Kids, Nails and Sweet Words

KIDS

This weekend we did our first respite care  for a 3 year old and a 2 month old.  We were asked Wednesday for respite for Friday-Sunday.  Then on Thursday we were asked if they could come that day.  Slightly rushed, but worked out well.  Things I like about respite:

• Children come with all their things needed for the stay.  Foster parents are good about packing everything.  So there is no need to set a child up.
• Short time period, normally we know the beginning and end.
• Our kids get playmates for the stay.
• Get a baby fix then get to sleep again.  (of course right now Leila is waking up at least once a night-but tiny babies wake up a lot)
• You have connect with another foster family you may have not know before.

Bad things:

• Our car only fits so many
• you do have to say good bye
• Our kids have to learn how to say hello and goodbye faster

NAILS

My four year old bites her nails.  Now I know that most little kids bit her nails.  But her biting of her nails comes from more.  She suffers from a condition called Trichotillomania-which is pulling hair.  Last year when she came to use she pulled and ate half the hair on her head.  We were able to solve that through a variety of techniques.   Such as mittens on her hands, and hats on her head.  And things to keep her hands busy and just reminder her all the time.  Now her hair is finally growing back.  Pulling her hair was a reaction to stressful events in her family.  This was extreme.  

Her nail biting is her nervousness about things and when she gets into trouble.  This summer I am going to try to stop this habit.  We have bought pretty nail things, and we talk about it, just before her time out is done, because that is where you will find her biting her nails.  Other times she does it just sitting watching TV.  So right now we are just making her aware of her nail biting.  So I will keep you update on how she is doing.

SWEET WORDS

Seems that in our house some not so nice words are coming out of little children's mouth.   We tried time outs, soap in mouth, spankings and other discipline idea.  None of these things had an impact.  But we found out that not getting candy or sweet things has a HUGE impact.  So now mouths that say sweet things get sweet things and mouths that say bitter things get nothing.  So far this is the first day Isaiah (3) didn't say anything mean or ugly.  And he got sweet things today.  But it took about 2 weeks to get here.  So lets see how tomorrow goes.