Goodbye

On Oct 31st we said goodbye to M. after caring for her since the beginning of July. She was such a sweetheart, but we are all glad to see she was reunited with her parents. We wish her all the best!

new things

I am busy learning all about how to care for a special little girl who is considered medically fragile. M is seven years old and is about thirty pounds. She is tube fed, immobile, nonverbal and suffers from Rett Syndrome. She is the sweetest, happiest little girl too! We've been bombarded with medical equipment, nursing training, and learning all sorts of new things, but it has been a good adventure.

wish we were there...

No summer vaca for us...just hanging around the house. But we have been enjoying each other and making memories. A few weeks ago we went to a fun party to celebrate foster care families. The theme was Hawaiian Luau, and we all had a great time, even came home with some fun prizes.

Last week a little girl was placed with us in a crazy whirlwind foster care system sort of way. She is the sweetest little girl, but requires total care. We are uncertain how long she will be in our home.

updates

Dust has settled a bit from our difficult week, but things are still tense.

L. is at a counseling session right now with his dad. I was planning on going but was not able to due to childcare issues/preschoolers getting on and off buses. I wonder if he might be able to open up more with me not there anyway. He did NOT want to go. It's a pastor from our church who is a school counselor and youth leader, so I am sure L. is embarrassed and worried about what might happen.

We had a fun day yesterday with friends at the bay. We packed hot dogs, salads and smore stuff and built a fire near the water. The kids had a great time playing and the weather was mild and perfect in my opinion.

We haven't had any more foster care placements, which I think is perfect for now. We had a lot going on and I can't imagine going through that while caring for another child. I am still learning the ins and outs of how things work. I haven't received an invoice for payment yet, and I think today is the last day to turn it in. I hope I can get things figured out soon.

We are needing to plan our summer. There are a lot of possibilities for activities for the kids. But I need to come to some decisions about what to do!

Public school is in the works for ALL my kids in the fall. I am a little sad, but I think it is the best thing at this point. L. will be a high schooler, C. a jr. higher, K. a 2nd or 3rd grader (not sure yet on placement), E. a kindergartener, S. a preschooler. Wow. If there is an event in our school district, you can bet we will be there!

Foster kids

We got our license approved for foster care on Wednesday. During the phone call to let us know we were approved, we were also asked if we wanted to take our first placement, or two. They had two girls who needed a place temporarily. While we were only approved for one child due to WA state law of no more than six children in the home, the licensor was able to approve a waiver for us to take these two girls in. They were ages six and less than one. Super cute and pretty sweet. K. had a great time sharing her room and things with her new friend. The next day the social worker called to tell us they would be leaving. K. cried and cried. But, to our surprise, four hours later they called again and said the home they thought the girls would go to didn't work out and wondered if they could come back. We said, "of course!" and K. was overjoyed. They stayed for three nights and four days. By the end of the forth day I could tell the K. was getting a little tired of her guest. It was great timing for them to go back to their family. We are glad it worked out for a reunion. The older girl was really missing her mama. Two new kids was very wearing on me, so I am not sure if it will be something I would do on a regular basis.

Not Much

Some little updates, but nothing much is going on here. I feel like there is a lot of stuff just hanging, waiting...hoping and praying.

• The Make A Wish project is slowly coming together. People are trying to make it happen May 11th. S. is ready!
• Our home visit for foster care is scheduled for May 2. There are just a few things we need to do to get ready. We recently ripped apart our old deck, and rebuilt a platform/steps to the ground. We need rails put up before then. And I need to find a one way CPR mask. Our house is most of the time cluttered and/or dirty thanks to five kids, so that is a never ending project.
• L. has his first Pony League baseball game today, actually a double header. He is catcher for his team, first time. Pray for safety!
• I am signing E. up for soccer. It starts next week. That should be interesting!

What's been going on?

It's been awhile since my last post. My computer crashed. Yes, our two year old imac decided to stop working. We tried all the tricks and needed to take it in to the shop. They discovered the cooling fan stopped working, therefore frying our hard drive. We stupidly had not backed all our files up in a long time. Since we have dial up it's next to impossible to upload to a remote system. So we lost pictures, files, adoption paperwork, tax info, etc. etc. After $250 we were able to get a new fan and hard drive installed. But they were not able to recover our data. I am still sad. I am thankful that I have this blog, we have pictures on here at least!

Make a Wish came out to our house last week. The two volunteers visited and talked with S. and our family. They asked all sorts of questions to get to know him like what his favorite movie is, favorite foods, favorite color, etc. They brought him some gifts too, animal cookies, a John Deere t-shirt and hat, and two new tractor toys. Tractors are S's favorite. He was so excited. For his big wish: a playground. The next step is to wait for doctor approval, to be sure he does not have any medical restrictions. Waiting for the doctor seems like it's taking forever! In the meantime, we were able to pick out a playground from Rainbow Play Systems, and once we get the go ahead from Dr, then the planning begins.

Cookies, pink (as S's request)

S. and his new J.D. stuff

Volunteers for MAW

I finished the CPR/First Aid/BBP training for DSHS. The two oldest kids came too. It was great to get this out of the way, but I found it very informative too. The protocol for CPR has changed, and it's been years since I was trained. I mailed in the last of our paperwork, proof of our pets' vaccinations and J. and my training certificates yesterday. We should be close to a home visit. We also purchased and set up a new crib and fireplace barrier this week. We are nearly ready!

C. got a big part in the musical Annie Jr. at school! She is playing Ms.Hannigan. She is excited, it was her second choice (guess what the first one was?). She practices every friday after school and the play is in June. I can't wait to see her perform.

getting ready

Last week we were busy during J's days off getting things taken care of. A lot of the items on the list were things we needed to do anyway, like get the pets vaccinations current and gather immunization records for the kids. We also should have bought a wood stove barrier/gate a long time ago, when S was a baby. We had a makeshift screen set up around it as a visual barrier but it is easily knocked over or moved.

We turned in the water sample, got the vaccinations for pets and kids taken care of, ordered a crib and fireplace barrier online, and found a great deal on clothes at a local thrift store ($5 a bag). I think all the needed paperwork is turned in, they just need to receive our fingerprint clearances.

We still need to:

• Pick up and set up crib
• Pick up and set up fireplace barrier
• Buy a 5 lb fire extinguisher (2A10BC-rated ABC)
• Take the CPR/First Aid class

After the licensor receives all this she will set up the home visit.

Big things coming

We have been slowly healing and getting some closure with the failed adoption of Mercy. We all truly believe what happened was for the best. We still have sadness in our hearts for her sake, but are thankful she is in a loving and happy home in her own country.

During this time of prayer, reflecting and contemplating, both J. and I have decided we would like to become foster parents. We have hosted children from Haiti in our home before. It was such a blessing to the entire family. We feel like fostering through the state will be quite similar to that experience, yet with more support.

I started the training classes. Although I have taken them several years ago, I needed to retake them. Also, when I took the classes it was solely for the purpose of adoption. After the classes were over, we decided to adopt from Haiti instead. Now, our intent is fostering, not adoption. I am taking a lot of information home and finding it very interesting and helpful. I have learned a lot of tools that pertain to parenting our adopted and bio kids too.

Through experience we have learned that keeping the kids in birth order works best for us, so we put on our application that we want to care for a child birth to age 3. Infants would be ideal, since a child under one can sleep in our room which is quite large.

We are in the process of getting our home ready. When S. started outgrowing his baby things, we sold most of them at a fundraiser garage sale. Now we are starting again from the ground up. We need a crib, bedding, clothes, car seat. We do have our house somewhat childproofed, but we need to get a few more things for our license; a larger fire extinguisher, a few more outlet covers and locks, and a wood stove barrier/fence.

Since J. is CPR/1st aid/BBP certified through work, I am the only one who needs to retake these classes. It's only one day and the state covers all fees for all who take it, even older siblings! So I signed up with L. and C. too, in March.

We need to get our children and pets' vaccination records, our well water tested and our wood-stove cleaned and examined. We also need to fill out a bunch more paperwork.

We are excited and busy getting things ready. Once the application is filed, we have 90 days to complete everything. The pressure is on!