A life in progress

Today begins day 3 with Baby C.  So far, things have been going fairly well with her.  We are actually surprised at what an "easy" baby she is. Yesterday, Mike and I made a point of making sure we were with her all day - both of us as much as possible & at least one of us within eyesight at (virtually) all times while she was awake.  Friday night was a little rough for her.  She woke up a crying a couple of times during the night, and while we were able to put her back to sleep pretty easily, she wasn't quite able to do that for herself.  At 4am, she truly cried for the first time.  She'd fussed and whimpered a couple of times Friday evening and had woken up once at 2am, but at 4, she really cried.  I went in and picked her up and rocked her for a little while; I think that was the first time she was really scared or lonely.  We realized that as part of a large family group (she has 3 older siblings), it was probably the first time in her en...

After a great deal of thought, and an endless number of "should we or shouldn't we" conversations, Mike and I have changed course a bit in the world of foster care.  We have decided a couple of things - 1.  One child is enough.  I said this before, but going from zero children in our home to two children in our home is much too overwhelming, especially since I've never had children. 2.  We are not ready for long-term care yet.  Yet.  We realized we still like having options and the ability to say no.  We were actually presented with a potential adoptive child a few weeks ago.  We thought about it and talked about it, and in the end decided we weren't there yet.  Part of us wanted to be, but we realized it would be unfair to us as a couple and unfair to the child to make that step without being 100% certain it was the right choice.  After a few days of talking it over, we kindly thanked the case worker, but walked away without ever me...

I'm linking up with Jen from  Ramblings of a Suburban Mom  this week for "Thursday Thoughts."  This is really no different from my normal ramblings, except maybe I'll get a wider audience.  :) I'm not sure what it is about mid-February, but my students always start behaving like insane people.  It's like they suddenly realized they just had their long vacation for the year and spring break is a little while off.  As I'm already in a behavior school, this amplifies the situation a little bit.  Spring restlessness can turn into all out chaos. Over the past couple of weeks, the TimeHop app (which I LOVE) has been reminding me of some of my annual spring insanity.  Since I haven't posted them all to Facebook, here's a small sampling. -- The kid that got upset and threw a desk at me.  This one really doesn't require a lot of explaining. -- The entire classroom full of students (about six kids total) that lost their indoor privileg...

Somehow, I have come to a crossroads in my life... all of a sudden these decisions appeared on the horizon and now I have to make them.  I've seen enough episodes of "Supernatural" to know that something will probably go askew somewhere. None of my impending decisions are life-and-death, however, I imagine they will have some long-lasting impact on both my personal and professional lives. We are trying to make some foster care decisions (as I discussed the other day), and to make matters more complicated, our case manager called and asked if we would be interested in becoming an adoptive family for a young boy who has been living with a foster family since birth.  The little boy has some potential health concerns, as he was born very prematurely, but seems to be in a good place now.  He was born drug exposed and had a difficult first few months, but seems to be stable.  His mother has abandoned him, and the courts have terminated parental rights, so he is avai...

Today, like most other days, CPS placement workers called me three separate times to ask me if Mike and I would be willing to take physical custody of various foster children.  I know there was a 6 month old boy, but I didn't speak to the other two workers, so I'm not sure who the other two children were.  On average, I get 2-3 calls per day, every day.  We have a happy home and and empty bed, so we are a CPS worker's dream.  For 12 hours a day, placement workers are trying to find healthy, happy, homes for children that are brought into care for a couple of different reasons. Some children need what's called an "initial placement".  They are brought into CPS care from their parent or guardian's home, and now need somewhere to go.  If they don't find the child(ren) a home within the first 24 hours, they technically become a ward of the state, which is a legal conundrum for a number of reasons -- it's much easier if they find a foster parent withi...

In the past few weeks, I've had a few students tell me they wanted to go to law school & a few current college students tell me they were registered/taking/hoping to take the LSAT.  Mostly, I just smiled and said "that's great!" or something similar while deep down I was thinking "are you sure you want to do that to yourself?" As the semester is barely two weeks old, and I have a pretty light load this spring, law school feels like a totally realistic endeavor.  Friends see that I'm sleeping and eating regularly, having date nights and Disneyland marathon weekends with Mike and think this is the law school experience. I will admit, this year has been pretty good.  I spent the summer in Europe "learning" about international legal concepts and visiting some amazing places.  Then fall the first semester in the past 3 years that I've felt I've actually had time to breathe.... and exercise.  This spring is looking to have a simila...