The twins have adjusted fabulously!

The twins are amazing!  God has protected their little hearts for sure!  They are loving, kind, sensitive, playful, compassionate children. They play well with Baby Girl.  They attend school, church, and outings with our family and have absolutely no behavior problems when out in public.  They are pretty much the most precious little boys on the planet as far as I am concerned.  

I love them already! It is crazy how fast the love comes in foster care.  But, I love them and they already have a piece of my heart!  

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Picking up The Twins

The day I went to pick up The Twins was so cold and rainy.  The weather was just bad that day.  Baby Girl and I loaded up in the truck, put the address I was given into the GPS and headed out.  First, we went to their previous foster home to pick up their belongings and then we followed their social worker to the daycare they had attended since entering foster care just one month prior.  The social worker unloaded the carseats, handed them to me and went inside to get The Twins.  I loaded the much too large and completely inappropriate (for three year olds) booster seats into my truck.  I didn’t say anything to the social worker about the seats because I was just meeting this woman.  If she was the one who bought the boys these seats, I didn’t want to offend her by saying they weren’t correct, so I just stayed silent.  She came out of the daycare with two of the most precious little boys that I have ever seen.  Identical twins, K and J walked outside in the cold with their little matching jackets on and I bent down to meet them.  “Hi, I’m Miss B,” I said.  “Oh, they’re going to call you mama,” the social worker interrupted.  “They call all women ‘mama’ and all men ‘daddy.”  “They can call me whatever they want,” I replied.  In my mind, I knew this wasn’t a good sign.  It isn’t normal for a child to use those words for anyone, but their immediate and most special caregiver.  T never called me, “mama” and he was with me for seven months.  The twins are younger than T, but still I knew this couldn’t be a good sign of attachment to their parents.  I picked the boys up one at a time and put them into their car seats.  The social worker told me she would be in touch with me later in the week and she drove away.

After everyone was all buckled, I got into the driver’s seat and looked in my rear view mirror.  Three three-year olds looked back at me.  Baby Girl, K and J were all buckled and ready to go.  Was I?  Could I do this?  Three children under three years old is a lot… but yes I knew I could!  God had given me this blessing and we were going to be fine.  I turned around and said, “Everyone ready to go home?”  K looked at me with a HUGE smile on his face and said to me clear as day, “We’re your babies now Mama!”  My heart both sank and broke at the same time.  They just met me.  They haven’t been in my car for two minutes and they’re already calling me, “mama.”

Sweet precious babies.  My sweet little twins!

 

 

 

Twins

I’ve been praying for years… years I’ve been praying.  My heart is for the children that I believe God will bring into our lives to minister to through foster care and so when we got military orders to move, my heart broke.  It broke because we are foster parents and for years we have fostered precious little souls that each have a piece of my heart.  Little Man, Baby Girl, Sad Eyes, T, and The Baby all have a piece of me.  Baby Girl’s adoption last year was one of the greatest days of my life!  Being her forever mommy is one of my happiest joys!  My heart still feels there are little loves that need a mommy to take care of them and that I am that mommy.  So, when we got orders I was devastated.  We are not scheduled to move until next June, but still I called our agency to let them know the military’s plans to move our family.  All parties agreed that we should put our home on hold except for respite.  I grieved.  I grieved not being able to do what I truly believe God has called me to do.  But, I started packing away my baby things, my foster care items went into labeled boxes to be put into storage.

Then, tonight at 8:30 pm we got “THE CALL!”  Everyone in the foster care community knows this call.  It starts with looking down at your caller ID and seeing your social worker’s phone number.  Your heart starts to beat fast.  You get really excited!  Tonight was no different.  Two little boys need us, twin three year old boys.  We should get to welcome them into our home this Monday if all goes as planned.  We will have them for a short time, probably two months.  Their mother is working her case plan and is seeming to be doing really well, so this should be a short placement, but we are still very excited.  I can’t wait to meet the two little boys who will be part of our family for a short time.  I can’t wait til Monday!

 

 

3 years ago today…

3 years ago on this date at 9:00 p.m. an unknown car pulled into our driveway. Three social workers and two of the most beautiful babies that I had ever laid eyes on were in it. We RAN to the car to welcome them into our home and I can honestly tell you without a shadow of a doubt that my life has NEVER been the same. I don’t EVER want to go back to the person I was before meeting my angels. They changed my view on everything! Jesus used two little babies to show me my own faults, where I needed to be humbled, where I needed more patience, and what was truly important in life. 16 months flew by and then I was faced with my worst fear (losing Little Man). I had told God I could not survive it, that He would have to change the circumstances because my heart wouldn’t be able to take it. God taught me something again… that JOY comes in the morning after grief and suffering. He taught me I could survive my worst day ever because I did. Now, I just pray pray pray for the little boy, I once called my son. Our babies were and are gifts from GOD! Today, one of those babies is my forever daughter! Baby Girl fills our house with JOY! She is growing into a very independent, loving, sensitive, daughter and sister. When I am asked about what I am most thankful for this year it is HER! She is our answer to YEARS of prayer. Thank you Lord JESUS for November 13th, three years ago. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

“The Lord has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.” Psalm 126:3

I hate that dress!

I’m throwing it out!  I HATE that dress!  It was something I bought right before court a year and a half ago.  I wore it the day I took my precious Little Man to be reunified with his birth family.  The family that had made absolutely NO effort to gain custody of him, but because “blood is best” as far as courts are concerned, he was gone.  My little boy!  My heart!  The one who clung to me and wouldn’t get out of my truck that morning.  My baby who called, “Mama, no go!  Mama, no go!”

Oh how I hate that dress!  I wore it that day.  The ugliest dress in my closet.  It has hung there for a year and a half just staring at me and making me sick.  I’ve kept it just in case these”feelings” went away and I could wear it again.  It cost money, was my rational.  It makes no sense to just throw it away.  I’m being silly.  The dress if fine, it is basically brand new.  I’m being wasteful.  BUT, TODAY I DON’T CARE!  I’m tossing it!  Not in the trash, but in the donation pile!  Someone else can wear that dress.  Someone who doesn’t know about the heartbreak.  Someone who doesn’t feel the pain.  Someone who doesn’t ache for the little boy who was mine.  Someone who didn’t see him in the distance getting into a stranger’s car at the courthouse with all of his earthly things, as I rode away.  Someone who didn’t sob and sob and sob as my friend drove me home.  Someone else can wear that dress.  I hate that dress!

 

 

3 days until TPR

There are only three more days until the TPR (termination of parental rights) court hearing for our precious Baby Girl.  She came to us two years and one month ago a teeny tiny baby and now she is a sassy, smart, loving toddler.  We love her!  During the two years that she has been in our care our Baby Girl has seen her birth mother twice.  Once at the 72 hour court hearing after coming into care and once last year.  That is it.  She has never called to ask about Baby Girl although she has had my cell number the entire time.  She did not complete one step in her case plan.  She disappeared, reappeared, and then disappeared again.  She has been arrested and to jail over 5 times since then and is currently serving time for dangerous crimes.  To say that I am overjoyed that this case is coming to an end and that it is ending with us grafting Baby Girl into our family for forever would be an understatement!  I am in shock!  I cannot believe this is almost over.  In a few days the judge will terminate parental rights making Baby Girl a “ward of the state.”  At that time we can then petition to adopt her.  She will have our last name!  She has had our love, our devotion, and our care for years, but now she will officially and legally be our Baby Girl! 

I don’t mind 2:00 a.m. feedings.

It’s my only time where it is just me and The Baby.  We rock in the glider, he drinks his bottle, we change his diaper, we rock some more.  He wraps his little fingers around my thumb and I talk to him.  I smell his perfect “baby smell.”  He grunts and sighs and sometimes is awake for a little while before he falls back to sleep.  I don’t mind 2:00 a.m. feedings.  It’s my only time with just me and The Baby. 

He told me, “I love you too.”

Tucking him in and reading a book.  Saying, “goodnight.”  I do it every night.  Nothing new.  Nothing has changed.  Only tonight when I said, “I love you,” T said, “I love you too.”

Mississippi Mud Pie

Oldest boy came and got me tonight to tell me T was crying in his bed.  I went in and heard him sobbing.  As I knelt down next to him I asked what it was that made him start crying.  “Every time I close my eyes, I see my Granny,” he said.  His soft quiet sobs into his pillow were almost silent, but his body rose and fell with each cry. “Oh sweet baby,” I said, “what can I do?”  He rubbed his sweet little eyes and looked up at me.  “Will you make me a Mississippi Mud Pie?” he asked.  “Absolutely!” I said and I rubbed his back and sat with him until he fell asleep.  

I’m not his mommy and he doesn’t love me.

T has a mommy.  He knows her and loves her and no matter what she’s done, she IS his mom.  He is happy to let me cook for him, clean up after him, and take him places, but he doesn’t love me.  He doesn’t want to need me either, but right now he does.  He stiffens up when I try to hug him, so I don’t.  I ask him at least once a day if I can give him a hug, but I don’t try to unless he says it’s okay.  I know he needs love and he needs hugs.  He needs to know he’s special and loved and that even if he can’t be with his family right now, that he is loved in our’s.  So, when I dropped the kids off at school this morning and said as they were all getting out of the truck, “I love you guys!  Have a good day,” I tried not to feel sad when he gave me that look that said, “I don’t love you and you’re not my mom.”