Binky of Baron Von Poopy Pants

It has been almost exactly two months since my last blog post, so it felt like time for another one.  There are lots of reasons for the relative drought, but I won’t bore you with those.  The most compelling one is that I have been busy being a dad.  And playing Dr. Mario. And trying to keep track of The Baron’s binky.

We have lots of pet names for Mr. Baby (also known as Baby #2).  For now, we will call him Baron Von Poopy Pants or simply The Baron.  For those concerned individuals who read my last blog, the amount and frequency of poop has subsided, as expected although the odor has not.

The Baron and His Binky

The Baron loves his binky.  He actually does pretty well without it most of the time, but when he does want it, he make sure you know about it.

What’s really fun is when the binky is just outside of his mouth.  He uses every possible muscle is he aware of to put it back in.  Of course, he doesn’t actually know what those muscles do or how on earth they may actually get the binky back all the way into his mouth.

“Let’s see, does kicking these legs do anything?  Nope.  What about flailing my arms about?  Nope. Let’s pull these legs up as close as I can get them to my body while grunting loudly… that usually helps with poops, so maybe it will help with the binky.  Nope.”

As he has gotten older, the more and more controlled hand flailing tactic has occasionally succeeded to varying degrees.  I documented evidence of this in the mostly obscured photograph above.

Six Months

So something we learned about fostering infants is that the typical time frame for possible adoption is shorter than older children.  It is only six months vs one year.  It does give less time to the birth family, but overall it seems to make sense.  What is going to be more traumatic for a toddler, not getting to go back to the parents he has never known or the only people he has known as parents?

It doesn’t help at all with the attachment factor.  That happened day one.

It Would Be So Hard

Something I hear all the time is “It would be so hard…” followed by varying prepositional phrases like “to not know if you were going to get to adopt him” or “to have them for that long and have to give him back” or “to go out in public with that face of yours.”  And although two of the three are true (I have no shame, so going out in public is not hard), it doesn’t actually make me want to be a foster parent any less.

It is sad and could be seen as morbid, but the best analogy I can think of is a sick child. What if you knew ahead of time that you might only have your biological child for a few months or years. Would you choose not to have them?

Would it be hard – YES!  Is whether or not we keep him out of our control – YES!  But would I take the chance anyway – YES!

What is easier about my situation is I know if we don’t get to adopt him, he is still somewhere.  It means his birth family did what they needed to in order to provide him with a safe home, and if they can do that, that is where he should be.  Plus there is the hope gained by know that if he comes back into foster care, there is a highly likely chance we would get to adopt him then.

Are You Crazy?

Yes. Yes I am.  But not in a way that would endanger a child.  Thank goodness.

Does that mean everyone should buck up and be willing to accept that kind of loss?  I don’t think so.  It is super hard.  That potential feeling of loss is likely too much for some.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with understanding yourself and protecting yourself from that unnecessary pain. Just make sure you aren’t selling yourself short.

There is someone close to me that refuses to get attached to The Baron and only will if we adopt him.  I don’t think this person has done anything wrong because they understand their limits.

In all honesty, I don’t think I have as much courage as I have ignorant optimism as to how I would handle it.

But…

But he’s here.  And I love him.  And even if he is only here for six months, I will love him forever.

Multiple times a day, I feel like Edwina in this scene from Raising Arizona: