New levels of crazy

Life with the kiddos has been pretty great!

By great I mean we have loved getting to know them and helping them get to know us. We haven't had any major issues and we are getting at least a little sleep.

Everybody told me that you get no sleep as a parent and I naively believed that was only parents of babies and toddlers.

Nope.

#allparents

My kids are 11 and 9 and, by some quirk of nature, I can not fall asleep unless I know they are asleep. And I wake up no later than 7am. If the kids haven't gotten up and knocked on the door for breakfast by then I'm still awake. Usually checking on them to make sure they're ok.

This weekend that meant I was up until 12:30am comforting them during the fireworks and then awake again at 6am because they were hungry and wanted me to cook breakfast.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am not complaining at all. Not even a little bit.

I am simply in awe of how much my life has changed in the span of one month.

That's how long I've known these kids. One month and two days.

On friday they move in permanently. All of their stuff will be here (including Steve, the bearded dragon belonging to my son) and we will finally stop the endless shuffle back and forth between foster homes and forever home.

Monday, July 11th, we sign the temporary custody paperwork.

That also happens to be our 7th wedding anniversary. Fried chicken and lemon cake for everybody! lol

Seriously though... someone pinch me. I can't even comprehend the blessings I've been given lately. My heart is so incredibly full it's bursting.

Parents for a weekend

Yesterday was Father's Day , Steve's very first one as a dad, and our last day of a three day visit with our kiddos.

Overall, it was a fantastic visit. There were some moments where I found myself going "this is NOTHING like teaching/babysitting" and feeling a little intimidated. But I think that must be pretty normal.

We watched a couple movies throughout the weekend and spent a lot of time at the pool. The kids wanted to hang out at the house rather than go to the park or out anywhere, so we had kind of a chill weekend.

My parents (the newly dubbed Nana and Pop) came for a visit on Saturday. They got a chance to meet the kids and spend time with us while we were at the pool. Seeing my parents interact with my kids was surreal and awesome all at the same time. They were acting like little kids again. My dad kept doing canon balls into the deep end and my mom was busting out the diving sticks and other pool toys.

We even got my dad to try one of the Mexican candies the kids love. It's a peach and chili candy. Seriously good, but very spicy.

Our last day together we took the kids to church which proved to be quite interesting since both of their foster placements go to Baptist churches and Steve and I are Catholic. They were so curious about the different areas of the church and then the various parts of Mass. As our son put it "That dude up front is cool looking, but I don't like having to sit on my knees so much."

By "that dude" he meant Jesus on the crucifix. lol

After lunch we loaded their stuff into the car and began what became the road trip that would not end. Our son was heading to camp for the week and our daughter was going back to her foster placement. Little did we know those two places were four hours apart. And the camp was 2 hours away from our house.

Long story short... after factoring in traffic we spent 10 hours in the car to get everyone where they needed to be and make it home again. I loved the time with the kids, but I was definitely happy to be back in my bed at the end of the day!

Important encounters

If you don't believe in love at first sight then I am here to tell you that you are wrong. It exists. I know it does because I have been lucky enough to experience it with three different humans (and two ridiculously spoiled dogs). 

The first human was my husband. He walked into the party in his purple dress shirt and Regis Philbin tie straight from work and my heart said "That's him. That is the man you are going to love for the rest of your life".

The second and third humans were my daughter and my son. Their caseworker pulled up to our meeting place, the kids stepped out of the car, and my heart said "That's them. Those are the kids you've been praying for and dreaming of since you first realized you were meant to be a mom".

Steve and I have met our children.

In fact, we spent a morning with them and then, a week later, an entire day. On Friday morning I am picking them up to spend the weekend together. They are spending three days and two nights here. In their rooms. 

The first time we met the kids was a brief 2 hour meet and greet type thing in a park near their foster placements. Super casual (in theory) so everyone can make sure we don't hate each other right off the bat. I was so afraid it would be awkward. Like: Hey, I just met you. And this is crazy, but I wanna adopt you. Call me Mama maybe?

Despite my own highly awkward and weird personality, the first meeting went so well. Steve was a complete natural at being a dad. The time together FLEW by. 

I genuinely think there is some sort of parent-child time warp thing going on because time without kids seems to go at a reasonably normal pace. When the kids are around I blink and it's dinner time and they are leaving.

I hate that part. The leaving.

When they spent the day with us on Sunday I very nearly cried when they left. I held it back only by thinking of move in day and the fact there will come a day very soon when I won't have to send them back to their foster placements. They will be home to stay. 

Adopting an Older Child: setting up their bedroom

Welcome back for the second installment of my series about preparing for an older child adoption from foster care!

Steve and I have been doing little things here and there for our kids' rooms since we began our homestudy. We knew we wanted to adopt a sibling group, so we began preparing both of our guest bedrooms to accommodate up to two children each. Now that we know the specific children that will be moving in, we are making more specific changes.

We went in with a strategy of keeping things pretty gender neutral until we had reason to do otherwise. considering the number of failed potential matches we went through before finding our kiddos, I am so grateful we went that direction. Everything we acquired is still able to be used.

I think this may be easier to explain in a list form so... here you go. Our process for preparing a room for an older child adopted from U.S. foster care:

step 1: Assess your furniture needs based on your homestudy - We were approved for up to 4 children, so we needed beds and clothing storage for up to 4 children. Both rooms have closet space, and we already owned one spare dresser, so really it was just a matter of finding one more dresser and 4 kid friendly beds.

Our first option we pursued was friends and family. My brother was moving in with his fiancee so we got his dresser and she gave us the twin bed from her guest room they no longer needed. My parents also had a spare twin sized bed they said we could have. Then we turned to Craigslist. We live in a large metro area and we can typically find furniture on that site without a lot of wear and tear for not a lot of money.

Luck was on our side and we managed to get two XL twin beds with necessary equipment to securely stack them into bunk beds. Add in mattresses still in the plastic from the factory and we managed to furnish the rooms for less than $100.

step 2: Make the walls presentable - Our two spare rooms had been kids rooms when the previous owners of our home lived here and extra storage for us since then. It's safe to say they needed some TLC. We put putty in the areas that needed them and then gave each room a fresh coat of paint. One room became a greenish-grey color. The other a cheerful blue. Both were colors my husband and I both liked so we figured they were gender neutral enough for now.

**Note** We do intend for our kids to redecorate once they get closer to their move in date. We just painted because the walls had been well loved and needed it. If your walls are in good shape already then you can skip this step.

step 3: basic necessities -  Older kids have a very different set of needs than babies. They don't need storage for diapers and a changing table, but they do need study space to do homework and store their backpacks. We decided to add some personality and extra functionality to our rooms in addition to the basics so the kids could sense a bit of our excitement to have them move in but without making them think they can't change anything later.

Here are some things we added:
- curtains and shades
- comfy chair for reading
- small shelf with age appropriate books (I'll go into more detail about the books we got for them in another post)
- reversible comforter/ bed-in-a-bag type thing
- solid color jersey sheets
- throw blanket
- desk/ study area
- cork board/ photo and memento holder
- one cool wall hanging or piece of artwork (my daughter's room has tissue paper pom poms hanging over her reading area. My son has comic book art I found on clearance)
- picture frame with a picture of my husband and I
- empty picture frame for a picture of all of us together

The important thing to remember is that many of these objects should be basics. Good quality items that can be used in concert with more specifically chosen items once the child moves in. We got our comforter sets during the Bed Bath & Beyond Memorial Day clearance sale for $15 each. If the kids love them and want to keep them then that's awesome! But we (and our bank account) won't be sad to put them away as back up if the kids would rather have something different.

step 4: Personalized project - Don't do this step until after you have met your kids. Once you do, choose one special project or item to place in their room that they can keep no matter how differently they want to decorate. I chose to do a decorated initial to hang on the outside of their doors. My daughter is a bit of a girly girl and loves greens, blues, and nature. So her initial will be one of the super popular floral letters I've seen all over Pinterest. My son is an avid xbox player, so his initial will reflect that.

Your kids may not be a good fit for a door decoration. That's fine. Maybe you aren't really a DIYer with art projects, but you love to sew or crochet or knit. Use that talent to make them something to use in their room! Maybe you are a musician or a graphic artist. Maybe you are more into technology and gadgets. Whatever your talent is, find a way to use it to do something unique for your kids BEFORE they move in.

A note about clothes and toiletries - My kids are in a situation where they have an adequate number of clothes and toiletry items that we did not feel the need to purchase any additional supplies prior to their first visits to our home. From what I understand, that is not always the case. Your kids may need socks, underwear, toothpaste, etc. We have a jar of travel sized toiletries in the kids' bathroom for their use if they forget something, but we know they have items available to them to bring when they travel. We will also be going clothes shopping with them closer to the start of the school year so their clothes are more likely to still fit them.

Adopting an Older Child: preparing the house

Adoption is an interesting and confusing process. It's emotional and heartbreaking long before you ever meet your children. The confusion doesn't go away once you know who your kids are either. If anything, it gets more confusing.

I am the type of person that likes to do as much research as possible about parts of my life that have become confusing or challenging. I make lists and methodically prepare for every conceivable situation.

Unfortunately for me, there isn't a ton of information out there about the logistics of going from no children to multiple school-aged children. Tons about attachment (and if we were adopting a baby we would be totally set), but none about logistical things like how many extra towels to have on hand and how to go about setting up a welcoming temporary bedroom.

Please don't misunderstand me. Attachment is incredibly important and my husband and I are absolutely doing work to prepare for that aspect of welcoming kids into our family.

But pretending like there aren't logistical issues to consider would be almost equally as foolish as ignoring attachment. I mean... the kids will be spending the night before they move in and they will need towels and sheets and other necessities. Things they won't be able to give their opinion on until they need those things. Items my husband and I, as the adults, need to consider. Like toothpaste.

So... with all of that said, I am going to begin a series of posts chronicling what Steve and I figure out as we prepare our home for our kiddos. This first one is about general preparations and categories of things we plan to tackle before the kids spend the night for the first time.... which should happen some time in June.

1. create simple, welcoming bedrooms for kids - Closer to move-in the kids will be able to make these spaces their own, but they should be able to spend their first overnight visit in a room that reflects how excited we are to have them with us.

2. Creating a bathroom space for kids - Our guest bathroom is going through a transition along with us. What do the kids need and what can wait?

3. Prepare our fridge, pantry, and kitchen - Some of this was done for our homestudy, but some things are just logistical in nature like organizing the fridge to include a "quick snacks" section and making sure our Tupperware is kid friendly.

4. BOOKS - Adding to and sorting through our current library collection to include reading material for the kids at their reading level and within their range of interest.

5. Technology - What gadgets are we planning to use? What are we doing with our current tech items to keep the kids safe? What about social media?

6. Adoption registry for the older child - We may not be adopting a baby, but our friends and family have definitely been asking about celebrating with us and helping us stock up on essentials.

7. preparing our extended family - Discussing relevant issues with them and figuring out who and when to go about introducing everyone.

Closing one door and opening another

Today was my very last day at my school for the 2015-2016 school year.

We said goodbye to the kids yesterday (with no small amount of tears on my part) and finished packing up our classrooms and saying goodbyes to other teachers today. My room was mostly packed already since I have had a group of very helpful little firsties this year. They were ALL ABOUT helping me box things up and take them to my car. They especially liked our donation trips where I let them take left over consumable supplies like paper towels, soap, and notebook paper to other teachers' classrooms.

I finished everything before lunch time today and drove back home with a conflicted heart.

While I cherish the memories made and lessons learned about myself and my teaching style, I can't help but look forward to my next adventures at my new school with an incredible amount of enthusiasm.

And then there's the excitement about what this summer has in store for Steve and me.

We had a document review last week which went incredibly well. Now we are anxiously awaiting the formal staffing and first visit with our children!

I'm going to withhold more details about the children at least until we are further along in the visitation process, but we are beyond thrilled to have found these kids and to be able to meet them so soon.

Assuming things go well with the initial meet and greet and the formal staffing, we will be spending our summer visiting with our kids and moving them into our home.

I am so incredibly hopeful for this new journey and thankful for all the prayers which have brought us this far. I have a feeling that summer 2016 is going to be one of those life changing summers people write songs and stories about.

that one kid

If you're a teacher you know exactly who I am talking about...

That one kid in class who can't sit still, refuses to participate, is constantly playing around instead of working, and generally just tap dances on your very last nerve.

Yup... let's talk about that kid.

Last year I had one. I've got another one this year. All of my teacher friends have one in their classrooms as well. I've had one in every classroom I've ever been in.

If I am being completely honest: I absolutely adore "that kid" each and every year. They force me to check my attitude and ego at the door and do all I can to meet each of my students where they are. There is no "phoning it in" if you want to reach them. They aren't the type to give in and do what you want just because you are the teacher and they definitely aren't the type to draw you pictures and bring you apples just to get on your good side.

They are unapologetically themselves. And it is inspiring to see such individuality even in first grade. Even if it is a bit trying.

I won't lie... it isn't all rainbows and puppies with these kids. They can be forces to be reckoned with even in the best of circumstances. And I'm no saint. I've definitely lost my cool and made a small behavior into a giant issue without meaning to. It happens.

I bring this all up today because there are exactly 10 days left in the school year.

10 days with my sweet first graders before we all leave for the break and I leave my school for a new one.

As I pack my things and plan our end-of-year activities I know who I will miss the most.

That kid.

My special snowflake who can't sit still for more than 2 seconds and begs me to let him play "cool math" or do GoNoodle dances after every center rotation.

It hit me especially hard today because of something that happened at dismissal. 

You see... this little boy does not really show affection. If he is close to you then you have a better chance of getting sand thrown at you than getting a hug.

But he hugged me today. I called him to get on his bus and, before stepping onto the bus stairs, he stopped and gave me a huge bear hug and said "I see you tomorrow, Mrs. Riecke!"

It felt like I had just been crowned Queen of England. And I promptly teared up because I'm going to miss that kid. And I only have 10 days left.