That thing I do all day long, again

We’re interviewing in our program.

Interviewing for case manager/ clinicians.

I want to ask questions of these people, but I don’t know how to put into words what I do every day. When they ask what a typical day looks like, how do I explain what it is I do all day? There’s the pat answer, of course. The “well, mornings are typically catching up on paperwork, answering phone calls/ e-mails, and meetings. the afternoons are for home visits. At night you pray you don’t have any crises so that you can stay afloat.” That’s the answer I give, minus the praying about crises at night part. We talk about doing case management and clinical work. Talk about parenting and managing kids with difficult behaviors. I inevitably ask about their knowledge about attachment and loss, and trauma, because there isn’t a kid in our program who hasn’t dealt on some level with all three of those issues. If they ask me what any of them are, well…

Now you know what to expect if you interview with me. Kind of.

Here’s what I really want to ask them about and tell them.

When I ask how they deal with stress, and tell them that this job can be emotionally draining, I want to tell them something else. I want to tell them to get ready to have their heart stomped on. I want to make sure they know to let go of their social work schooling on boundaries. I want to tell them that once you start working with kids in foster care, you have to let go of some- not all- of your boundaries. Not all- you have to keep some so you can still do your job, and do it well. And good luck finding the balance.

I want to ask if they know what it is like to look into a kid’s eyes while you are telling them that the world they’ve tried to build is going to crumble, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I want to tell them to be ready to get drunk once in a while because you just don’t know how to handle all the emotions you just took in that day.

I want to ask them how they feel about sometimes sacrificing their personal lives if it means you might save a kid’s “placement” which really means family.

What do you do when the needs of two of the kids you’re working with are directly in conflict with each other?

How do you answer a sobbing fifteen year old who is crying that no one wants her- when it’s true???

What will you say to a foster parent when they tell you that they no longer feel they can parent the child they have parented for two years and told that they will never leave?

What will you say to the state agency when you feel that your kids are not getting something they need, but they’re the guardian of the child? How about when they cut you off from that child? When you’ve been the most consistent person in that child’s life?

I want them to tell me how they will heal a foster parent’s heart when it’s breaking because a kid’s heart is breaking. How will you heal the kids heart when it’s breaking because the system that’s supposed to save them is failing them again? And you’re part of that system?

I want to tell them that sometimes you can’t leave the kids at work, no matter how good you’ve been at it in the past. I want to tell them that sometimes you’ll find yourself thinking about how your kids are doing at the oddest times.

I really want to find out, when I ask how they handle frustration at work, what they will do when they are so angry with foster parents they could throw something. What will you say when a school tells a child he can’t go there, when he’s been planning it for 8 months, 4 days before school starts? How will you encourage that kid? How will you handle frustration then?

Social work teaches us all kinds of things: boundaries, taking care of yourself, big words- “vicarious traumatization”, case management, all different kinds of therapy. Social work school can’t teach you how to love your job. It can’t teach you how to have a passion for what you do. It can’t teach you how to connect- really and truly connect- to the people you work with, the kids, the families, the other social workers. There is so much about what school can’t teach you, that is crucial to doing this job.

No amount of schooling can teach you the real stuff about this job.

The heart of it.

It’s weird to wake up after vivid but nonsensical dreams

I dreamt last night that I went to get a bikini wax. I have a girl who has been waxing my eyebrows for probably almost 5 years. She is the one who was going to do my bikini wax. In my dream she did the wax and it was relatively painless.

Then she pulled out the ultrasound wand. She started to do an ultrasound on my belly. She asked when I was due for my period, and told me she saw “a little sign of life” in my uterus. She said that she knew it would happen, and that she hadn’t been worried, but other people had told her to check to make sure. I kept asking her- what does that mean? Does that mean I’m pregnant? She told me that I had to wait  until I was due for my period to test and find out.

I dreamt this on the same night I dreamt about people from high school all meeting in the huge gym in my living room. It was all very realistic- remember, my doctor in this dream is the girl who waxes my eyebrows.

Buddy Walkin’

Every year we head to NYC for the NYC Buddy Walk. We go to support Caleb, my nephew.

Buddy Walk 04

Buddy Walk 05

Buddy Walk 06

Caleb has Down Syndrome. The Buddy Walk is set up to raise money to support the National Down Syndrome Society, which uses that money for advocacy and research.

It’s an amazing time. Our families come together to support Caleb, and we spend time in a community of people with Down Syndrome, from infants to adults, and their families and people who support them. It’s a beautiful thing.

If you want to support us, this is our team page.

Why we do this every year.

Best Video Ever

Of Rory, that is.

It’s on my husband’s site. Go see it.

Fizzling

I don’t want to say I’m burnt out. Because I’m not. But all last week, it felt like I was dangerously close.

And not just at work.

I got home at 9:30 east coast time, which was 6:30 am west coast time. (I live on the east coast.) Besides for a few hours sleep on the plane, I had been up since 9:30 east coast time- close to 24 hours. I came home, showered, rested, and went to work.

I never recovered, until Friday.

Work was a nightmare. As I described to my supervisor, after you have to hear people not want the kids you work with anymore, and convince them that they do want them, and spend hours keeping families together and hours putting kids together after the families fall apart… you start to feel like you’re carrying around a huge weight. The weight of all those little lives. I’m not the one who destroyed them, but I’m one of the grown-ups charged with trying to piece them back together.

I didn’t have the words for the week, nor the energy to write them. I didn’t have the time.

I took Friday off, and spent the weekend regrouping. Not talking to many people, totally and completely zoning out. There was an ANTM marathon on Friday, and a SYTYCD marathon the rest of the weekend. Khalil is very sick of models and dancers. My brain has appreciated the break, as have my emotions.

And so I totally bombed at Blog September.

But alas, I feel like myself again, rather than a very tired, fizzling out version of me. I’m hoping to start the week off on the right foot- either swimming or doing the Firm. Wish me luck!

It was a good weekend.

I arrived, and we spent some time putting beautiful programs and favors together.

The bride and her niece.

The bachelorette was at the Melting Pot, which was soooooooooo yummy!

Pedis and Manis the day before the wedding.

Do you guys think that’s Jonathan Antin of BlowOut?? I could have sworn it was him, and pretended to take a picture of the mother of the bride so I didn’t blatantly take a picture of him, but it’s really hard to tell. We were at this little nail salon not in LA or Beverly Hills, but I still think maybe. If it is him I’m so going to kick myself for not saying something.

A bridal tea.

The day of the wedding, getting hair and makeup done!

The newly married couple- who knew a whole face could smile so big??

Isaiah.

Kira “hey! what’s up?”

Naomi, me, and Jenn.

Jessica and I.

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It was a very good weekend. So nice to be part of my friend’s wedding, and so nice to see my friends. I miss them very much. As I said to Naomi before I left- it’s sometimes harder to come, because I remember how much I miss them.

Overheard

Me: (in annoyed tone) Can you please help? Grab your soda cans, which you seem to leave all over the house, where they then multiply, I swear.

Him: At least someone is.

touche, hon. Touche.

(for the record, we laughed. It was a funny moment for us. We’re doing ok with things.)

I already used “leaving on a jet plane”

A long time ago. I think about my mom moving to Ky.

Well, this time I’m leaving on a jet plane. It takes off in 10 short hours, and i need to sleep and drive there and yes… pack. I’m horrible about packing, I’m quite possible almost the world’s worst procrastinator when it comes to packing. The only person worse than me (who stays up late the night before doing it) is the person who does it in the morning while running late to catch the plane. I will find a million things to do before packing, much like a college student writing a paper. All of a sudden closets need to be organized, things need to be scrubbed with toothbrushes, new toothbrushes need to be bought, the checkbook needs to be balanced, the cat needs to be cuddled with because I’ll be leaving her for *sob* five days if you count Monday when I’ll be at work all day.

So I started the whole Blog September thing (why isn’t it a raging internet phenomenon already, guys?? wth?), and I’m hoping to keep it up. I’m proud of how I’ve done for the first 12 days, I have only resorted to using Google searches but have not resorted to memes of any kind. And only one picture post. Anyways, I’ll be gone in California for my friends wedding (yeah jess!) and I’m going to try to post every day but we shall see how that goes.

Remind me to tell you about my conversation with a foster parent about my fertility. that. was. so. fun.

If I don’t have time to post, will be back Monday for sure.

Stretching for searches

I got nothing today, so I’m going to respond to some folks who found my blog via random searches.

I’m still grieving:

I know. Me too. It’s hard. You put your smile on every day, and yet… it’s still there. It goes away a smidgen, like .01% every day. Then some days it comes back 110%. Those are the worst days, especially when they’re unexpected.

“my husband” “other lovers” occasional

you’re in the wrong place, honey.

training for foster parents on kids who

that’s it? Kids who what? What kind of training are you looking for? I can only imagine the various words that come after the word who in that sentence. The possibilities are endless. My guess? There’s not enough training.

I love her freckles

awww. That’s very, very sweet. Thank you.

join the gym buy new clothes

is this some kind of command from some other side? Does it mean buy new clothes to join the gym? Or join the gym and you’ll get to buy new, smaller clothes? With what money, after joining said gym?

fertility blog rochester, ny

I wrote about Rochester a long time ago, about a year, when my friend got married there. It was the first time I had a scary moment in regards to my fertility, because her supposedly psychic aunt told me it would take us 14 months to get pregnant (for anyone counting, that would be this November. We can’t do IVF ’til next year, so don’t place any bets on that one.) I wonder if that’s how infertility blog got paired with Rochester, NY.

horrible children foster adoption

uuuuuuuummmmmmmmm……………………

two months pregnant .Is it good to walk

HOW did someone get here this way??

can you still have ivf if you have hepat

there’s someone else? Possibly going through this? Why didn’t you e-mail me? I know that my blog didn’t answer your question, but still…

his daughter has not called me since his

if the last word in that search phrase is supposed to be death, there’s a reason. It’s too hard for her. It brings the fuzzy pain into such sharp focus when she’s around you or talking to you, that it’s too hard for her to call you. She feels horribly guilty, I promise. It’s not that she doesn’t want to talk to you, and it’s not that she doesn’t think about you. She’s having trouble calling her grandparents, as well.

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Even though some of the search terms seem crazy (eating ranch while pregnant? what?), I love looking at them. A review of my search terms is fairly representative of what’s here: infertility, weight struggles, grief, foster care. I wish it were more uplifting and fun, but I am where I am.

Welcome to the World, Baby Jack

On Saturday I had the privledge of meeting Jack:

(bottom right is big sister Molly kissing Jack’s toes).

Congratulations to Joe, Brett, and Molly. Jack, you’re one heartbreaker already.