Finally, Something Good

Thankfully, last night was a better night. Chica Marie had asked me on the car ride home if I could sit with her in her room to talk, but she ended up telling me what she wanted to say while we were driving home. Last night was her bath night and our alone time. Love Bug did come in once, but I shooed him away. Chica Marie went to sleep without incident last night. She even sat and did her homework, after a brief crying spell sitting on my lap. She got grumpy and worked up while I was doing her hair because she was tired but when I reminded her she was tired because she wouldn’t go to sleep the night before she calmed down a tad. Her new TSS worker also started working with her yesterday, so maybe having that regulation at school helped keep her reigned in. We will see how tonight goes since our case worker is coming over and so is the new case worker who is doing the child prep with her (the other case worker assigned to her child prep sort of disappeared from CHOR and our case worker didn’t even know why….). Often times case worker visits equate dysregulated Chica Marie, so fingers crossed that isn’t the case tonight.

 

Often times, when I’m dealing with particularly hard situations with one of the kids, I get bogged down in the nitty-gritty and sort of forget how fabulous these kids can be. Last night Primero reminded me what a wonderful young man he is and it just made my heart melt. Primero has a friend, the one who had been sleeping over at our house most weekends, who he has been helping through a rough time. This friend recently turned 18 and his mom had a baby last week with her new beau. Last night they were kicked out of their apartment and had to quickly move in with the young man’s grandmother. Primero relayed a conversation he had with his friend to me. He was trying to convince his friend to reach out to me for help. In his words, “A (me) can and will do so much more for you than even your own mom. I promise she will do what she can to help you.” If you’ve never been a foster parent or adoptive parent the significance of what he told his friend might not register. So, let me tell you how phenomenal this is! Primero has had reason to not trust adults in his past. He has had every reason to not believe there are adults who will help him and stick by him. For him to not only recognize I am an adult he can trust fully, but for him to so confidently trust I would be willing to help his friend is SO SO SO HUGE it’s like the size of 10 Jupiter’s and then some! I thought, after everything that happened last year with his sister, Primero had written me off as one of “those” adults who say they’ll do something and then renege on their promise. But, as he was telling me this story last night over dinner, my heart swelled and my eyes got a little teary. He totally trusts me. He totally, and wholly trusts that if someone allows me to help them, I will deliver. And, if he trusts that for a friend how much more does he trust that for himself? Hallelujah! I’m not a total failure at this mothering thing!  If nothing else, Primero knows I’ve got his back and if that isn’t showing unconditional love, I don’t know what else is!