The DCS worker placed the car seat holding A on the ground and put her hands on her hips. She proceeded to tell me that yet again the visitation went poorly. They’d only been gone for about 40 minutes. I had a load of laundry going, my hair was half blown dry, and I hadn’t even thought about putting make up on for the day.
I cringed as she continued to tell me about the visit. Sweet A starts to whimper, I click the button on her car seat as she lifts her arms up for me to hold her.
With A on my hip, I walk the DCS worker out. I thank her and tell her maybe next week will be better. She shrugs and waves as she gets into her car. I close the door and look at A, her head leaned against my chest, her little hand rubbing her eye.
We begin our bi-weekly routine. Dirty clothes off and into the wash. New clothes, diaper, towel and lotion laid out. New bottle made, sanitize bottle from visit.
I turn Pandora on to a children’s station and start to get A ready for her bath. She looks up at me in silence. I gently sit her down amidst a sea of lavender bath bubbles and she starts to cry. I start to sing. Indie, our puppy, comes bounding in to play with the bubbles on the perimeter of the tub. Sweet A giggles with delight and almost forgets that she was crying. I quickly bath her, and get her into some clean clothes. Then I feed her. She immediately gulps down the entire bottle and falls asleep in my arms. I lay her down to sleep and call JJ to tell her she’s home safe.
2 1/2 hours later I hear cooing coming from the nursery. I peek in to see her sitting up smiling back at me. After a change and a bottle, we load up into the car and head to Target for some more formula, diapers and wipes, etc (I am quite proud to say that on this particular Target trip I actually stuck to our list). She smiles at shoppers as they walk by and wave. She’s friendly when complete strangers walk up to her and ask her to smile. She chews a tag off a pair of leggings that were on clearance. I call my best friend, because that’s what women do at target, right? We get in line to purchase our things and the checker recognizes me. She winks at us and says, “How are things going?” I smile and point to A. I tell her that we are doing really well. The checker lifts up the leggings and says, “Teething I see?” I laugh and apologize for the ripped tags. By the time we get done unloading the cart and into the car A looks tired again.
I turn Pandora on to a random station and start to drive. I notice something in the rear view mirror and at second glance see A from her car seat mirror wiggling and moving to the beat. She has an ear-to-ear smile on her face and she’s clapping. I realize to myself that this is probably the only thing she’s done today that she actually enjoys. This girl loves music and, has some killer moves I might add.
I decide to take the long way home so we can jam out and dance. Dancing in my seat, I wave to her from the reflection in the rear view mirror and say, “Hi, baby!” Without hesitation she waves back and squeaks, “HI Mmmmammmaa!”. My eyes immediately fill with tears and my heart starts to pound. She had only ever called me Mama on a few other occasions. This was the first time she actually seemed to connect who I was to her. Those two little words were the sweetest I’d ever heard, however; as soon as I acknowledged the joy in them I immediately felt the pain.
I find that having fun or enjoying our day can be very difficult as a foster parent. I get calls, emails, and texts daily. I have DCS in my home sometimes 2-3 times a week. The constant reminder that this is all a result of lots of pain makes it hard to recover the joy in little moments.
As these thoughts flood my mind I return my gaze to A. She is still boogyin’ in her seat, waving and smiling at me. I realized to myself that this was probably one of the first times she has had fun, real fun all week. It had been a long, long week as we prep for an upcoming court date. Adulting, for lack of a better term, had been stealing my ability to have fun with my daughter. She is a child. She deserves to have fun.
So, I dried my tears, cranked up the music and we kept driving through the neighborhood, rocking out and laughing. When we finally made our way to the driveway she was a different baby. She was babbling on about something and squeaked at Indie as we walked in the door. She was so happy. She loved being home. She felt save and loved. And I made a promise to myself that even with the surmounting ‘what ifs’ and stresses of the system I was going to just have fun. I am going to enjoy our time more and worry about the adult things less. I’m going to dance with her more and let calls go to voicemail. She’s happy and loved and knows us. I can’t ask for more than that.
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