Wow!  Its been a while since my last post... Almost a year... I found that my last post ended up in my drafts folder until today.  It made me think of how things have changed.

Our last four foster children have returned home to their father.  We had seen improvements in Andrew's behavior.  As such, we thought that he would be ok with bringing some other children into our home.  We accepted another sibling group of 3 children.  One 12 year old, a 5 year old, and a 9 month old baby.  They are well behaved and generally good kids.

However, no sooner had they arrived that Andrew's behavior took a turn for the worse. He has regressed significantly.  He began to be aggressive when the 5 year old.  He began to mess his pants and at times ask to be held and rocked like the baby and even want to a bottle.  After confering with his therapist, we rock him and let him have a bottle when he asks for it.  He usually only wants a few seconds of rocking and a couple of sips from the bottle.  Then he just wants to get down and play again.

When the first set of kids went home and the new kids came, we think he began to relive and start working through some of the trauma he experienced when he was removed from his home and even before as an infant.  It has been difficult to see him get aggressive with other kids his age and revert back to needing paper pants along with multiple showers a day.  The bottle has been ok and the few moments of rocking have been enjoyable.

We have even began to wonder if accepting a new set of foster kids was a bad choice.

However, after a month we have seen some glimmers of hope in his behavior.

Andrew has had fewer messed paper pants.  Today he sat in his primary class today and paid attention longer than he had for weeks.  Of course he came home and had a meltdown.  But it seems things are slowly getting better. Time will tell...

Through all of this, his curiosity has never waned.  He has managed to find more scissors and clip several window screens and strings on the blinds in his bedroom.    He even found a sharpie marker and used his bedroom wall as a drawing pad.  We still find fluff on his floor and stuffed animals and pillows a little less full.