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Hi Cynthia,

First of all, I wanted to let you know that what you're feeling is valid and makes sense. Your anxiety and worry is understandable, and it's normal to feel that way. In times of stress (isolation due to the changing seasons and COVID, Papa's upcoming surgery, our foster care situation), anxiety can skyrocket out of control. I wanted to reassure you that Sergio and I both love you and Papa and one outburst will not change that.

I wouldn't attribute our calm behavior to being young: I think (and Sergio agrees) that when faced with someone who is upset, it's important to be relaxed and not to 'feed into' the anxiety and make it worse for the upset person. We're learning a lot about this both in foster parent training and couples therapy and I think it helps everyone in the long run, the upset person included. For me personally, I also have anxiety and in order to cope, I tend to compartmentalize and 'see myself outside the situation', if that makes sense.

For the part about never getting to see us, this took me a little off guard: I try to invite you and Papa to our house a few times a year and Sergio and me get up there twice a year at minimum. I know sometimes you'll need to cancel and that's understandable, but I want to reiterate that you can come over and visit us whenever you would like, too. We're usually at home and as we get deeper into this foster situation, we're likely to turn into more homebodies than usual because we need permission to leave the state with any children.

I think (and correct me if I'm wrong) that a lot of this stress around visits come because purely from the nature of everyone's jobs, lives, and distance, we go a while without seeing each other so the need for everything to be "perfect" is high. Additionally I know it takes us a while to answer messages or phone calls: this is most likely because we know by now that when we answer, we'll usually be tied up in 30-40 minute conversations or receive a lot of texts in a row, so we need to get to a point where we can give you our full attention for that length of time.

I wanted to suggest something else that seems to work for my aunts and me: more frequent texts/phone calls at maybe half the time. That way we don't have to tell each other everything because we always know there's going to be another phone call. I know Sergio gives you a call every Sunday night; would you like to do Wednesday/Sunday nights at 10-20 minutes apiece instead of one thirty minute conversation on Sunday?

Another way to calm that need to see us more often could also be setting a permanent date. I know that part of the upset this last visit was because of missed Christmas appointments, which are, like you said, no one's fault. Usually Sergio and I don't know what we might be doing for holidays, especially as foster children with their own traditions are going to maybe need more hands-on care at those times. I don't need to tell a mother how much the kids take center stage! But I like the idea of coming up in January, and I would like to suggest going one step further: every time we leave, we will tell you when the best time is to come back, and stick to it. If you have a good time of the week (say, if Friday-Sunday doesn't work, we could do a Monday-Thursday thing instead), please let me know and I can make arrangements.

We both love you two very much, and look forward to seeing you again.
Warmly,
Allison and Sergio