Our exciting news

My daughter is in second grade and they have a hamster for a pet in her class at school. If you have good behavior in class your reward is the opportunity to bring the hamster home for the weekend. They had a hamster last year also, but even with excellent behavior she never was never chosen. Last Thursday she came home with a note saying she had been chosen to bring "Lily" home for the weekend. I said how wonderful that was and how excited I was for her. Then she told me the most exciting part of the story that I hadn't even thought about...they are out of school all of this week. So we don't get just 3 days, we get 10. For a member of the rodent family it is very cute. But, it stinks and it is very messy and loud.(I guess you could say she fits in perfectly with our family). She has a squeaky wheel in her cage that she loves to run on all night. My girls had to have friends sleepover so they could all play with Lily... it has been quite exciting. For the first couple of days everyone fought over holding her. I was sure we were going to give her a heart attack or something. The second day my four year old came to me and said "Mom, my sister won't let me hold the chinchilla." I just looked at her and asked her what she was talking about. Yes, I really knew what she was talking about, I just wanted to know if she did. She said " you know the chinchilla or whatever its called." I asked her where she heard that word and she just looked at me like I was an idiot and said with attitude "Diego." All of those hours of tv, watching Dora and her cousin Diego, really paid off. Thanks Nick Jr for the education.

Don't try to take the dumb quiz...It sends you to all kinds of ads before giving you your score. It didn't do that the first time we took the quiz. I don't know what happened.

It took 3 of us to get this score

Will anyone even notice?

I know that you have all given up on me and I sorry. Someone told me the other day how much they enjoyed reading our blogs and reminded me that I hadn't written in awhile. So here's what's been happening....

At the end of July the baby girl we had went to live with her grandmother. That gave us a nice little break before school started the first week of August. The three older kids started school(the oldest now in Middle school), the youngest started Pre-k and I went back to work almost full time. We still have the little boy, who presents his own daily challenges. I work where she goes to preK and the baby goes to daycare, so we get to see each other during the day. I'm not used to working everyday, so trying to re-adjust all of our schedules has been fun. Working all day, then doing 3 different grades of homework, keeping the house sort of picked up, and all of the laundry mostly done, have made for one tired mom. We have gotten into the swing of things now and its not too bad.

This weekend we have had the baby's sister with us (she's 5). It has gone a lot better than I thought it would. They haven't gotten along so well in the past. No big problems though until tonight at bedtime. I think she was just exhausted from such a busy weekend, but when it was time to go to bed, she started crying because she misses her mom. I was doing my best to console her and talking about her schedule for the rest of the week until she gets to see her mom, and mentioned her going back to her other foster home tomorrow. She started crying harder. I asked her what was wrong and she said she didn't want to go back there, she wanted to stay here. Working with the older kids who have some understanding of whats going on, but don't really have the ability to process all of their feelings requires a lot of prayer. The finer details to make this story a little more understandable are too long and complicated to write here, but if you read this, please say a prayer for her. She is having a really hard time and has been taught by example to keep her true feelings bottled up. She tries to say what she thinks you want to hear and so doesn't always know how to say what she truly feels herself. What a life for a 5 year old.

Well....

I got a phone call today from our social worker saying that the little boy that just left us isn't doing well at his new home and they want him moved. She wanted to know if we would take him back. After the shouts of joy from all of my kids I called her back and said sure. So as of Thursday afternoon we will once again have 6 kids. All of them fairly high maintenance, just some a little more than others.

On a heartbreaking note: I met the mother of the two month old today. She asked if she could come live with me so she could be with her baby. Because of their privacy issues I can't tell you why they were separated, but having to tell a crying 16 year old mother I couldn't do it was not one of the easiest things I have ever had to do. Please pray for her for things to work out and for me so that in some way I can minister to her.

On a very happy note: I received pictures today from my friend who has been trying to adopt the foster kids she has had for almost 3 years. The pictures were taken in the judges office when they signed the final adoption papers. Sometimes the sysem works , it just isn't in any hurry.

Time Flies

I didn't realize it had been two months since my last post. I should read my blog a little more often I guess.

We are now onto a new foster child. They were able to find a home where the little boy we had could be with his sister, so he was moved a couple of weeks ago. We had decided to take a break for a little while after he left to try to get through the end of the year school trauma. My oldest was graduating from elementary school and I was losing my job and trying to not be resentful about that. Our break lasted 4 days. It took them longer to call this time than it did last time. God was gracious, because He knew it would be hard for me to say no. We had a very nice few days, just the 6 of us. Then they called us about taking a 2 month old little girl. It wasn't an emergency situation, so we had some time to think about it. I asked all of my kids and they all said it was fine with them, so we said ok to the social worker. They have no idea how long we'll have her. We have learned to just take it one day at a time and not make any long range plans. She is a very sweet baby. She sleeps very well at night, once you can get her to sleep. My girls are happy that we finally got a girl. It has just been kind of hard for them to adjust to one so young. They are used to having someone to play with and she just doesn't really do that yet.

Other than that things are pretty much the same around here. We are looking forward to the party at Fiorinda's house and hope all that were invited can make it.

I have just been informed by my 4 year old( yes, it is 11:00 at night, why is she still awake you ask? Because our church is having VBS this week and it is at night , which means they get completely wound up until 9:00, then can't wind back down, they just eventually pass out)

that she needs a purse. Why, I ask. "Because I need something to keep my stuff in, you know, my phone(aka: the American Idol ipod from McDonalds), my wallet(a Dora coin purse full of change that she "found"), and my keys(which she must keep hidden because they actually belong to her brother)." I say you have a closet full of bags. She says" Those are just bags, I need a real purse."

What am I going to do when she's 12? Between her and her sister, they are going to drive their brothers crazy.

What a Week

Wednesday was the big court day for the boys we were keeping. Their parents wanted them placed with their grandmother, so she had to go through all of the background checks and home studies that everyone else does. On Wed. the judge was going to decide if they stayed with us until their parents finished their case plan, which could take up to a year, or live with their grandmother. By 4:00 Wed. afternoon I hadn't heard anything, so I assumed they were staying. We had really gotten used to them being here. Life was very hectic, but we had all settled into somewhat of a schedule, and they had began forming an attachment to us. I checked the messages on my answering machine when we all got home from school , and the social worker had called there instead of my cell phone. They were going to live with their grandmother. My oldest sons first response was, "Well that's a bad idea." On some level I absolutely agree. On some level I know being with their family, who(m) they had lived with on various occasions before, is a good thing for them since they are so young. Needless to say, the rest of the day was fairly emotional. We had to bring them back to DFACS on Thurs. at their normal visitation time. That was hard. We had worked very hard at getting the baby on a schedule, getting the 2 year old off of his pacifier, and really giving them some sort of stability. The left me better off than they came, which was my job. When the 2 year old came to us, he had quite a vocabulary, but knew nothing a 2 year old should know. When he left, he knew his birthday, a few colors, and most of all, how to sing preschool songs. He learned how to just be a kid. Is all of that going to fall by the wayside by being back in his old environment? Some probably, but I just have to believe that in some way we were able to make an impact on his life. Because they are so young, only eternity will tell, which is the very frustrating part of this job. Am I really doing good here? Bets are being taken by many on how long it wil be before they are back with us though.

I took my youngest daughter to tea for her birthday ( and to comfort myself) after we dropped off the boys. She is turning the big 4. 4 is a milestone birthday, because when you turn 4 you can sleep in your own bed all night, not with your mom. We all had a nice quiet afternoon being just our family, all wondering when we might be called on again and doing the best we could to process our emotions. I went to bed, looking forward to a full nights sleep, and had just fallen asleep when the phone rang. I looked at the clock, 10:30. Well, that means one of two things :someone in my family has had an emergency, or it's DFACS. It was option 2. They had just picked up 2 children, could I take them? The older one was a little older than I felt comfortable taking, so I told them to keep trying but call me back if they couldn't find anyone. They called back at 11:30. She said people weren't even answering their phones anymore. I told her they could definitely stay the night if she could try to find alternate placement for at least the older one the next day. I could keep the baby( he's 1) if they couldn't place them together. So two children arrived at my house at 1:00 in the morning. My children of course had no idea this was going on, so were quite surprised when they woke up. My 4 year olds first response upon seeing the baby was "Is their another one?" My seven year old said, " he has a little tan doesn't he?" Yes he does. Waking up and finding 2 strange children in their house didn't phase any of them. Which let's me know they are fine with all of this. DFACS was able to find a better placement for the older child. My son didn't understand why I didn't want to keep her. I told him that some kids had problems that I wasn't really equipped to handle and we weren't the right family for everyone. She needed a lot of attention and would be much happier being the oldest of 3 kids rather than 4th of 6. I belive there is a right place for everyone and I really prayed that the Lord would send her to the perfect place for her. I could have kept her, but I didn't feel that we were the best for her. So anyway, we now have a 1 year old. He has court on Monday. We'll know more after that.

Please keep praying for us and our roller coaster life.