Mothers Day

Today was a great day.

Jimmy ensured I got to do lots of little things that he knows are now BIG things since we have three kids. I slept in for 30 minutes (it could have been longer, but my brain wouldn't shut off). I went to the bathroom alone and showered without having to holler out the shower door "Quit taking toys from your brother!" I skipped church and packed/cleaned alone (which I enjoyed!). Love my family, but once in awhile some solitude is refreshing. I got a quick pedicure and then everyone was home. Jimmy and Sammy cleaned my car- huge act of love! The boys and C and got me flowers. We packed more and are in good shape for moving. We had dinner with my parents, brother and grandparents. I am tired, but so incredibly grateful.

Funny moment from the day included Sammy chatting on to my dad and grandparents about how he has two dads and two moms because he has biological parents and us. He has been telling lots of random people this lately. I was a little worried my family wouldn't know how to respond, but I was in the other room, so I just listened. Thankfully my dad's response was great "Isn't it how cool how many people love you?" I am hoping that the openness with which he discusses this is an indication of his security with the topic. :)

Another sweet moment included Sammy and then C doing "performances" for us at my parents' house. She taught Sammy part of the song "We are" from Ice Age. I know that in no way can we replace or fully be her family, but we are thankful for privilege to be her support. She told me she learned the lyrics to the song to sing today. Maybe I'm being over emotional, but I think she has moments of really understanding that we try our best to support her without threatening who she is or her ties to her family. At least for today, she seems to get and appreciate it, and that is awesome! We'll mark this day down as a foster parenting HIGH.

Here are the lyrics:

We are, we are

Not your ordinary family

But we can all agree that

We are, we are

Close as close can be

So it don't matter what it looks like

We look perfect to me

We got every kind of lover

We're so lucky indeed

They can keep on talking

It don't matter to me cause

We are, we are family

Mi casa es su casa

SI DIOS QUIERE (Lord willing!), it is the last weekend in our home and we move this week! I have been waiting for something to go wrong, so I don't think it hit me until tonight that this time next week, I really could be in our new house. Our house sold after 48 hours on the market. We put an offer on a new house two days after that and so far the inspections, appraisals and paperwork have been smooth. We are thankful for God's favor.

Tonight I slowed down enough to feel a little sentimental about leaving this house. We haven't been here very long- just 3.5 years. We moved in a year after Sammy came home from Guatemala. We have been spoiled by our big back yard and access to a quiet park with a great creek- all things little boys (and Jimmy) love.

This is the house where we signed up to be foster parents. Our licensing worker came out to do initial visits for the home study when we were in house renovation mode. One visit had us sitting at the kitchen table, which was stuck in the living room along with all of the other kitchen and living room furniture. She had to tour the house and was kindly not too phased that the toilet was in the bathtub due to a tiling project. And they licensed us despite the mess :).

This is the house where we got our first two placements- two boys for just 10 days and then a newborn (who Jimmy picked up at the hospital while I was out of town!).

This is also the house where I cried out to God with a broken and very frustrated heart in the summer of 2010. You see, Sammy had been home almost two years and we were settled in. We felt called to foster care and had our first precious infant placement. I knew she was going home to her parents (and did after 8 weeks). I just felt whiny. I was tired from getting up at night from her, I wanted to grow our family, but felt no clarity or confirmation on how God would do that. I remember praying, crying, feeling quite sorry for myself and asking God what He was up to with our family. A couple of weeks later, it was very clear! This house is also where I miraculously became pregnant with Andy. The whole pregnancy I just kept expecting something to go wrong. During delivery when his heart rate kept dipping, I thought "This is it. He isn't going to make it. I knew it was too good to be true!" But he did make it! And this house is also where my second miracle son came home!

This house is also where God brought us together with our current foster daughter. The past year has been a roller coaster for her and for us, but I can't imagine life without her.

This house is also full of many other memories- lots of time spent with good friends and family- play dates, fall parties, Christmas mornings, etc. Barring any paperwork glitches, we move on to a new chapter next week. I'm excited to see what God has in store. Our new house has 4 bedrooms and we are debating keeping the boys together in a room or giving them their own rooms. Currently Jimmy is campaigning to separate them. I think he is just worried that with a bedroom sitting empty, I will want to fill it with another child :).

Now back to packing!

Part 2 to my FB PSA

Last week, I posted this on Facebook as sort of a Public Service Announcement:

Sometimes I want to offer some adoption sensitivity lessons, and I don't say that to sound mean or judgmental. I probably would have said the same things six years ago. So here is the lesson for the day :)... While at kindergarten screening, I was visiting with a teacher and she said "Sammy says he is from Guatemala" and I said yes. Then with Sammy and Andy right there, she looks at Andy and says "Now is this one yours?" The better question is "Is he your biological child?" All my kiddos are "mine" :), regardless of how they came to our family. End of lesson for today :)

The comments got me thinking, so this is sort of follow up to that post.

There are lots of situations where, unless one has been through a similar circumstance, it is easy to offend or be insensitive even with best intentions. I am always relieved when someone kindly gives me insight or isn't hypersensitive to my ignorance. So again, I don't expect that people who haven't been down the adoption or foster care road to understand the vocabulary or experience, but I sure do appreciate those who try.

There was a part 2 to my conversation with the teacher on Monday. This precious, highly effective teacher just wasn't sure how to respond to me! In our conversation, my foster daughter came up as well. I mentioned that she is 13 and the teacher's eyes got wide and she made a comment about how difficult that must be for my boys. Then she followed it up with how the kids must be "blessed." This type of comment always makes me smile because my kids are KIDS and I'm pretty sure they don't walk around with angelic smiles continually thinking how great I am (maybe just once in awhile, if I'm lucky!). The other part of our conversation that I've been thinking about was the look of fear that shot through her eyes when I talked about foster care. I don't know if it was foster care in general or that our foster daughter is older. I hate that there is so much fear about being involved with foster care. Let's be honest, the system is messy and I don't think foster care is an easy route to trying to adopt a baby, if that is one's goal. HOWEVER, there are some really cool things about being involved with foster care and it makes me sad that people have negative or fearful thoughts about the kids and the foster parent job.

So let's talk foster care for a minute...

This has been brewing in my mind and isn't very PC of me, so forgive me. I have sat through a lot of foster care training classes at this point. You have to do a ton to get licensed and then you have to do some more every year to maintain your license. We get to meet other foster parents. I've met single foster parents, homosexual foster parents, older foster parents and younger foster parents- different colors and different parts of the county- urban, suburban and rural. The one piece of the demographics that bothers me is this...from observations of people in class and from what is posted on the MFCAA "loop" (it's an email group for any foster parents in the counties around KC), it is mainly middle class- probably lower middle class- families who are serving as foster parents. SO here is my question... where are the upper middle class and upper class families? I'm referring to income levels here. Is it that with more $, people are busier? I don't think that's it. Or are they more insulated/distracted from the need? I don't understand this. I am not saying that foster kids need wealthier families, rather, I'm saying that the wealthier families are missing out on an opportunity to serve their community and be greatly blessed. I'm just asking the question. When our current foster daughter moved in, I had another family (who knew her) comment that they wish they could have helped, but they weren't sure if they had the room. I totally understand that space can be an issue, but it made me smile a little because I later went to their home that was WAY bigger than the one we currently live in. I share this just to point out how easy it is to get stuck on a certain standard of living or make decisions based in fear.

Today, on the email loop I mentioned above, I read a couple of email looking for placements for kiddos. The kids are from RIGHT HERE in my community- Blue Springs, Independence. Then I got a call asking us to take in another kiddo from the local middle school. The poor worker was trying like crazy to keep the kiddo in a place where she can stay at her school. Kids are hurting and there is great need for families willing to embrace both the challenges and blessings of foster care!