Thankfuls of the Week...Foster Care Week #1

I won't even venture to make an introduction. And please excuse any typos you may see. I may or may not proof this bad boy.

Throwing caution to the wind I am.

And frankly I don't really haev time to be writing but I NEED to do this.

For those of you who may have missed my post on Thursday, we got a foster child placement this week. Our first placement since we were licensed last August. Two girls (sisters) ages 8 and 3.

We picked them up on Thursday afternoon.

This was not what we had anticipated.

We thought we wanted siblings up to age 4...the 8yo was NOT on the radar.

At all.

But we prayed that God would bring the children he wanted to be here, when he wanted them here.

And we trust him.

Ergo...we said "yes" to this placement.

So...what are my thankfuls?

1. Finally getting a call we could accept. And PLEASE do not "congratulate" us b/c a placement means that a family has been torn apart because of poor choices by at least one person. Hearts are broken into pieces and there is fear running rampant on the parts of these children. They are coping but still...they are children.

2. The girls were TERRIFIED of the dog. Like "screaming like wild banshees" terrified. But it is all good now. Except for the dog jumping on the 3yo's bed this morning when she was still asleep. That did not go over too well.

3. That at least one of the girls is going to sleep well and easily. We are continuing the work with the older one.

4. We have plenty of clothes and shoes and toys to last us for a while...most of which was given by generous friends and family.

5. They are pretty much rolling with our schedule and keeping pace with us.

6. My grocery bill was only about $5 more for the week, even with the addition of 2 more people. It remains to be seen if this will hold true for every week; I am venturing to guess it will not. And that we made it through Aldi with a screaming 3yo and I was able to ignore it. No one else in the store was, but I did! In fact, at the end of the trip as we rolled out the door, I threw my arms in the air and exclaimed, "I'm sure no one will notice when we leave!" and the approximate 20 people in line, as well as the cashiers, all laughed. That right there told me we were about as obvious going through the store as we could be.

7. That I confirmed that I can homeschool the 8yo for the remaining 6 weeks of school, instead of enrolling her in a school system in which she will be in the vast minority, and potentially adding to her stress and anxiety.

8. That they both came with braids in their hair, thus allowing me to delay the inevitable: figuring out how to do their hair.

9. And that a sweet friend who is a hairdresser said she would come and help me when the time comes for the braids to come out.

10. This funny made my day on Saturday: There was some momentary confusion at my 12yo's soccer game. The 8yo was asking who all the players were so I gave her a cheat sheet with the boys’ names and jersey numbers. 

She was greatly entertained, cheering for each boy when he made a good play (or a bad one…she’d never been to a soccer game before; and to be fair, the 3yo was yelling at the boys to use their hands.).

At one point, the 8yo asked about a player on the other team and I told her that I only knew the players on our team. She gave me a blank look, like she didn’t know what I meant.

Me: “Honey, there are two teams out there. Remember, we’re cheering for ‘name omitted to protect the innocent’; he’s on the black team.”

3yo: “He not black!”

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