Friday, March 21, 2014

A typical week for this foster parent

Sunday: Church (bring a neighbor friend along for the day), grocery shopping, make lunch, get blinding headache and nap while the girls watch a movie. Get up, make dinner, clean up, bring dinner to my grandmother, go home and watch a movie until bed time routine starts.


Monday: Work, school, go home and make dinner, A's track practice from 6-7:30


Tuesday: Work, school, dinner, and have the RD over for her monthly visit (who shows up an hour late). The RD is someone from DFCS who only works for the foster parent and has nothing to do with the girls case. So she basically asks me a bunch of questions of how I'm doing, notes my concerns, promises to look into the questions I have, checks that my house is still safe and then leaves. I won't hear from her for another month or two.


Wednesday: Work, school, pick up girls and race to the DFCS office for a Family Menders meeting, AWANA at Church


Thursday: Work, school, dinner, then head to A's school for a family open house event. 


Friday: Work, school, dinner/visit with brothers


Saturday: 8am-1pm is A's first track meet. Chores to get the house/yard back to "beauty base zero". Grocery shopping and then girls play outside with friends until dark. 


In the midst of this schedule is lots of phone calls, emails, and the occasional text to the various DFCS workers. Along with the normal things like homework, laundry, dishes, and making sure we sit down at the table at least 2-3 nights a week and enjoy dinner together. We only watch TV on the weekends and neither of the girls have been allowed on the computer yet (or have a phone) so we live a mostly unplugged life but it still takes a concentrated effort to get our schedule to align with enough time to eat dinner together. 


The girls head to their rooms at 8:00pm every night for "reading time" which is basically ends up with Ana picking out her outfit for the next day and H listens to music while reading her cookbooks (the only book she actually enjoys reading) while I lay out backpacks, pack up snacks for the next day, finish the dishes or watch an episode of Gilmore Girls. 8:30 is lights out for the girls and I am in bed by 9:30 most nights. Then we wake up at 6:15am the next morning and do it all over again.


Eventually our schedule will need to expand to fit in visits with A's family, the bio mom, possibly grandparents, and also counseling sessions. Also dentist appointments, eye exams, and a possible visit to the chiropractor for H. 

Next up will be a blog post called "How I Met Your Mother"... you can guess what that will be about.

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