, little A decided to run through the sprinklers and accidentally stepped on one and broke it, creating a small geyser. By the time it was fixed, it was almost time for our guests to arrive.

We had a nice dinner at Applebee’s restaurant to celebrate my mom’s and my brother’s birthdays, but I forgot to take a camera! Once again my plans were foiled. Sorry, no pictures.

Pancakes for Breakfast

It’s the weekend – finally – and everyone slept late this morning except A. He always gets up early, but he didn’t wake anyone up today.  How polite of him!

I whipped up some pancakes, sausage and fruit for the kids for breakfast. They will need fuel in their tummies for what we have planned today.  First we're going to put back up all the Halloween stuff that we took down because of the storm, and then maybe check out the home and garden show that’s going on nearby.

Then in the evening my mom and brother are coming over for a birthday dinner. Both their birthdays are in late October, so we’re celebrating them together. October is a big birthday month around Dave’s Home.

Birthday Party for A's Little Brother

Last night we had a little party to celebrate A’s little brother’s 5th birthday! (He is next to A at the end of the table in this picture.) His favorite kind of cake is carrot cake, which I like so much better than typical grocery store birthday cakes. Good choice, little guy!

Afterward we stopped at the Halloween Spirit store and bought K’s costume. I think that K picked the scariest looking kid costume I’ve seen! Both A and H already have their costumes.

Just eight more days until the big night!

Lake Tahoe Summer 2009 (Tracy’s birthday)

This is another in a series of posts about vacations I’ve taken with my foster kids. Click HERE to view the previous post.

This past June we drove up to Lake Tahoe for a few days to celebrate my friend Tracy’s 50th birthday. We stayed at The Ridge in south Tahoe, which was quite nice. The kids really liked the indoor/outdoor swimming pool with the connecting channel that they could swim back and forth through.

The weather was beautiful so we hiked around the mountain a bit and spent some time on the pebbled shore of the lake. We rented flat water kayaks and paddled around, playing follow the leader. We also toured the lake and had lunch on a paddle wheel boat named the Tahoe Queen!