surviving hungry teenagers

FRENCH BREAD PIZZA

This isn't a cooking blog. But good Lord...I do a lot of cooking. And I don't even have those kinds of teens that are "hungry all the time". Still, when your house is crawling with humans, it takes a lot to keep everyone fueled. Here's one of Bart's favorite things for me to make for him and his friends.

Start by preheating your oven to 400°. (Or 425° or even hotter. You just have to adjust how long you cook things.)

Then slice your bread in half. If I know I'm going to have extra hot bodies in the house, I keep these on hand.

I put mine on a sheet tray with a piece of parchment paper below. I don't like to do dishes.

One small jar of pizza sauce does the trick for me. I don't like measuring and I don't like having a couple tablespoons of pizza sauce left in the fridge. So I dump it all on.

I use mozzarella and pepperoni. I find that it's best if you cut up big (regular sized) pepperonis or buy the minis. The smaller hunks of meat make it easier to cut the slices later. Any pizza topping you like works here, though. You don't need a recipe. Pile it on as high as you want.

Put the pizzas in the oven. No need to wait until your oven it completely preheated, here. There are no pizza police and nothing bad is going to happen. You just have to keep looking inside your oven until you decide the pizza is ready. Everything is already cooked so you're just heating things through and toasting things the way you like.

And this is where I just wing it. I think these took about 20 minutes total and my oven wasn't fully preheated until after they had been stuck in the hot box for 5 minutes or so. When you smell the pizza and the cheese is brown the way you like it, they're done.

When it comes to slicing, the smaller the meat pieces, the easier it is to slice the bread without the toppings all sliding off. That extra pizza sauce makes things gloppy and I like it that way.

That tray of veggies is pretty much just wishful thinking on my part. Though, sometimes, the teens will eat the carrots.


For dessert...we make a peanut butter, chocolate, marshmallow version.

Cut the bread in half and slather with peanut butter. Sometimes I buy individual bolilos (a Mexican bread common in all our grocery stores). Then, instead of a large French bread pizza cut into slices, kids get individual servings. Sprinkle on some chocolate chips and top with mini marshmallows. They take about 7-9 minutes (give or take). The teens in my life, and Mr. Amazing, love this!!

Pantry staples and quick food that can satisfy a crowd is how I like to feed my crew. Enjoy!

K.I.S.S.

Keep your house rules simple.

I'm not going to give you a flowery introduction paragraph. No big long explanations why. Just do it. Take the most important things to you and boil them down as much as you can. Make them easy to repeat and easy to remember.

We've done this with two sets of rules as our kids have grown up.

When the cherubs were little, some of the most important things was knowing at all times:
1. Who my kids were with
2. Where my kids were at
3. What my kids were doing

When they were playing outside or at friend's houses, we'd make sure they could answer all three questions before they took off. As they advanced to technology, the same rules applied. We wanted to know what sites they were visiting online, what they were doing, and if they were chatting with anyone.

The rules were short and simple and they applied in many different situations. My kids know this is the expectation. My kids still have to answer these three questions before they take off to do things with their peers, now.

At about middle school age, we implemented three additional rules. They're kind of like a jingle even. I don't sing them...but almost every single kid that walks into our home hears these three rules. In fact, Ricky called me the other day. He let me know he's in Wyoming. He travels the country with a company that does maintenance work on wind turbines. Ricky is doing well and hopes to be a project leader in this company someday. As he's telling me about all that he's doing, he threw in the fact that he's still following "all the rules":

1. No booze

2. No drugs

3. No babies

Ricky lived with us for about six months his sophomore year of high school. He's 23 now. The three rules stuck in his head. 

Granted, when kids turn 21 the first rule gets changed to "no drinking and driving". But other than that, those are the three big rules for the kids that grace my threshold. 

They're simple. They make sense. And all the kids can recite them with ease. 

When they're getting ready to leave for a party...or they're going to someone's house for a sleepover...or they're just breathing...I can rattle off the rules to them. I'm like a broken record.

I highly recommend keeping all house rules simple. When kids join your family via foster care (or otherwise), it's important that you let them know what's important to you. Overwhelming them with a list of rules a mile long isn't helpful to anyone. Keeping things super simple helps. And being able to reinforce the rules that have the biggest impact on their lives with ease means that the rules might stick in their heads. 

We temporarily added a young adult to our family this week. He's 23 years old and at a rather low point in his life. He doesn't have local family he can rely on and he came to us. Just like when Ricky came at 16, it was important for me to help our new guest feel welcome and not overwhelmed. I didn't start telling him what ALL the house rules are. I just told him that if he's going to stay here:

1. no booze

2. no drugs

3. no babies

It was easy for him to know how that applies to what he's going through right now and he knows where my boundaries are. As time progresses, we will iron out any other rules that he may need to know.

I know most foster care licensing agencies want you to have a list of printed rules. Here is our list. I'll be honest, because we had very small humans, we never printed these rules out and handed them to any kids. But if it helps anyone else going through the licensing process...here's the full list of our household rules:

1. We treat each other with respect.
2. We work together as a family to keep the household running.
3. For all children, parents need to know at all times:
               Who you are with.
               Where you are at.
               What you are doing.
4. We cause no harm – physical or emotional – to others.
5. When you’re eating, you must be sitting down.
   Food is allowed on the first floor only.
   Ask before eating a snack.
   Drinking water only is allowed in bedrooms.
   We eat dinner together as a family every night.
6. Walk in the house – run outside.
7. All electronics (phones, gaming machines, etc.) are turned in at bedtime and will be returned the following morning.

Rewards = praise and extra privileges

Consequences = time out and/or removal of privileges

Keep the rules simple. It's best for everyone.

You have to change

Starting a new blog from scratch feels awkward. We're not currently fostering and I'm not going to be writing as much about the kids with my last name. I'm NOT an expert on foster care in any way. If you want advice from experts - surround yourself with people that survived the foster care system. Not doctors. Not social workers. Not even other foster parents. If you REALLY want to understand The System - learn from people who were the unwilling participants in it.

Foster parents choose to be a part of The System. And, in my opinion, because they made that choice, they are obligated to listen to the children and adults IN The System. I've tried to do that over the years. Somehow I landed in the middle of a small group of adults that survived abuse, neglect, and things most people would never understand. Online - they are regularly chastised for their views on foster care and families of origin. But I've tried to listen and I've tried to learn. I hope to pass on the things they've taught me.

The biggest thing I've learned is that the foster parents have to be the ones that change when new children enter their family through foster care. Far far far too many foster parents believe that the children will change once they are safe and loved.

And that's just not how it works.

From that first night in the home, foster parents have to be looking at the situation and figuring out how they need to change themselves and the home environment to best suit the newest kid(s) that a judge decided cannot live where they were before. This concept is somewhat taught in all the trainings that foster parents go through prior to being licensed. But I've come to the conclusion that this is the concept that foster parents gloss over the most. They honestly can't wrap their brains around how much THEY are really going to have to change. Deep in their hearts, they believe that the foster children will be so grateful that they are safe now...that they will slide right into a new family with new rules and new expectations and that everything will be super hunky dory.

I know some of you are shaking your heads right now. You know that you don't believe that. You know that you expect these children to have certain behaviors. You're not one of "those" foster parents.

But are you really honest with yourself?

I'm going to start off this new blog with short examples of things that I had to change in order to best parent the new cherubs that came into our family via foster care. I really like the idea of discussion though. I'd love to hear real examples of things you changed about yourself or things you changed in your home in order to help make a kid feel more comfortable, safer, and more respected.

Tell me about your changes.

Welcome to Cherub Mamma 2.0

It's been just about a year since I took Cherub Mamma (my first blog) down. I had over 900 blog posts and what seemed like zillions of Facebook posts. I really enjoyed writing. Never in a million years did I think my rambling would do little more than be a therapy outlet for me. But I had lots of people private message frequently letting me know that my thoughts on the foster care system helped them navigate it better and it helped their kids.

Still, as time went on, I realized how public my "anonymous" blog really was. I wrote about what I knew and that meant I was writing about my kids...the ones with my last name. And they deserved more privacy. They didn't need the whole internet having access to their diagnoses and their struggles.

So I took that blog down.

It was weird to me to just stop writing. But I did. And I got used to it. I left almost every single foster parent "group" on Facebook. I started to live my life without thinking about CPS every single day of the week.

But then I met a new friend.

Years ago, when we were caring for Russel and Star, a local friend told me that someone at her church was getting ready to start a foster/adoptive parent support group. I "friended" Carly on Facebook and that was about it. We never messaged each other. We didn't meet in person. I never went to the support group meetings. It was just an internet thing.

Carly not only fosters and runs the support group, but she also heads up a ministry where CPS messages this organization when they need items to help support families of origin. For example, there might be a young mom who has been "flagged" by CPS as needing support. In Texas, this mom might be referred to a program called Family Based Services. CPS will then reach out to Carly's ministry letting them know that in order for this young mom to be able to keep custody of her child, that they need a pack-n-play so the child will have a safe place to sleep. The ministry reaches out to local churches to supply this need.

One day Carly put a post up saying a family was in need of size 14-16 boys clothes. Bart had just cleaned out his closet and I had a couple bags of things I was already going to donate. It just made sense to get them to Carly.

As we went back and forth about what our schedules were, we figured out that Carly and her husband had JUST bought a home - literally - two streets over from where I live. We laughed at the coincidence and made arrangements to meet in person to transfer the clothes.

From there, the friendship took off. I babysit (somewhat "illegally") her foster babies. For awhile she was caring for multiple small humans. So if one baby had court or an appointment of some kind, I would babysit the other one. After a funny episode in the ER with one of the babies, we decided that I would just be the Nana. Now even their 5 year old daughter, Natalie, calls me Nana L***.

My family has started the process to get licensed again so we can "legally" babysit for the foster kids Carly and her husband care for. Let me tell you...digging up all the necessary paperwork for the licensing agency has certainly opened up the feels.

All this dancing with CPS made new blog posts start to run through my head. I toyed with the idea of starting a new blog page.

Then, after following the legal case for almost four years, I finally saw that Kori was made to face justice for her role in the death of her daughter, Dandelion. She took a plea deal and the sentencing was 10 years in prison. This seriously drug up all the feels. I can't even really identify them. But I wanted to share them with the people that had followed me through that season of my life.

And here we are. Cherub Mamma 2.0

My goal is going to be trying to highlight the errors of The System while elevating things foster and adoptive parents can do differently and/or better. I'm going to try to not talk about the kids with my last name. They bring a lot of dynamics to my experience as a parent...as all children do. But they deserve privacy and don't need everyone knowing even what diagnoses they have. I'm not sure HOW I'm going to accomplish this...because I want people to know why I feel strongly about certain parenting techniques and/or approaches. But my goal is to not talk, specifically, about my kids. (Unless I'm bragging about them. I do plan to still do that! LOL)

Welcome to this blog. I'm sharing this post on both the old Facebook page and the new one. On Sunday, January 26th, I will be taking the original Facebook page down once more. If you want to get updates on the ramblings in my brain, subscribe to this blog or "like" the new Cherub Mamma 2.0 Facebook page.