Open House

During one of the pit stops for Juliana's amazing race, we received a phone call from DFCS announcing that we had finally been approved as a foster home (we started this process back in September!) and would we be interested in doing respite care? They let us know that this would be a great way to officially declare us "open". Respite care involves temporarily housing children who are already in foster homes, but whose foster parents are travelling without them. What we found out is that it's really just glorified babysitting.

We agreed to take in a 12 month old and an almost three year old the following afternoon. Our caseworker thanked us and told us we would be hearing from the foster parents to schedule drop off. We received a phone call 30 minutes later from the foster parents wanting directions so they could bring these girls over. Seems that DFCS got the actual start date of their vacation wrong.

Shortly after the race ended, this family pulls into our driveway and unloads five tote bags, two car seats, and two children. They also came inside and rattled off about two pages of "pertinent information" as to the girls' schedules and likes, etc. It was a bit overwhelming. You can imagine.

Then they drive off and we are left with a bunch of 12 year old girls and two new foster additions. But what we found was that this couldn't have worked out any better. If only I could have kept the extra 12 year olds until the respite care had ended.

Birch and I were up til midnight that night. Birch was assembling the crib. I was washing crib sheets and unpacking two new little creatures and trying to start making lists and plans in my head as to how to survive the next few days.

Five minutes after these people pulled out of our driveway (around 9 pm) the almost three year old began calling me "mama". To my sad realization, this is just a term used to describe a woman who takes care of you. Although I personally overheard her foster mom several times assure her that they were coming back, as soon as she was off the premises, she had ceased to exist in this girl's world. Talk about a defense mechanism.

The baby had a funky stuffed black bear that was attached to her like a conjoined twin. You pick up one, you pick up the other. This bear was the most stable thing in this baby's young life. The trickiest part was trying to hide it so you could feed her without having sweet potatoes make the bear that much funkier.

As Juliana and I left to go on our church's mission trip on the following Sunday, Birch cared for our two plus the extra two for a very long 24 hours. The older girl never once stopped talking (I believe she even talked in her sleep) and never stopped moving. She never sat down to watch five minutes of tv. Ever.

We did learn some valuable information:

Three is too close to four, especially a three year old as big as my four year old.

My children have a much higher tolerance for sharing and dealing than I ever anticipated.

Holt learned to swallow his need to win in order to manipulate outcome ("If she thinks she's won the video game, she'll move on to something else").

Between the birth of my last child and now, Juliana has aged into a pre-teen who is incredibly helpful. By the time she has her own children, Juliana is going to have some mad skills.

My home is really not baby proofed.

I should start on a multivitamin.

My husband is a saint.

When Carolina gets hurt and climbs into her daddy's lap and another child fakes being hurt and attempts to usurp her position, she will finally snap and announce, "He's not your daddy! He's my daddy! Your daddy left you here the other night. Don't you remember?"

There is more of me that is selfish than I realized. I will work on this.

There are kids that grow up in this world that don't know what the word "mama" means; a word that should be rich with meaning and connotation.

I don't want to do respite care ever again. I followed that woman's schedule for about nine hours.

And finally, I learned that it is a privilege to love those who are deep deep in need. I learned that what I really wanted was a foster child of my own. Soon I would get one.