A time for goodbyes, a time for hello's

I just finished up with my last morning of getting four kids ready for school.  While most of the time the kids did ok, I always had to work with Michael, getting him to stay on task, having him sit still to eat, keeping him out of coloring his face, and getting him out the door with out anything major happening.  And never knowing who was going to melt down, and it changed every day who that was going to be.  And after about an hour of noise, chatter, fighting, spoons clanging, they would leave with Dan to go to school and a silence would over come my house.  Now don't get me wrong, I have two at home who create enough noise of their own, but there was just a silence that came.  And I would go about my daily things, knowing that the "noise and craziness" would soon come back for the evening.

Now almost 12 hours after that silence waved over my morning, my day is finally wrapping up up with four kids, not the six that I awoke with.  We moved our two foster boys back home.  This is a milestone in our lives, two more little lives have touched our family and we are better for it.  But it was time for them to go home, it doesn't happen often.  Most of the time our foster kids end up with relatives, but today they went home to mom and dad!  My heart hurts to lose these guys.  They just became such a fixture in the house.  And at the same time, I am going to enjoy the calmness that will come with out the constant need to watch over the little one. 

As of now, Michael and Brandle are getting settled into their mom and dad's places and saying hello to the things that were once familiar to them.  I continue to pray that mom and dad do well and the family bonds together as they get use to each other everyday again! 

This comes with the territory of foster care-the hellos and goodbyes.  We get kids whose families need to work out things, can't care for them, or have problems beyond what we can comprehend.  Some kids go home, others live with relatives, and some stay.  Foster children leaving is hard.  They say to treat your foster kids like your own, but in reality, you don't give up your kids.  In foster care, you go in knowing these are your kids, but you get them for a short time.   It is just the way that it goes.  After they leave it is always ask, will you do it again?  Not tomorrow.   Maybe next week.  Who knows?  I do know I want a small one, like a newborn.  In for a change.  We do know right now we will not take in older ones again the same age as our kids.  It was like having triplets and twins.
But for now we trust that God has a plan for our family and we feel it is a big one coming up.  Many things are changing....so who knows whats next!