Fun Filled Summer

Well the summer hiatus is over and registration for school began last night. Here are the summer updates:

Baby J - which I will refer to as BJ from now on is still with us. His BM's rights were not terminated at court because technically her 12 months service plan did not begin until BJ was 6 months old because they were waiting for a paternity test on the boyfriend (who may I remind you is NOT the father). Anywho, she has to have her full 12 months to prove to everyone she is an unfit parent who has maybe come to a handfull of visits all summer long. Her visits were reinstated back in July, however, since they were reinstated she has only seen BJ 1 time and missed 4 visits in a row.

BJ has developed by leaps and bounds. He is now taking steps, not quite walking, but taking steps. Sooo cute. His hair is soo curly in the back it is adorable. I'm sure he will lose those curls with the first cut - which BM asked us to cut his hair - but no way am I doing that until absolutely necessary. He is right around 20 pounds and he is no longer in the baby carrier anymore. He is a bit too long for that so we had to switch him to a front facing car seat. He loves it. He turns 14 months on 8/18. He has been pretty healthy all summer long until this week he came down with a croupy cough. Dr. put him back on the Prednisoline for a few days. He is still on the inhaler/spacer taking Flovent 2 x a day and it has helped tremendously. He has a follow-up with his pulmonolgist next week. Fun times! BJ no longer takes bottles only drinks out of sippy cups. I probably would have kept him on a bottle for a while longer at least at bed time, but the CW really frowned on it and said he should be having a sippy cup by the time he was 1. I guess everyone is different because a ton of my friends kept their kids on bottles until they were at least 2. Now if only I could get him potty trained before his sister comes. Yes, that's right BM is having a girl which is due in October. BJ and she will only be 16 months apart. I'm excited and petrified all at once. Of course there are no guarantees we will get her, but that is the plan. My mom did this amazing mural in BJ's room. I will have to post it. Not today, but soon.

We still have N4 and X6.

X6 had his IEP done back in May and they found that he does need lots of extra services and I'm so glad that he is going to get these. He is going into 1st grade so this will be a big transition for him to be in school all day. He is reading like a fene and loves it. We can't go anywhere without him reading some sign or box. It's especially akward at the library when he reads the innaproriate stuff out loud. Nothing too bad just a little PG-13 reading on some of the movie covers. Gotta love those times. He's been enjoying his summer riding bikes, going to birthday parties and enjoying taking field trips at summer camp. Their camp is pretty cool they go bowling, to the movies and have water day every week.

N4, N4, N4 what can I say he is hand full. We have had our ups and downs with him this summer that is for sure. We had a 3 hour long meeting with their CW and his supervisor regarding this one. We had therapy for him, but it was more like therapy for my husband and the therapist only saw N4 1 time before she told us she was leaving and her internship was over so we would be getting a new intern, which she is starting to see my DH next week. They belive N4 has some kind of AD (attachment disorder). N4 has lost his priveleges to go on field trips with his summer camp because when they went bowling, he was in a time out and he decided to go to the arcade with another kid he is not suppose to be playing with because as you can see why they get into too much trouble together. The daycare thought him going on field trips was a safety issue and we agreed. He can reinstate his privleges when he has had 3 good days without incident, but that hasn't happened yet and really there is only 1 week of field trips left. We found out last night that N4 will have X6 Kindergarten teacher at school so we feel like she is in for a rude awakening. She won't even be able to believe they are brothers because X6 is very compliant, however, as a teacher she must know siblings can be very extreme! Don't get me wrong N4 has had a pretty good summer, but in times like these we tend to focus on the negatives, but I have to remind myself he just turned 5 and he has been through a lot. These are the days where as foster parents you have to wonder why anyone would do this for the money!!!!!!