It’s very poignant, the thought of taking in two needy children, showering them with love and helping them come to a place of security and love, isn’t it?

There’s a reality to balance with that emotionally evocative picture that translates into a tremendous amount of time and energy. Foster parenting is different than regular parenting. When you’re parenting children who have a completely empty love tank, you barely keep them above empty even when giving to them constantly in every way. If they perceive you as not filling that tank for even a short time, they don’t have emotional reserves to fall back on. As a result, they can switch to feeling empty in a moment and a lot of negative emotions come out.

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The first week, my husband and I were with the twins all the time. While we both really enjoyed the active presence of one another throughout the day, after a week we were exhausted and realized we needed to find a way to give each other breaks.

The second week, I would be on for a few hours, then he would take over so I could rest. Then I would spend time with them so he could do what he needed to do.

While this was very functional, emotionally it wasn’t working well for us. Our relationship is what energizes us to do whatever it is that we do, and for us to spend so little time together was draining and left both of us feeling depleted.

We’re trying to find the balance, to find time with each other as a couple, for both of us to simultaneously spend time with the children, and to still have self-time to do other things that need to be done.

Although the children are doing great and it’s clearly very beneficial for them to be home full-time with us, we have a lot of people and their needs to take into account. My husband and I have discussed that and decided that we’re not able to have them at home full-time for the coming months, as we originally desired (and still believe would be ideal).

This isn’t just because of the needs of our wider family, but because the additional involvement and extra demands being put on me by social services is becoming burdensome (they want their expert to meet with me, create a plan for their days, then for me to follow and report on that plan). While I understand why they want that, I’m not interested in being their unpaid worker following their directions. It’s due to my desire to provide them with the framework that I want them to have that they’re experiencing much more than what they would get in their special needs schools or any plan someone would put together for them. This is a perfect example of how external control decreases intrinsic motivation and desire.

As a result, we’ve decided that it would be good for them to go back to their kindergartens. I spoke to our social worker to let her know; she completely understood and supported our decision. However, there’s now an issue with not having someone available to accompany them on the ride to and from school, so for now we don’t know when they will resume attending school.

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Fortunately, it’s getting easier and more enjoyable to be with the twins as time goes on so it’s less urgent to me that they go back to school than when I spoke to the social worker about it a week ago, and as long as I’m not officially keeping them home with us, social services isn’t going to be on top of me about executing their desired daily schedule. I’m seeing lots of signs of positive shifts in their responses and behaviors.

In the beginning, they were very afraid of not being with me. If I went to the bathroom, they would anxiously try to open the door. If I lay down for a nap while my husband was with them, I would leave the door open and they would repeatedly come in and touch me and talk to me. If I closed the door, they would within a few minutes open it. If I locked the door, they would rattle it in a panic. (Again, all of these times were when my husband and often sons were with them; they weren’t alone.) Even if I closed my eyes for a moment in their presence, one would worriedly asking why I was closing my eyes.

When they woke up out early in the morning and came out to find me in our yard, they would ask me why I left them alone, by themselves. They also were afraid to play in the yard without me being there every moment. I explained to them that our yard is part of our house, and I’m not leaving them when I step from the house into the yard, or from the yard into the house. I’ve reassured them a number of times, Mommy doesn’t leave her children and I’m not going to leave them alone by themselves.

The constant proximity isn’t easy. It’s very intensive and it’s exhausting. While you may think that it’s easy for me because I’ve homeschooled for so many years and I’m used to having people around me all the time, it’s not true. I relish and treasure my personal time and space, and it’s a huge thing for me to give up my quiet mornings that I’ve only had for the last year and a half (after almost three decades of parenting). However, when I focus on being compassionate and cognizant of their needs, it helps me access my willingness to extend myself and be more patient.

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Yesterday when I lay down to rest, each of the twins came in to see me. They saw I was resting with my eyes closed and went out without speaking to me, and dd5 closed the door behind her when she went out. That was completely her initiative; no one suggested it to her. Then she did it today several times. Do you know how huge it is for a child who has a fear of closed and locked doors (for good reason), to feel safe enough to voluntarily close a door between her and her security person, and trust that I’m still here for her?

There have been a lot of emotional storms, and while I don’t expect them to disappear, they’re gradually decreasing in intensity, frequency and duration. Ds5 gets increasingly hyped up and emotionally depleted as the day goes on, and I’ve recognized that physical connection and the reassurance of being held help him regulate. When I see him start to get a little wound up, I put him on my lap and sit with him in a rocking chair or on the patio bench swing.

In the beginning he fought this – the first time he screamed and kicked for 45 minutes while telling me how miserable I was making him, until he fell asleep while I rocked him the entire time. Every day there has been resistance, but it’s been decreasing significantly. A few times in the last couple of days when I put him on my lap, he not only didn’t physically resist, but seemed to welcome it, and put his head on my chest and relaxed into me.

Ds5 has a lot of babyish behaviors: grunting in a high pitched way and pointing to things instead of talking, crawling on the floor and rubbing against my ankles mewing like a cat, and communicating throughout the day in very limited ways. It’s not enjoyable, but each of has the reasons we act as we do. I could and might write a post on how I’m addressing this, where I think it’s coming from and why, but relevant to this post is that it’s improving. He’s speaking much more and expressing himself more appropriately. There’s a ways to go but I’m optimistic.

My favorite part of the day is bedtime, and theirs, too. Their favorite minute of the entire day is when I sing an additional stanza at the end of Hamalach. I’ve been singing this to my children for years: “Remember that you, are special, too, like Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov”. Since the twins are Hebrew speakers, I added two short lines of translation to the song it for them: Remember that you – tizkor she’ata; are special too – meyuchad gam (and then the feminine version for dd5).

A few days after they came, dd5 asked me when we were going to sing ‘presh two’. I didn’t know what she meant, and I was mentally filing though what she could be talking about, when I realized she meant the part of the song when I sing “remember that you are special, too” (presh two = special too). It was moving to see how much it meant to her.

When I began singing this to ds5 in the first days, he laid on his side and didn’t look at me. Slowly, each night he moved his body so he would be facing me more and more, until now he lays on his back looking directly into my face. As I sing Shema, his eyes begin shining and he smiles the entire time. Last night when I was in the middle of the first paragraph after saying shema, before even getting to Hamalach, he pulled my hand close to him and hugged it, then started kissing it. A moment later he sat up and began hugging and hugging me. He was so happy he couldn’t keep it inside.

People have asked me why I’m doing this at this stage of my life; don’t I want to take it easy and enjoy having the physical demands of raising children mostly behind me? It’s true that it’s a lot of work, and if the purpose of my life was to have more vacation time, this wouldn’t be something I would have stepped up for. I want to live a life that is meaningful, and for me, having these children in our family is meaningful and worthwhile.

Avivah