AN EXCITING WEEKEND

RESPITE CARE
The past week or so has been a total whirlwind on the foster care/adoption front. The first item is that Chris and I hosted two kids at our home last weekend for respite care. Kids who are in foster care can only stay overnight with people who are licensed foster parents. When most parents need a break they would take the kids to grandma’s for the weekend, or let them stay at a friend’s house, but you can’t do that in foster care. So frequently social workers will arrange for respite care, which allows the foster parent to take a break while the kids stay with another foster family for a few days. Our social worker approached us about two weeks ago to see if we would be interested in providing respite care for two brothers over the weekend. For privacy, I won’t post the kids’ names or pictures here, but their initials are N (the older brother, age 15) and R (the younger brother, age 11). We decided to go ahead and host them, and although we were really nervous at first, we had a great time. Here’s how it went.

FRIDAY
The kids’ foster mother dropped them off at our house on Friday afternoon and we showed them to their rooms. Since we have been planning on adopting only one child, we only have one room set up as a bedroom with one queen size bed. In order to accommodate another child we set up an air mattress in our office. N, being such a good big brother, let R take the room with the bed and N took the air mattress.

Once their foster mother left it was a little weird trying to make conversation at first. But they were both very polite, well-behaved and articulate so we chatted for a little while and learned a little more about each other. We let them settle in a bit and they wanted to play Xbox, so they played videogames for a while in the family room while Chris and I did our own thing. I was in our bedroom, probably updating my status on Facebook, and after a little while I heard the machine gun fire stop and heard someone start playing the keyboard we keep in our family room. It turns out they have a piano at home and N taught himself to play Fur Elise using an application on his iPhone. Honestly, he played it so well I was surprised that it was the only song he could play. I assumed that he must have been playing for years. Apparently he inspired R to play too because we found out R has been taking piano lessons, and although he hasn’t learned to play any songs yet, he says he’s getting good at practicing scales! The boys had already eaten dinner so Chris and I made sandwiches for ourselves, and a couple of hours later we were all ready for a snack. We decided to take the kids out for frozen yogurt, which gave us a chance to talk with them a little more as we walked around downtown Walnut Creek. We got home and spent a low key evening with the kids continuing their game of Call of Duty and I think I remember hearing an alien from Halo at some point too.

SATURDAY
Saturday morning we all slept in until 9 AM when we finally got up and had breakfast. Chris and I are used to just grabbing a breakfast bar in the morning while we get ready for work, but Chris had actually gone out and bought some cereal that was a little sweet, but definitely healthier than the cereals I remember eating when I was a kid. After breakfast we piled into the car and drove up north to Guerneville and the Russian River. We had some good conversations on the way up, especially once we passed Marine World in Vallejo. We now know all of each other’s favorite rides and all the rides that make us sick (teacups… eww). When we weren’t talking we listened to the radio, and N chose one of the urban/hip hop stations which was an experience for me and Chris. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to that genre of music, and apparently it’s been longer than I realized. I don’t remember turning into an old fuddy duddy, but I was really shocked by some of the lyrics! In my day, yes, the songs were often about sex, but they used euphemisms and we kind of had to figure out what they were talking about. Now they lay it right out for you, with no imagination necessary. Well, we made up for it later by playing show tunes on the way home. There was a little bit of a compromise since the music was from the show “In The Heights”, but the music is definitely geared for musical theater fans with a little hip hop added, rather than for hip hop fans with a little musical theater added. The kids were very polite about it though. I think they put on their iPods when the show tunes came on.

So back to Guerneville… once we got there we stopped at Safeway and got some sandwiches for lunch, then walked over to Johnson’s Beach and ate our lunches on a picnic blanket on the beach. After we ate we rented a canoe and took it out on the river. The kids said they had never been canoeing before, so Chris and I paddled upriver for a while, then let them take the oars and taught them how to row and steer. We pulled over for a bit and they went swimming in the river. Again, they were super-cooperative…. They didn’t complain about wearing their life vests while swimming (we wanted to be extra careful while they were in our care and not give social services a reason to be upset with us).

After we got back to shore we hopped back in the car to head home. However, we wanted to make one more stop. At some point during the day, R had asked where the river runs to, so we told him we’d show him. We drove to the town of Jenner where the Russian River empties into the ocean. It was a little cool and foggy but not too bad that day. The waves were absolutely huge, which made me a little nervous, but the kids stayed up on the flat part of the beach like we told them to (the waves can be dangerous all over the bay Area… people walking at the water’s edge can be swept out to sea with no warning).

The ride back home was long but in some ways it was the best part of the day. It was the first time the kids initiated conversation with us on their own, which told us they were feeling more comfortable with us. Up until then, all conversations began with our prompting them, but they starting asking us questions and talking to us of their own accord, which felt pretty cool!

We finally got home after stopping at Safeway again to pick up items for make-your-own-boboli-pizzas. The kids came up with good ideas for their toppings – sausage, mushrooms, red bell peppers and bacon. I had never had bacon on a pizza and it was so good it made me wonder why I’ve never had it before! I returned the favor by making something yummy for dessert that they had never had before. I made regular chocolate pudding but I took a bowlful of Cool Whip and folded in a tablespoon of peanut butter and spooned it on top of the pudding. Everyone loved it!

SUNDAY
Sunday was much more laid back. We got up again at 9 AM but decided to spend the day doing something low key and relaxing. We ended up going to the movies to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The boys were looking forward to seeing it (R had already read the entire Harry Potter series) so they decided they didn’t want to wait another week for it to come out on IMAX.

After the movie we walked around downtown Walnut Creek and got lunch at one of the old-time diners, then basically hung out at home for the rest of the afternoon. We had planned to bring them back home at 4 PM, so we packed the kids up and dropped them off with their father and made sure they knew they were welcome back anytime.

We were really thrilled we ad the chance to meet these wonderful kids and help out a little. We’re hoping we’ll get to see more of them! There were a few other big things to happen in the past week, but I'll write about those in my next post.