Worries and Whatnot

The baby is getting so big! He’s such a chunky monkey right now and interacting more and more with the rest of us. Even though he seems to be growing wonderfully, I still worry. I worry that maybe he isn’t attached to me as his primary care taker. I worry that he doesn’t make eye contact enough with those around him. I worry that there’s a problem because he cries incessantly in his car seat for even the shortest car ride. I worry that he throws up too much. I worry that he gets held too much or maybe not enough. I worry that he will never sleep through the night (that’s really a worry for me and not so much for him). I guess all moms of infants worry about these things (well, maybe not the attachment thing, that’s more of an adoptive mother worry) and it just means that you care. Still, I can’t wait for his checkup so I can bombard his doctor with all these questions. Mostly, I just want to bottle our time together because I never know if or when it will be over and I want to remember every tiny nuance and every little smile and giggle. I kiss him too much, hug him too tightly. I just want him to stay with us forever.

 

The little girl is doing pretty well. She still has her moments, but she’s a toddler, so it’s expected. She is so attached to Primero I think she likes him more than she does me. Every night she needs to give him a hug and a kiss before going to sleep. One day last week he was at an after school program and the little girl cried the whole way home after we dropped him off imploring me to go back and get him. He is getting better with her, but she still mostly drives him crazy and not always in a good way. When they play together it is rough, yet she likes it. The bed wetting is still an issue, one I hope is resolved soon because I’m so tired of washing the bed sheets (she wears a diaper or pull up but many times it’s not enough). She does well in her daycare and I have never had a bad report about her behaviors. She’s sassy and smart which can get her in trouble sometimes.

 

The foster family that has the girls older sister and baby-sits the baby while I work is probably putting a 30 days’ notice in on the older sister. They feel like they can’t turn around for a minute without the older girl getting into something she shouldn’t. She is at the age where she shouldn’t need constant supervision but she does. What’s more, she can be very rude and lacks manners (emulating behaviors seen in her mother, no doubt). I worry what this means for the little girl because she sees her sister pretty regularly with this other family and if the girl moves somewhere else that might not be the case. I guess we will deal with things as they happen…..

 

The after school program Primero is involved with has the many of the same kids he had camp with this past summer. He came home one day and told me a very sad story about a young man who had disappeared then came back to say good bye and explain what had happened. According to Primero, the young man arrived home late because a friend from the program gave him a lift rather than letting him walk the city streets after dark by himself. This apparently infuriated the boy’s mother and so she turned him over to BCCYS and because they didn’t have a foster home for him he was sent to the same facility where Primero’s brother currently resides. In fact, Primero’s brother sent a message with the kid asking Primero to write him a letter. This story is just so incredibly sad. The young man doesn’t really seem like a “bad” kid and to be so utterly rejected by your own family, I just cannot fathom that pain. Obviously, the mother’s side of the story was not told, so I suppose the whole thing needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but the fact remains this young man is in a facility where he doesn’t belong because he did nothing wrong legally. I hope he gets a happy ending, maybe a family member will step forward and give him a home. It makes me hug Primero a little tighter, grateful that he no longer has to worry about such an outcome, that he has found his forever home and can be at peace knowing he won’t ever have to move again