• We had our walkthrough yesterday with our foster agency. Everything looked good. Since our agency is totally shorthanded after a staff member leaving unexpectedly, I had to show the case worker how to do a walkthrough. Five points for the experienced foster parent!
  • We have a few more classes, and they are just going to update our old homestudy themselves, so we don’t have anything left to do but attend classes. The last class is the 22nd, and we will be licensed for respite then. Then it will take 2-3 weeks to be completely licensed. I think I explained it before, but we are less constricted on the length and type of placements we take if we just get completely relicensed. The caseworker knows not to call us for long term foster placements, and knows what we are willing to accept in terms of kids.
  • We are taking kids of any age for respite, but no infants or kids in diapers for longer than a couple of days. We are possibly willing to take a child (preferably male) ages 5-14 for 4-6 months, depending on the child and the behaviors. 
  • This family is being very picky this time about what we are going to do and how we are doing it. Now that we know better, and aren’t in a hurry to get started like when we were newbies, we can be choosy and really feel out a situation before diving in. This is one of the best things I learned about our last stint as foster parents. Be choosy, trust your gut, be patient and wait for just the right kids for your family. 
  • Sugar Biscuit has pink eye in both eyes and a cold. He just wiped his cough snot on my leg. I’m terrified of getting pink eye as we’ve been bed sharing while he feels bad. 
  • My friend from Michigan is staying in the guest house. She’s going to leave soon. She’s been job hunting, and actually applied for the vacant job as a case manager for my foster agency. I hope she gets it! I’ve always thought that being a case manager for a private foster family agency would be a cool job. 
  • The weather is schizophrenic. 
  • Our finances are starting to turn around after a long dry spell. Thankyoujesus!
  • I still love Emeals.com- makes my life SO much easier. 
  • We are buying Stinky a new mattress today and the boys are going to share a room. Stinky is ECSTATIC because he’s always trying to get SB to sleep with him, and SB never will. We already have a headboard, and Stinky has needed a new mattress for a long while. We’re going with one of the memory foam ones from Costco. 
  • We are also organizing all the toys in the house and moving them all into the game room. We have a HUGE built in cabinet thing that’s empty, so all of the toys and games are all going into one place- the room where the kids play with them lol. SB is forever dragging his toys from his room into the game room and then back for clean up. This leaves the boy’s room for sleeping only, too, and declutters the rest of the house. 
  • Moving the boys in together leaves an empty bedroom for our respite kids. It’s nice to have a free room and not have to play fruit basket turnover every time we get a visitor. If it doesn’t work for the boys to share, nothing is lost, as SB is quickly outgrowing his toddler bed, and will need a bigger bed soon enough. We will see how it goes. 
  • The goldfinches are EVERYWHERE, which is awesome, as I’ve never been able to attract them before. I’m so happy!
  • The new baby chicks are growing so fast, and starting to stink. Time to move them to the garage! After a couple more weeks, they can go outside. 
  • All the fish in our pond died from the crazy weather and our lack of water changes due to it being so damn cold. Time to start over fresh, and it’s finally warm enough for some water plants too. At least I hope.
  • The garden is going well, despite the sudden freeze a couple of weeks ago. I’m holding off until the first weekend of April to plant any warm weather veggies, though. 
  • Dozer started her new job this week. When did my baby get big enough to be gainfully employed, y’all??!? I am SO proud of her.
  • That’s about it. Time to go organize some more toys!