2 WEEKS

It has been just over 2 weeks since S & K arrived at our house. The past 2 weeks feel like a lifetime at moments and like it was just yesterday at other times. The "honeymoon period" is definitely over. Foster care refers to the "honeymoon period" as a time when the children behave and act differently at first because they are unsure of their surroundings. K's honeymoon period seemed to end after about 4-5 days, S's however seems to be ending more recently. She is now pushing back on our limits/rules and tries the argument over and over "my mom said....". We can't really say "I don't care what your mom let you do...." but instead we say, "well here, we do it this way." Bedtime for K has gotten so much better. She hardly wakes up in the middle of the night anymore. Occasionally I'll still hear her cry in her sleep but not nearly as often. Going to bed for her is also getting easier. We have progressed to her hearing her stories and songs in her bed instead of having to be rocked. It's so sweet to hear her ask me "mommy please stay" when it's time for her to fall asleep. S is now pushing the bedtime issue. It's hard for her to understand that bedtime at 10pm is actually not unreasonable but since she was allowed to stay up as late as she wanted before (she's told us this herself) then she doesn't understand.

I don't want people to think that it's all bad, it's not. Being a parent these last few weeks has been one of the  greatest blessings we've ever had. These girls are so sweet and fun to be with. Their first court date was last week and they will be with us for at least 1 more month. There are a few family members who are trying to get home studies done so that the girls may be able to live with them. We will wait until next month to see where this is going. However, we have been told by our social worker that it could take a few months to have the family members home studies complete and approved. We will continue to love on these girls and teach them the love of Jesus while they are here. I'm so greatful that my residency program has been letting me spend so much time with the girls and Jonathan this month.

Please pray for us. Tomorrow K has a lab appointment to see if she has a pretty serious medical problem that she was possibly diagnosed with right before Christmas. It's hard for her to have to have blood drawn and it's hard for us to see her cry as well as to sit and wait for results.

~until~

Bedtime Routines....easy to talk about....hard to accomplish....

Tonight is night 5 with S & K. Last night was K's first night to sleep in her own bed by herself. Last nights bedtime routine took an hour and fifteen minutes to get her to go to bed by herself. It involved much ear splitting screaming that was so heartbreaking to listen to. We have decided not to include a bath in her bedtime routine because she doesn't get one everyday. For now, while we are establishing her routine and getting her used to sleeping in her own room and bed we have decided to give her a bath in the morning after breakfast if she needs one. Since she doesn't go to school this will work out fine for now. Maybe once she knows her routine we can start doing baths after dinner or adding them to her bedtime routine on the nights she needs one. The routine that we made last night while flying by the seat of our pants includes 2 books, rocking and singing songs, then just sitting, then her lying in bed while I sit in a chair by her and finally her drifting off to sleep. Like I said, last night took over an hour to accomplish this because she was freaking out so much. Tonight however only took about 15 minutes. I call that success. I'm hoping that with a steady routine things will continue to get easier. Hopefully as time passes she will also begin sleeping through the night. 2 nights ago she woke up no less than 10 times crying out for "momma" which right now means me. Last night it was only 4 or 5 and 2 of them were to go to the bathroom. Hopefully we can keep the numbers down today as well, although she's going to the bathroom more because she has a urinary tract infection.

S really opened up to us last night voluntarily. It was nice to hear things from her side and to hear how she feels about them. She is a very sweet girl who is trying really hard to handle all of this so well. Today we met with our CASA worker, who was really nice, and she talked to S for about an hour. The first court date for the girls is on Wednesday of next week. Hopefully that will give us an idea of what's going on. Our CASA worker explained the process to us a little more today which was nice. I know our agency has explained it before but it gets so overwhelming that I can't seem to remember anything.

Being a foster mom has been the hardest, yet already one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. I'm trying not to fall in love with these girls but I'm afraid I'm already failing miserably. Tomorrow we are all going to church.

~until~

The 3rd Night....

S&K have been here for just over 48 hours and it already feels like so much longer. They are both so incredibly sweet and loving. S (the oldest) has started coming out of her shell today and it's so much fun to laugh with her. K started calling me momma yesterday morning and started Jonathan daddy today. It's weird to go from not having kids to having 2 and one is already calling you momma and daddy. This has been more of a shock to us than I expected and it must be so hard on them. If you could keep praying for them and us. K cries in her sleep and wakes up scared. I know S must be having a hard time but she's not ready to talk yet, and that's ok. She will talk when she is ready. Things are still up in the air since their case hasn't gone to court yet and probably won't till sometime next week. Hopefully then we will know a little more about visitation with family, a semi expected length of stay, etc. It has been such an amazing, hard, trying, exciting, blessing, overwhelming at times, so much fun, loving experience! I am so glad that I have Jonathan to experience this with. Thanks for the prayers and congrats on our new family.

~until~

We Have KIDS!

Wow the last 2 weeks have been crazy. Vacation ended with lots of good family time. I started back to working nights right when getting back from vacation and just finished working nights on Monday 1/3. Yesterday morning we got a call about possible foster children. We said yes but then found out that they had already been placed with a family closer to home. However later that day we got another call about 2 sets of siblings asking which one we would be interested in. We chose S &K a 13 yr old and 2 yr old sisters. They got to our house about 9:30 last night and so far so good. They are very sweet and I think it's going to be great. I know that it's not all gonna be sunshine and roses but it's totally gonna be worth it. Today will hold us trying to enroll S in school and figuring out all the paper work for new kids. Please be continuing to pray for us and them as we all get to know each other and they learn to understand and accept their situation. I pray that they will know they are unconditionally loved here.

~until~