The Quiet of the Morning

Truth is when you do foster care, you say goodbye a lot.  Each of these little lives come into your house and touch your heart and when they leave, they take a little bit of your heart with you.  And I learned it is ok to feel sad, it is ok to shed tears.  Each of us really handle this differently.  My two youngest ones had really rough morning's yesterday.  I am not sure if it was cause the two littlest ones were leaving or it just was a bad morning.  Robby knew he was going to be sad.  He knew he was going to cry.  He always get attached to one child more that the other one.  After the baby left, he left me notes "In room I am sad."  I would tell him it is ok to be sad.  These little guys we will get to see again.
Respite care is a quick in and out with kids.  Sometimes for one or two nights.  Sometimes for a week.  I have never had a bad child for respite, but I do know that when my foster 5 year old went into respite for the week he showed his true colors right way!  I never worried about my kids in respite but hope the foster parent!
And now this morning we are back to 4 kids, and the mornings are quieter with out the extra little ones toddling around or asking a 100 question a minute!   Now we just wait for the next time!

Really you have 6 kids?

I always love when people ask "how many kids do you have?"  My response varies but normally is something like "6 kids right now."  And normally their faces drop!  Right now?   Which normally allows me the opportunity to share our story of fostering and adopting.
For the last week we have been a family of 8. We are doing respite care for a 3 & 2 year old.   While it takes a little bit of logistics to get things together these two little kids fit right on in.  My kids adjust well to having new kids in and out.  I am very proud of them and how well they do and how much they step up.  I feel that we are teaching them about serving others and caring for theses that need a safe home while their family figure things out.  And like respite care, we are helping other foster parents.
Somethings that we had to do to get ready. We switched the crib and the toddler bed putting the crib in the boys room and the toddler bed in the girls room.  While their suit case just ended up in the boys room, I found a crate to put their dirty clothes in.  I have different plastic bins with different age toys in them.   So we got out two bins- funny thing is the older kids have fun playing with them too!  Other than putting car seats in the care, we were ready to go.  Because I want to try to keep kids schedules as stable as can be, LeAnn went to her mommy day out.  But it made my afternoon schedule a little crazy, cause I had pick up at 12:30, 1:30, and 2:30 pm.
My favorite part of this respite care was when we went to the Chinese Buffet with 8 kids (we two visiting that day) and yes we were that family whom all our kids were well believed and listened and I was very proud of them!

Babies and Books

On Thursday we got two little babies to do respite care!  They are sweet lovable little babies!  The little girl-J- was about 14 months and just the sweetest  little thing!  She fell in love with Robby and was his Shadow!  N was about 3 months old and just wanted to be held.  Our four days seemed to go quickly and we enjoyed having babies again.  Robby always has a hard time when our foster babies and kids leave.  He has such a big heart and it breaks when they leave.  I ask him, do you want us to stop and he say NO!  He likes helping these kids, but he is sad when they leave.  This time was a little harder cause J was so attached to him!
For anyone that knows me I am a bookoholic.   I love them, all kinds.  Some of my favorite authors in fiction stories are Frank Pretti, John Grisham and Ted Dekker.  Each one engages me in different ways.  I am bad about reading because when I read, I read and read and read.  Everything around me goes away and I am sucked into what every story it is.  So the weekend I have a 3 month old, who you know will wake up at least once, I read Immanuel's Veins by Ted Dekker.
This book at first intrigued by, but didn't suck me in.  I could put it down.  A few chapters in though....I started reading again Friday after the kids went to bed.  And soon, it was 12, then 1.  Through this Isaiah woke up, then Robby woke up.  My 16 year old kept coming into the room, telling me to stop reading.  My mind was transformed as I wondered what was next, guess who was going to do what and trying to envision what Toma looked like!  Finally by 3 I feel asleep, with Robby in bed with me and Dan still working on finances.  It was a weird night for us all.  I woke up and finished reading the last chapters. Needless to say we all were dragging the next day.
We made it through respite care, mommy reading a book, lack of sleep, babies, kids and now the kids are asking when is the next baby coming!  Maybe not a baby, but I am sure we will be doing Respite care again soon!

Getting ready for respite care...

Well today we are going to get two little babies to care for the weekend.   I have known for a week we were going to get them and I have gotten everything in place, except the portable crib...still needs to go up!
So for a few days we will have a baby fix, or babies fix.  The little girl is 14 months old and the baby boy, her brother, is 3 months old.  
I have talked to the foster mom a lot, who also has custody of her nieces 2 1/2 year old twins boys.  Pretty amazing family!!  While they are on a vacation that was planned before these two little guys came, they can rest assure that these babies are well loved and taken care of!!!!

Kids, Nails and Sweet Words

KIDS

This weekend we did our first respite care  for a 3 year old and a 2 month old.  We were asked Wednesday for respite for Friday-Sunday.  Then on Thursday we were asked if they could come that day.  Slightly rushed, but worked out well.  Things I like about respite:

• Children come with all their things needed for the stay.  Foster parents are good about packing everything.  So there is no need to set a child up.
• Short time period, normally we know the beginning and end.
• Our kids get playmates for the stay.
• Get a baby fix then get to sleep again.  (of course right now Leila is waking up at least once a night-but tiny babies wake up a lot)
• You have connect with another foster family you may have not know before.

Bad things:

• Our car only fits so many
• you do have to say good bye
• Our kids have to learn how to say hello and goodbye faster

NAILS

My four year old bites her nails.  Now I know that most little kids bit her nails.  But her biting of her nails comes from more.  She suffers from a condition called Trichotillomania-which is pulling hair.  Last year when she came to use she pulled and ate half the hair on her head.  We were able to solve that through a variety of techniques.   Such as mittens on her hands, and hats on her head.  And things to keep her hands busy and just reminder her all the time.  Now her hair is finally growing back.  Pulling her hair was a reaction to stressful events in her family.  This was extreme.  

Her nail biting is her nervousness about things and when she gets into trouble.  This summer I am going to try to stop this habit.  We have bought pretty nail things, and we talk about it, just before her time out is done, because that is where you will find her biting her nails.  Other times she does it just sitting watching TV.  So right now we are just making her aware of her nail biting.  So I will keep you update on how she is doing.

SWEET WORDS

Seems that in our house some not so nice words are coming out of little children's mouth.   We tried time outs, soap in mouth, spankings and other discipline idea.  None of these things had an impact.  But we found out that not getting candy or sweet things has a HUGE impact.  So now mouths that say sweet things get sweet things and mouths that say bitter things get nothing.  So far this is the first day Isaiah (3) didn't say anything mean or ugly.  And he got sweet things today.  But it took about 2 weeks to get here.  So lets see how tomorrow goes.