5/28/2011

I've said it before and I'll say it again - life can change in an instant. One phone call can change everything.

Yesterday, we received a call from our caseworker. There was an 18-month old girl in the hospital that needs a foster home for probably 1 to 3 months. There's a relative in another state who is seeking guardianship, but the process is lengthened due to the out-of-state paperwork involved. Of course, anything could happen so we're just taking it a day at a time.

Yesterday afternoon we went to the hospital and met this little one that we'll call Candace (not her real name - we are forbidden by state policies to post names or facial pictures of foster children). We returned in the late evening when she was officially discharged into our care.

This little girl is adorable. Blond, blue-eyed, but so tiny. She has not been offered healthy food, so she's very small - about 17 pounds, at 18 months of age.

So far, she sleeps great but won't eat much at all.

Our goals: love on her as much as possible and fatten her up! :-)

5/28/2011

I didn't do much bargain shopping this week. However, I did get these two items for completely free, from coupons I had received in the mail. A 4-pack of Breakstone's cottage cheese and a tub of Cottonelle flushable wipes.

I found milk on sale for $2.19 per gallon at my Kroger store, marked down as the sell by date got closer. Also found some pound cake marked down to 89 cents, which worked well with fresh strawberries at home.

Did you find any deals this week, or, as my friend says, did any deals find you? :-)

5/26/2011

Last Friday night we received a call. The clock read 10:41 pm. It was our foster placement worker.

"I have a 4-year-old boy that we need to find a place for. Not sure how long it'll be. There's also a baby sibling, but the baby is in the hospital with broken bones right now. Won't be released for a day or two. There's also a 1-year-old sibling, but that child is going with the father. Different fathers of the different kids, you know. So do you think you could take the 4-year-old at this point and possibly the baby?"

Whoa! Slow down.

A baby, with broken bones?! Let me just stop and think about that, feel that for a minute. A baby. Abused to the point of broken bones. Oh my! And a 4-year-old brother who likely witnessed the abuse. And may be abused as well.

These are moments when your eyes fill with tears, your heart skips a beat and you remind yourself to breathe. My heart was filled with compassion for these children. I cannot even imagine what they have lived through and their short lifetimes.

And yet, I told her that we could not take them.

This was less than 10 hours from when my daughter and I were headed to Girl Scout camp for the weekend and I was a chaperone. My husband was planning some special alone-time with our son. The timing was off. We had obligations we couldn't back out of. Yet if that same call came a few days later, we absolutely would have said yes.

Compassion. Heart-strings. Wisdom. Counting the cost. Wanting to say yes but knowing that you can't handle that reality at this moment.

So we have turned down a foster care placement... for the second time. It is not easy. I doubt it will get any easier.

From the beginning of our foster parenting journey, I have mentioned this prayer request - for wisdom in the moment when we get these calls. You have approximately 10 seconds to weigh both sides and make a decision, to pray for a clear answer. To make a decision that will impact your family and these foster children for possibly a lifetime. You have 10 seconds to think it through. In this situation, it wasn't the foster kids that affected the decision at all (they're too old, too young, too this or too that) but rather it was our family's plans. It was our personal reasons that had nothing to do with those kids.

This is part of the reality of foster parenting. We wait for months and don't get any calls. For most of the fall and spring, I have kept our calendar clear and not committed to much. As of April we decided that we couldn't put life on hold while we waited for a call that seemed to never come. So we started doing things again - taking field trips, joined Girl Scouts, planned a few camping trips for the summer. Now I'm wondering again about balance - how much is enough, how much is too much. Obviously we don't want to be so busy that we continually say no to foster placements, yet we have to live life with the kids we have and make some plans.

Foster parenting. It's a new reality. We're still adjusting to it.

• 1 foam pad (ours were 1 inch thick in a 14x14 square; bought at Hobby Lobby)
• 1 section of rope 2-3 feet long
• 1 roll duct tape (we used a good girly color like hot pink)
• some yarn and a yarn needle
• a piece of clear vinyl about 30 inches x 15 inches
• contact paper
• a hole punch and scissors
• ripped up pieces of many colors of tissue paper

Use the contact paper and the colored tissue paper pieces to make whatever designs your daughter chooses. My daughter made a neat crown and some other shapes. Some girls make flowers. It's a good idea to put your child's name somewhere inside contact paper too.
Measure your vinyl and cut it to the right size. You need it to fit around your cushion with just a little to spare on the edges. Then use your duct tape to go around all 4 edges of the vinyl. Next use your hole punch to make holds all around the 4 edges of duct tape. I tended to keep these fairly close together (1-2 finger-widths apart) so it will be stitched tighter and be more waterproof and secure. Holes further apart will mean looser stitching. Keep in mind that you need the same number of holes on the edges that will be paired up after you fold your vinyl in half. So either count them out or do a preliminary fold so you can line it up while making the holes.
Use some of the contact paper to secure your tissue-paper designs (that look a little like stain glass now) to one side of your vinyl. This will be the inside. It will be folded in half, so decorate both halves with your tissue paper designs. It will look something like this, with the vinyl folded over but not secured yet.
Insert your rope along the fold of the vinyl. This will be your handle, to carry your sit-upon around. Then use your yarn to stitch all the way around the 3 duct-taped edges. I used a lot of yarn for this and went around twice, to make it very secure.Ta-da! A sit-upon!

If this is too complicated for you, there are many other options out there for sit-upons. Some scouts just use duct tape as the waterproof outside and stuff it with newspaper for the inside fluff. There are many creative options out there!

5/23/2011

My daughter and I are continuing to read through the Little House books, after taking a break to focus on other things. We're onto the third book written by Laura Ingalls Wilder about her childhood - On the Banks of Plum Creek.

In this book, the Ingalls family moves to Minnesota and live in a small sod house. Pa builds a new log cabin house and plants his first wheat crop. Then come the grasshoppers! Grasshoppers so thick they block the sun and once they arrive, they eat every green thing in sight! I learned something new here - I had heard of locusts but not grasshoppers causing such a mess of the crops.

The resilience of the Ingalls family is commendable. They faced a new life in Minnesota, but they embraced it and pressed forward. They faced the grasshoppers, but pressed on. They faced fire that threatened to burn down their house, but they fought it with all their might and pressed on. Pa had to leave for weeks on end to find work elsewhere, but the family pressed on. Determined. Admirable.

I'm not sure if we'll make it to the next few books in the Little House series. My daughter is enjoying reading the Boxcar Children series on her own. And we have some other read-alouds that she is itching to start. The Little House books may be put on hold for now, however, I will post about the books we do read. I am loving all of the good children's literature we're reading and want to encourage others with young children to snuggle up with a good book and simply read!

5/20/2011

This is the third and final post in a series on Hoarders. If you missed the first two posts, please go back and read those now before moving on to Part 3.

A common tendency of a hoarder is isolation. Once hoarding gets out of control, it's easier to just hide the mess than to deal with it.


For my husband's uncle, he simply left curtains shut and doors closed. Keep the garage door closed and nobody would see what was stuffed in the garage (see above). He didn't invite anyone over. He let his lawn and shrubs and trees grow out of control, providing more shelter for the mess the house had become. He isolated himself from neighbors and family members.

Hoarding moves beyond normal activities like saving keepsakes because you have a sentimental attachment to them. Hoarding moves into a realm of finding security and self-worth in and through your stuff. To remove the stuff makes one vulnerable. One might feel alone without the stuff in which they find comfort. To offer to clean up the stuff "once and for all" won't address the deeper issue for most hoarders. Left with a clean house, they will only set out to fill it up again, because the stuff provides them with comfort and security and self-worth.

Hoarding tends to cut off relationships with other people (who are overwhelmed and disgusted by the hoarding) and instead creates a "relationship" with the stuff itself. Hoarders often cannot bring themselves to the place of getting rid of their stuff. It is emotionally painful to even consider. The hoarder has a co-dependent relationship with their stuff. The stuff needs them and they in turn need the stuff.

What's behind it all?

Materialism. Believing that stuff that we own will make us happy. "Must have more stuff. Must stuff each room of my house full, then move on to stuff the garage. Then rent a storage unit for all of my stuff." All of my stuff shows the world that I am successful. "I am somebody becomes I own A, B, and C. I am happy... except that deep down I'm really not!"

Not understanding one's true value is also a part of hoarding. Looking to stuff to find one's worth is the same issue as the teenage girl looking for love in all the wrong places. She doesn't see how valuable she is. Neither does a hoarder. They may feel rejected by people, so they turned to the stuff that will not reject them. They may feel disappointed in people, so they turn to stuff that is always there and won't let them down.

I am reminded of Jesus' parable of the rich fool in Luke 12 and can think of two easy lessons from this parable.

First, the folly of storing up things for ourselves but being poor in storing up anything of eternal value. We can jam our homes full of stuff, storing up all kinds of food, clothes, knick-knacks, you name it. All stored up for ourselves. But how foolish that really is! How much wiser to spend time on PEOPLE instead of THINGS. To invest in children, in neighbors, in family, in souls than to invest time, money, energy in the things of this world that will pass away and rot. Jesus said to the rich fool, "This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?"

Second: Life is more than food and the body more than clothes. There is more to life than clothes, food and stuff. Each soul is so valuable and yet we tend to only think of "valuables" as things, as stuff. Sometimes we need a reality check. A second look at our priorities. Honest consideration of how we're spending our life and what regrets we might have at the end.

The End of the Story:

My husband's uncle's life had a sad ending. He hadn't seen his adult children in many years. He rarely got out. When he fell on the day he died, he had to call 911. The paramedics had a hard time getting into the house to find him. They knew the house needed to be condemned as uninhabitable. After his death, his children came back to their childhood home and couldn't believe their eyes. Their dad's legacy: a mess to be cleaned up and a house full of questions.

In a small way, though, this is a story of redemption. My husband is a visionary. He saw this house - full of bad smells and trash, smoke-stained ceilings and left-behind furniture - and saw potential for what this house could be. We helped clean it out. It took many weeks of hard work. It took 8 semi-trailer sized dumpsters to collect all of the trash, clutter, expired food, ruined furniture, etc. Then we bought this house!

This time around, this house will be filled with love. If these walls could talk, they'd speak of laughing children, of meals eaten together around the dinner table, or cuddly children listening to parents read stories. This time around, this house will be full of people, of living souls, more than stuff. This house is part of the reason we became foster parents. We saw the space and said "If God gives us this house, He wants us to use it for His glory. He wants us to use it for ministry." We will redeem this house. It will not be uninhabitable. Instead it will be a home, with open doors, where love abounds. Not love of stuff but love of people.

PS: For those who might be interested in seeing pictures of our home AFTER the clean-out, go here and look through the 9-part series called Home Makeover.

5/17/2011

Our internet and phone service is currently down. When it is restored, I will continue with my posting... including Part 3 of my series on Hoarders. Thank you for your patience.

5/13/2011

As I mentioned in Log #10, a foster parent’s life can change in an instant. That was the case on Monday when we got “the call” that ended in two young boys becoming our first foster siblings.

And then a phone call changed things again on Wednesday evening.

There had been a court hearing on Wednesday afternoon. The judge decided to grant custody of all 4 children (the 2 boys staying with us and the 2 sisters who were with another foster family) to a grandparent. We were informed of this later on Wednesday. The children would be picked up at 11:00 am on Thursday morning.

We spent Thursday morning preparing the boys for this move (as much as possible for a 4-year-old and 1-year-old). We packed up their clothes and included a few extras for them – books they enjoyed while with us, some pictures they’d colored, etc. And at 11:00 we waved good-bye to them as they were off.

Their visit was very short. The judge’s decision even surprised the caseworker, who anticipated the kids being in foster care for a minimum of 2 weeks. However, the judge did what he felt was in the best interest of the children, based on their current situation and that of their parents and grandparents. Our role and the caseworker’s role is to help carry out the judge’s orders.

I certainly hope that the boys are going to a safe, healthy environment with their grandparent. Being with family is the ideal situation.

My daughter was sad to see them go. She asked many questions about why they had to leave and why they had been in foster care at all. But once I explained to her how much more comfortable they will be with a grandparent versus complete strangers (us), she could understand.

But if our "Chase" and "Davey" ever end up in foster care again, we wouldn’t have to think twice about taking them in.

Monday evening through Thursday morning. A very short time.

But we are foster parents. We are listed as both traditional and emergency foster parents. That means that we will take in kids who need long-term care, short-term care or anything in between. It means that we say yes to those who need a place to stay tonight but might be somewhere else tomorrow night as well as those who may be with us for days, weeks or even months.

Foster care is a crazy system. It’s hard to anticipate what might happen with foster kids from day to day, from a judicial case perspective. Judge’s can give grace to parents who have failed many times but still want to fight for their kids or they can terminate parental rights when they think that is in the best interest of the children. Parents may initially try to fight, but later give up or appear to not want to fight for their kids only to decide at the last minute that they want to do what is necessary to win them back. Or an extended family member steps in and is willing to be a guardian for the children. Cases seem to move to one side – maybe towards adoption – only for the tide to then turn back to parental rights and visits and reunification. They are dynamic, not static. You cannot anticipate the direction a case might move. The information available changes. The people involved change. The kids change. The judge’s perspective may change. So many variables that affect the outcome. Yet, the end goal is the same – to provide a healthy, safe, stable environment for children.

So we do our part to be a safe place for kids when they need us.

And we wait for the next call that will change everything once again.

PS: I want to say "thank you" to all of those who support us in what we're doing - we have many people praying for us and offering help in many ways. So if you, dear reader, are one of those behind-the-scenes helpers, thank you!