Saturday, August 22, 2009

sinking

ok guys -
i am stressed..not stressed but STRESSED. i need to explain and have wanted to type about it all for awhile, but RUBY ripped all the keys off my keyboard and it just got fixed....
anyhow- let me start off by saying I adore my foster daughter- she is a sweetheart. so it's not that---
background- she has a 2 year old that CPS has taken from her- for NOT substantial reasons in my most humble opinion... so when taking on this placement, i was also taking on a BIG fight with CPS...and of course i am very pregnant and tired ect...
we have been running around like mad doing everything under the sun to fill her requirements as a foster child, her case plan as a birth parent, and a million and one extra tasks just to REALLY "prove" that this mom can care for this child...
literally guys i run her 1-4 places a day..often dragging along my 9, 8, 5, 2, and 1 year old.
i have bad bad back and pelvic pain right now (thank you fourth pregnancy) and need to go to a chiropractor, but have not had the time to make or go to any appointment for myself because my life revolves around appointments for everyone but myself.
so with all that in mind- before court a few weeks ago the baby's worker came over for a pre-court visit. i cleaned like crazy...everything but my room...where my foster kittens are - they had dragged laundry and papers everywhere and frankly trashed it. but that is my one place i dont worry about. it is MY space. no kids sleep in there and my foster kiddo doesn't ever even go in there. but- the worker apparently checked the room without asking or telling me-
then after leaving, she contacted my worker and told them she had concerns about the cleanliness of my house..oh, and the heat upstairs..it has of course been over 100 almost every day here and my air runs constantly, but at 3 pm in the afternoon upstairs is still probably about 78-80. apparently i am not providing adequate temperatures for my fosters-
sigh and my worker (well now ex-worker) and i don't exactly...hmmm how to put this?...get along? see eye to eye? think the same way??
she told me this stuff in a way that FREAKED ME OUT..very cryptic..no specific things i could do- it took weeks to get all the details...
when she left i cried...actually sobbed for THREE hours..i wish i was exagerating ! all while furiously cleaning . i freaked out so hard i gave myself contractions.
actually even typing about it makes me tear up again.
why you ask? well i am stressed.. i am doing everything i possibly can do , trying my hardest to do everything for everyone- but then i was told i was failing based on the one thing i let go.
the things i need to do, my to-do-list, expands daily just when my beloved mother's helper of two years has to quit because she will be having her own baby any day...
trying to find someone to replace her is like pulling teeth...
my husband is trying to help me, but honestly can't do much to lift the load off me and that makes me mad at him.

maybe right now some of you are reading this saying "Well i would just stop all this fostering nonsense.."
but if you said that in your head just now- then you don't understand.
this girl needs me. i am literally the only one capable of getting her back her daughter and stopping the CPS train that is running over her. if i gave up i KNOW almost 100% she would lose her baby.
plus she says we feel like family- and i feel the same way about her . i don't know when or how it happened, but somewhere in this she has seemed like one of my own -much more so than any of my other fosters. i want to protect her. i want to fight for her. she needs someone to do that.

so i keep trucking on.

but guys..i am so stressed. i don't know what to do to ease it.....

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

breastmilk butter

this post

Suprisingly,i get my most Google traffic from the search words "breastmilk butter". I tried this experiment awhile back and now i want to add my ideas for helping those desperate to make their own milk into butter for sore butts or maybe for a fattening-up-a-tiny-toddler spread...
-use lots more milk than i did ,like 8+ ozs
-use your highest fat milk. if you have pumped alot you know some milk is creamier than other batches. this is from the hindmilk and this is what you want.
-blend for longer. it will change to a thick cream,then it will really thicken up to butter.
good luck!