Working my worries away!

Losing Little Man after 16 months of being his mommy was a huge loss.  It was without question the biggest loss of my life thus far.  I think about him all of the time and I worry about him!  Worry is my sin.  I know it’s not right!  I know that I have to work on it, but this weekend I figured out a way to “deal” with it.  I worked!  I worked my booty off!  I raked TONS of leaves, filling the wheelbarrow over 10 times!  I did 11 loads of laundry, I washed 3 loads of dishes, I cleaned 3 toilets, vacuumed the entire house, and didn’t sit down each night until I couldn’t do anymore!  And, guess what?  It worked!  I worked my worries away!  I didn’t have time during all of that to sit and worry about my Little Man.  Occasionally, a sweet memory would pop into my head and I would think to myself, “oh, I remember when Little Man did that,” or “he would have loved helping me with this.”  It was enjoyable to think about him like that.  Not worry, but wonder at how blessed I was to have been his mommy for all of that time!  Today, I prayed he is settling into his new life comfortably.  I prayed that he is safe and happy and well taken care of.  I prayed for peace in his little heart and that he isn’t hurting.  I prayed that one day I will get to hear that he is doing okay! 

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Oldest Boy becomes Only Boy

My Oldest Boy became my Only Boy when Little Man left.  He hates it!  I do not use the term “hate” lightly here.  He HATES being the only boy!  With his Daddy deployed it makes it even worse.  Grandma is here visiting too, so that makes five girls and one boy living in our house right now.  It’s pretty rough!  So, today I invited two of his best friends over for some “guy time.”  They ate spaghetti for lunch, drank tons of Gatorade, ate junk food, played video games, played card games, jumped on the trampoline, and we ordered pizza for dinner.  They were in boy heaven!  The boys stayed all the way til bedtime.  After I dropped the boys back at their home, Only Boy got into our truck and said, “I love you mom!  Can they come again next weekend?”  

It breaks my heart for my son.  He prayed every night the six months before Little Man arrived that God would give him a brother.  Unlike other kids his age, he couldn’t wait to share his room!  He didn’t mind sharing his toys.  He didn’t mind sharing attention.  He had a brother!  I keep reminding him that he ALWAYS will have a brother!  Always!  Nobody can ever take that away from him.  No matter where Little Man lives, he will always be my son’s brother.  They were/ARE great brothers!  Life is funny sometimes.  It gives us just what we have been wishing and hoping for, but then takes it away.  We don’t understand right now, but I pray someday we will.  For now, we pray for Little Man and love him from a distance.  Maybe there is another little boy who will enter foster care who desparately needs a big brother… And a mommy, a daddy, and three sisters!  Maybe…

Happy

I don’t know why.  Nothing in our situation has really changed, but today I woke up happy.  I felt good inside.  I laughed out loud several times at the antics of my precious Baby Girl and I really felt… well… happy.  I still miss my Little Man and I always will.  ALWAYS!  But, today has been different.  It’s like a cloud has been lifted and I can see the sun again.  Thank you God for happy! 

I know I shouldn’t think this way.

Lately, I’ve been struggling with keeping my negative thoughts at bay.  “I must not have been good enough.”  “God, must have thought Little Man would be better off without me.”  “I wasn’t going to be able to handle all of his behaviors.”  “God must have known I would fail, that’s why He took Little Man away.”

I know this is pretty messed up!  I do!  I don’t actually believe God is punishing me. (I don’t think that I believe that anyway).  I try to combat these negative thoughts, but they just creep in there.  And, ya know what?  Keeping “upbeat” and “positive” is exhausting!  

It’s been two weeks and two days and life as a whole is getting a lot better, but it’s still hard.  I’m still grieving.  

I’m so glad I still have you!

Baby Girl, you have saved me.  During my worst moments of grief, I still get to hold you.  I rock you in the rocker.  I buy you new shoes.  I plan your second birthday party!  I’m so glad I still have you!  

I was so worried when Little Man left that you would run from room to room looking for him.  After all, you had been together for your whole life.  Even when experiencing your first trauma and heartbreak at such a young age, you still had him.  I was worried you would be upset or unable to be calmed.  I was worried you would blame me or think that I sent Little Man away.  I didn’t know how I would answer your questions of where your brother was.  As it turns out, you have adjusted rather well.  You ask about him.  You say his name every time you see his picture or his empty bed.  You find little toys that belonged to him and were missed when the mass packing began.  When we pull into the church parking lot you kick your feet and squeal his name because you think we’re there to pick him up from preschool.  It breaks my heart, but makes me happy because we both miss him!  We all do, our whole family.  

We had hoped to keep you two together, your brother and you.  If we had our way, that would have happened, but that is not foster care.  We don’t get to make the decisions.  We just get to love you and take care of you and pray our most fervent prayer that you will always be kept safe!  We love you Baby Girl!  I’m so glad that God gave us you! 

Grieving

We are still grieving.  I am grieving.  My husband is grieving.  Our children are grieving.  We all do it in different ways.  I cry.  I also have a shorter fuse and I tend to space off at the worst times.  I have to ask people to repeat what they just said because, quite honestly, I wasn’t listening.  I was off in my own world in my mind and I wasn’t paying any attention to anything or anybody.  My oldest girl cries too.  She also avoids talking during her worst moments of grief.  She doesn’t want anyone mentioning Little Man or talking about him.  Middle Girl is the opposite.  She wants to talk about him constantly.  You can see how this is hard when they both are grieving, but in such different ways.  Oldest Boy talks and talks and talks about it.  He chews on his feelings and wants you to listen.  My husband gets angry.  He gets mad.  He wants to blame someone.  We are a mess!  All of us!  It is hard.  It is bad.  We don’t like it, but we must get through it!  Grief, is yucky, but necessary to be able to move on.  

Book Review of “Welcome to the Roller Coaster,” by D.D. Foster



I absolutely love reading true stories!  I also love reading about families participating in foster care and adoptions from foster care, so when I saw the promotion for this book online, I knew I had to read it!  The book is written by many different foster mamas and contains true stories of real families and real children being brought together through foster care.  The truth and grit of some of these stories will bring you to tears.  Other chapters will leave you smiling at how beautiful unconditional love can truly be.  If you are like me and like real stories and you have a heart for hurting children, this is the book for you!  

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with or employed by anyone or any company responsible for publishing this book. I am simply a boring stay-at-home mama sharing my personal opinion of a book that I’ve recently added to our family’s library.

Nobody has called to say he’s okay!

I pretty much poured my heart out at the courthouse last Tuesday.  I was kind, friendly, and proactive.  I gave endless stories from the last 16 months that Little Man was in foster care and shared all of his favorites and some of his dislikes as well.  Making the transition easy on my little guy was my goal.  Making friends with his bio family was my goal as well.  I’ve always been kind and friendly to them.  Since day one, I’ve seen us all as being on the same team.  Team Little Man!  Even when they didn’t seem too interested in his life, I still provided pictures, drawings, and school work to show how he was growing and developing.  Now, I sit here with nothing, not even a phone call to say that he is okay.  I kept his life with us a completely open book the entire time he was “our son.”  All I want is to know that he is okay.  But, it seems they have closed that book, ended the story and my heart hurts so bad that it is hard to breathe! 

It’s too quiet…

My life is too quiet right now.  I slept in today, that NEVER happens.  I’m alone with my thoughts way too much!  I know I need to stay busy and keep my mind occupied.  Tonight my daughter has a soccer game and that will be a fun distraction.  Baby Girl is a joy and keeps me busy with her singing and playing.  However, I just can’t help, but miss my Little Man!  I think about him constantly!  What is he doing?  Is he happy?  Is he scared?  Is he eating?  All of the things that a mommy thinks about.  

Even through this loss and pain I still have a deep sense that these last 16 months were meant to be.  I feel so thankful and like the luckiest girl in the entire world that God chose me to be Little Man’s foster mama!  

Anything he wants

Today is all about Little Man!  We ate what he wanted to eat.  We played what he wanted to play.  Instead of a nap, we did quiet time and I let him watch all of his favorite shows.  After we picked the big kids up from school we went to his favorite drive-thru and got his favorite milkshakes!!!  

I remember when he had been with us less than a month and we stopped to get milkshakes.  I’m not sure he had ever had one.  He simply loved it, but when he was only half done he threw it all onto the floor, milkshake everywhere!  Wow, that seems like a long time ago.  Today, he sipped through his straw and when he was down to the part he had to scoop out he said, “fork please,” and got down to get a “fork” (actually a spoon, but goodness he’s cute!)

From now until Tuesday, I plan to pretty much do whatever he wants!  This is his time!  These are memories to hold onto for forever!