guilt

I've been dealing alot lately with guilt.

I feel guilty if I am playing with the kids - that I'm not doing something right. I feel guilty if I'm just doing housework and not playing with the kids. I feel guilty if I have a piece of cake. I feel guilty when there are dishes in the sink and Scott comes home.

I feel guilty for not cracking open my Bible lately (really, the last year or so, who are we kidding?). I feel guilty for not calling my Grandma. I feel guilty.

Guilty, guilty, guilty.

I have tried, argued and convicted myself: GUILTY.

This New Year?

I'm going to work on looking at the ways that guilt has detracted from the overall quality of my life, and what it has stolen from me.

Then, I'm going to change it. These kids, this husband, this life doesn't necessitate that I be a steaming bundle of nerves. They deserve better, and so do I.

the kids with their cousin

All of my guilt and shame should be *gone* because Christ did his atoning work on the cross.

My head believes it right now, but my heart doesn't.

guilty in 2012

over

Yesterday Phoebe turned 5 months old.

I thought yesterday about how crazy her birthday really was.

I find it really hard to believe that I didn't think about Lucy and Asher (I didn't really even know who Phoebe was as a person yet) when all of the doctors were working over me and saying things like, "She doesn't have five minutes for an ultrasound" or "Honey, we're gonna take real good care of you, OK?"

I remember staring at the glare on the tv and thinking, "They aren't saying I'm going to be OK. I will not ask."

"This is it" kept going through my head. Not the Michael Jackson song, but the phrase.

"This is it. I'm going to die."

It wasn't even that I was afraid or panicked. It was more of a realization. I think all of that rustling and scurrying around took about 10 minutes total - but I felt like I had forever to think over my life.

Have you ever been in a car crash that you knew was going to happen? The seconds before impact feel like a drawn-out kaleidoscope of time.

We're so insulated from death. We don't see the dying all around us as some do in other countries. We don't witness the execution of our daily meals. We don't sit with dead bodies after their inhabitants have left.

Sometimes, I wish we did.

That day brought crystal clarity to me. If I want to do something, I better do it now. If I want my kids to learn something, I'd better teach them now. If I want to be nice to Scott, I'd better do it today.

If I want to stop fearing, to let go, to jump, I'd better do it now.

I remember allowing Lucy and Asher to dwell in the corner of my mind those moments when I was coding and being brought around again, and I remember thinking, "You will break down if you think about that."

So I didn't.

But now, I do. I have the luxury of thinking about it. I'm good in a crisis - I go into survival mode. But now...now? It makes me cry.

All of the birthdays I would have missed
all of the "Mommy, I'm hungry, what's for dinner?"
all of the afternoons driving up to the school in the van, smiling to myself as I see her expectant look and the smile that breaks across her face when she sees me
all of the cuddles with Asher, sitting in a messy living room while we watch tv together
all of the laughing at Archie Bunker shows with Scott
all of the lunches out with my dad
all of the times seeing the kids playing with their cousins - just thinking about my amazing family
all of the "what're you up to" phone calls with my mom
all of the "you guys can play for 5 minutes, but then you need to come inside for dinner"

My kids just got green finger paint all over the upstairs carpet. They are "making Christmas presents" out of tape (wasting it) and random ribbons they have found that I was hoping to use to make hair bows for the girls. They are so proud of themselves and the first thought I had was to get upset with them.

You know what? Not worth it. I'm going to cherish my random bits of paper and hair balls from them on Christmas morning.

We think we're going to have so many of these moments, but they can be gone in a flash.

Don't be depressed.

Just live your life.

Don't wait until it's over to wish that you had.

over

Yesterday Phoebe turned 5 months old.

I thought yesterday about how crazy that day she was born really was.

I find it really hard to believe that I didn't think about Lucy and Asher (I didn't really even know who Phoebe was as a person yet) when all of the doctors were working over me and saying things like, "She doesn't have five minutes for an ultrasound" or "Honey, we're gonna take real good care of you, OK?"

I remember staring at the glare on the tv and thinking, "They aren't saying I'm going to be OK. I will not ask."

"This is it" kept going through my head. Not the Michael Jackson song, but the phrase.

"This is it. I'm going to die."

It wasn't even that I was afraid or panicked. It was more of a realization. I think all of that rustling and scurrying around took about 10 minutes total - but I felt like I had forever to think over my life.

Have you ever been in a car crash that you knew was going to happen? The seconds before impact feel like a drawn-out kaleidoscope of time.

We're so insulated from death. We don't see the dying all around us as some do in other countries. We don't witness the execution of our daily meals. We don't sit with dead bodies after their inhabitants have left.

Sometimes, I wish we did.

That day brought crystal clarity to me. If I want to do something, I better do it now. If I want my kids to learn something, I'd better teach them now. If I want to be nice to Scott, I'd better do it today.

If I want to stop fearing, to let go, to jump, I'd better do it now.

I remember allowing Lucy and Asher to dwell in the corner of my mind those moments when I was coding and being brought around again, and I remember thinking, "You will break down if you think about that."

So I didn't.

But now, I do. I have the luxury of thinking about it. I'm good in a crisis - I go into survival mode. But now...now? It makes me cry.

All of the birthdays I would have missed
all of the "Mommy, I'm hungry, what's for dinner?"
all of the afternoons driving up to the school in the van, smiling to myself as I see her expectant look and the smile that breaks across her face when she sees me
all of the cuddles with Asher, sitting in a messy living room while we watch tv together
all of the laughing at Archie Bunker shows with Scott
all of the lunches out with my dad
all of the "what're you up to" phone calls with my mom
all of the "you guys can play for 5 minutes, but then you need to come inside for dinner"

We think we're going to have so many of those moments, but they can be gone in a flash.

Don't be depressed.

Just live your life.

Don't wait until it's over to wish that you had.

winner

Ireta is the winner of Space Buddies! Congratulations!

winner

Ireta is the winner of Space Buddies! Congratulations!

homework

...and I think she's not watching me...

space buddies

Alane B., you're the winner of the gift card! Thank you for "liking" my page on Facebook. Email me at pipsersmom @ gmail.com. Also, if you've already "liked" the page and you haven't won yet, you're eligible for every drawing.

Scott always says that parening Lucy is like having me for a kid. SHE IS MESSY:

no bed sheets because they are in the wash...yes, she does sleep on sheets!

I know, I know. You're horrified I would even *allow* my kid to leave her room this messy.

I'm not going to make up excuses (like she does) or apologize (like she doesn't). Truth is, I need to teach her some organizational skills and I need to learn some MYSELF. I keep house like I think.

We were cleaning Asher's room and I was looking at his ghetto, broken lamp. I decided he needed a Star Wars lamp for Christmas. I was going downstairs to throw something big away in the kitchen trash and stopped at the computer to google "Star Wars Lamp". I GET SO DISTRACTED!

OK, tell me. How do YOU clean? How do you keep your house clean? If it isn't, what is the major thing that keeps it from being clean? One of the hardest things for me to deal with is the kids' school papers. I will not keep them all, but I like to keep the cute things, but then everything gets so cluttered. #firstworldproblem

Spill your secrets! Comment on this post or "Like" Finding Wonder in the Mundane on Facebook. Up for grabs today is this movie, which is $15 on Amazon:

Give me your cleaning tips!

An aside: We did not take the 2 and 8 year old, though our new friends have them and I am so excited these kiddos get to be blessed to be in this family! The 11 month old was only going to be respite and the case worker found someone else before I got a chance to call back. If I weren't so cheap and actually had a cell phone, that might have helped...

I WILL vomit on you

Today, Scott got home at 5:36.

He was supposed to be home at 5:15 so we could do our secret shop at Buffalo Wild Wings.

All day Asher was wanting this or that, he and Lucy got into it with the fighting when she got home, and Phoebe - oh, Phoebe...bless her little heart, she just wants to be IN on the action. At this point in time, her little muscles don't work and it PISSES HER OFF. She wants to just be held all of the time so she can see what's going on. She's always craning her neck to see around, under, and over things. She doesn't want to miss a thing!

I tried to nap two times and they were both unsuccessful. I came downstairs and the kids were ON YOUTUBE,  WATCHING VIDEOS OF SOME SCHMOE PLAYING GRAND THEFT AUTO.

I was horrified. We need Net Nanny! Stat! The last thing I need is for my children to see a cop's head blown off on a video of some demented video game.


Like I said: SOOOOOOOOOOOO done by the time Scott got home. Here was the list of things I didn't get accomplished today:

• make personalized calendars for Scott's side of the family
• balance the checkbook
• do the four loads of laundry sitting in the basement
• help Asher clean his room
• research online ways to get Phoebe to sleep IN HER OWN BED so a) i don't suffocate her by rolling over on her and b) so I can actually feel rested in the morning. (Ideas welcome here...)
• sell things that need to be sold on Craigslist
• wrap Christmas presents so prying little baby eyes don't see what they're getting
• send out more Christmas cards
• organize the filing cabinet
• start my diet

What I DID do all day was clean up spills, settle disputes, change my clothes three times because that # correlates with the number of times a certain someone spit my own breast milk back at me,

ah......

you get the picture.

"I NEED TWO HOURS TO MYSELF TOMORROW MORNING. COMPLETELY TO MYSELF," I told him, and he has learned, in our 9 years together, just to stay quiet.

I neeeeeeeeeeed to see my dear friend Lucy and her beautiful little baby boy John and I plan on hitting up Target beforehand to bring him a little gift. I will splurge on Starbucks while I am there.

A two-hour outing is my oasis in the desert, my frick to your frack.

I AM SO EXCITED!

Asher hung close to Daddy while we were out at the restaurant.

"Honey, was I mean to you today?" I asked.

"Yes!" he answered.

Four year olds, like elephants, never forget.

winner, winner, chicken dinner

The winner of the prize for this round is Cole!

I assigned each commenter a number (if you commented twice you got one number), and added on the "likes" from Facebook. Cole, your movie will be going to you very shortly! (No, the top number was not 100 - it was 17. I have no idea why it changed!)

Min: Max: Result:7Next up, a $10 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory. Park your car, run in and pick up a slice to treat yourself, to go.

Now, how have you, or how will you pamper yourself this week? What is your guilty pleasure? (Remember, if Mama aint happy, aint NOBODY happy.) We have $400 in the bank right now and I still went to get a massage from the cutest little man from Costa Rica this morning. Responsibility, anyone? (Hey, our furnace wasn't supposed to break.)

I'll draw tomorrow night at midnight, central time. 

side

It's Christmas time.

You should be happy, light on your feet, and merry-go-lucky. Things shouldn't bother you. You should always be kind to your children. You should always keep everything in your house picked up. You shouldn't cuss at other people in traffic. You shouldn't get upset with your kids and wish you were on Facebook instead of interacting with them. You should do something special each day for advent. You should always look cute on Sunday morning.

Should, should SHOULD.

Damn you, shoulds. Let's just dehorn the shoulds, shall we?

I've always had a guilty constitution. Even as a young child, if there were something to feel guilty about, you can bet I'd be first in line for the parade. So much of my life has been made up of shoulds, woulds, and coulds.

I'm not sure how much of this attitude is wrapped up in the OCD part of my brain, the part of my brain that believes it truly can control everything just by thinking positively or negatively about it, and how much of it is just part of my upbringing.

I have been thinking so much about Derek Clark, the foster kid who became so much more than everyone thought he would become.

I was reading his book last night when I probably should have been asleep. The sheets were dirty and I had a million other thigns I was feeling guilty about not doing. His book was so much more fun, though. In one striking passage he writes:

"Life is confusing and I don't always know what to believe. There are only a select few who can enjoy unwavering faith. They never question anything. It is like they have a knowledge others do not. I believe some people are directly connected to God, and it is beautiful to see this connection. But I am not one of those people. I would like to have that unwavering faith. Anyone who has suffered or gone through bad experiences either strengthens their faith or lets it fade away. I continually try to strengthen it day by day. But just because I don't have this unwavering faith doesn't mean that I don't believe in God or that I am not a Christian. I am always going through the process of questioning my faith, and I will never give up trying to find it."

he goes on:

"I have always struggled with the suffering of the innocent. I can only imagine the faith a mother has when her child is diagnosied with cancer and has only a few months to live. She is probably praying with utter sincerity and devotion to God, asking that He not take her child away, yet often the child passes  on."

I first read these passages and found myself instantly judging him. He'd grown up in a Christian foster home and he'd had many opportunities to see God at work in his life. And then, I thought of how different his early years were compared to mine.

He was abandoned by everyone he ever loved. His parents gave him away. He was bullied, sexually abused, categorically rejected by all of those who were supposed to protect him.

I was always loved, always cared for, always. My dad never walked out on me.

I've heard people say that it's hard for them to trust a heavenly Father when their earthly father did nothing but crap on them.

As my friend Cole puts it, "It's hard to hold your hand out, only to get it constantly bitten. How many times do you do that before you just plain give up?"

Listen. If you've read my dlithering for any length of time you know I have had definite opinions on religion and politics.

The older I get, though, the more I realize that it's all about love, about helping others up, about judging less and serving more.

We all fall down. We all, hopefully, try to get back up. I have a friend who is about as far opposite me on things like politics and religion. She has worked for various animal protective leagues, lots and lots of charities dealing with stillbirth, and she's working hard at raising her boys to the best of her ability.

She's a gorgeous, giving spirit, and she has a killer sense of humor.

I love her for it.

I guess what all of these ramblings really are saying is this:

talk less.
listen more.
give yourself grace.
don't believe that so-and-so has it better or easier or anything.
you don't know so-and-so's story.

Basically, just do this:
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.  Micah 6:8


It's really that simple. 


Talk softly, carry a big stick. 


Show compassion.


Give someone else grace, extend it back to yourself, tenfold.


In the words of Travis, the best band EVER:


Well I believe there's someone watching over you
They're watching every single thing you say
And when you die, they'll set you down and take you through
You'll realize one day


That the grass is always greener on the other side
The neighbor's got a new car that you wanna drive
And when time is running out, you wanna stay alive


We all live under the same sky
We all will live, we all will die
There is no wrong, there is no right
The circle only has one side, side, side


We all try hard to live our lives in harmony
For fear of falling swiftly overboard
But life is both a major and minor key
Just open up the chord


But the grass is always greener on the other side
The neighbor's got a new car that you wanna drive
And when time is running out you wanna stay alive


We all live under the same sky
We all will live, we all will die
There is no wrong, there is no right
The circle only has one side, side, side, side


But the grass is always greener on the other side
The neighbor's got a new car that you wanna drive
And when time is running out, you wanna stay alive


We all live under the same sky
We all will live, we all will die
There is no wrong, there is no right


But the grass is always greener on the other side
The neighbor's got a new car that you wanna drive
And when time is running out, you wanna stay alive


We all live under the same sky
We all will live, we all will die
There is no wrong, there is no right
The circle only has one side, side, side, side side, side, side, side


I'm realizing more and more, in my own journey, that it's just a day at a time, an hour, a minute. NOBODY has it figured out. 


We're all just travelling the line of life, hoping one day to hear the "Well done" piece. We're all struggling.


Chin up, friend. It'll get better.


Do what you can today, give a little something of yourself, or take if you need to.


Taking is OK, too.


We may be getting an 11 month old today, for just a little while. Haven't heard back yet.

Stay tuned for the winner of the movie! (This is so fun, isn't it?)

Oh, light bulbs

Oh, my. I am getting ready to call the local hemmorhoid treatment center (yet another reason why I am glad I am not having another baby, thankyouverymuch) and I realized I needed to post about the giveaway! (giveaway closes at midnight Thursday night, Eastern Time - I don't even live in Eastern time but I like the beach.)

Here is what's up for grabs today! The two-disc Platinum Edition Sleeping Beauty DVD, shrink-wrapped and everything. All ready for gift giving:

Prince Philip is sort of a stalker

All you need to do is make a comment on this post about how you are or will be making this season sweeter for someone else, even if you don't FEEL like it. It has to be an action; not something tangible you are giving (unlike the movie, which will arrive on your doorstep in no time if you are the lucky winner, randomly drawn!)

I'll tell you about me. Yesterday was a rough day; my sinuses were going to explode out of my head and I had nine million things to do. The sweet people who made my day were:

• the lady who let me into her lane even though I was one of those annoying people who waited until the VERY. LAST. SECOND. to move over
• the man behind me in Wal-Mart who literally waited 15 minutes (a long time when you're in the check out line at Wal-Mart) so my gift card could be swiped through properly
• my sister in law lugging Asher back and forth to preschool...seriously - I hit the sister in law JACKPOT!

we plan on stocking up on these before they're off the shelves, thanks to the Commies! Did you know that the new "environmentally friendly" lightbulbs, when they break, require a HazMat suit to clean up? this is neither here nor there. 

Anyway, I have been thinking alot about what I"ve been through and how that can translate into me helping others. My "light bulb" moment was when we were at the foster parent conference, listening to a man speak who had been abused and then thrown away by his parents at the tenderest age of 5. He entered foster care and came to be in the home of parents who NEVER GAVE UP on him, through all of his crazy behavior. One thing he did was to slash the 4 year old next-door-neighbor boy with a razor blade when he was 7. These weren't piddly little behaviors.

Anyway, at the beginning of this man's book he actually THANKS his mom for giving him up and not ever giving him the false hope that she would be back for him. The light clicked on then...if he can be thankful for that, then I can say:

Thank you, Lord, for SPARING my life four months ago. Thank you for giving me a wonderful husband who dotes on me and three awesome kiddos who, in the words of my OB, are each one a miracle. What happened is all in the past. The past is gone, dead. All I have is today, and I'm going to milk it for ALL IT'S WORTH.

God, thank you!

THANK YOU!

There are still people in our lives who don't understand why we would still want to foster, now that we got our "last baby". 

I wish I could relay all of the stuff that's in my heart over to you, just vomit it out onto this page so you could see just a glimpse of what I'm seeing and feeling these days. I *know* we need to do it, and so does Scott.

Two days ago we got a call for a 2 and 8 year old sibling set. My heart said "yes", but my head said "no". 

Ever the people-pleaser, but I know it would have been too much. 

So, tell me: what are YOU doing for someone else? What are YOU thanking God for? If you'd like two entries, then "like" 'Finding Wonder in the Mundane' on Facebook. 

My hair looks like a rat died in it and Bible study started exactly one minute ago, so I'm out.

2 and 8

We just got a call for a 2 year old and an 8 year old.

If you are thinking about fostering, JUST. DO. IT.

More thoughts later.

fear/OCD

I have struggled with severe OCD since I was 7 years old. I wanted to share an email I wrote to a lady who has been struggling with fear and living life:

>

Katie,

Four months ago I gave birth to my daughter. The entire pregnancy I was OBSESSED with something happening to her...a cord wrapped around the neck in utero, birth defects, anything that would kill her. I was so convinced she was going to die that I made the nurses keep the monitors on my belly until the VERY LAST SECOND before the c-section so I could be 100% sure she wouldn't die. I spent hours a day researching death in utero. While I was lying on the table right before the c-section there was no monitor on my belly and I thought to myself, "I bet she has died in the five minutes between when they took the monitors off and this moment." I was THAT convinced she would die, and only I could keep her from death.
>
> Long story short - my baby was fine.
>
> I, however, was not. I lost half of my blood volume that day due to a completely random bleed on my uterus. There were 17 people working on me and I coded twice. The night before our daughter was born my husband and I were watching the popular television show ER. I made the comment to him, "That's so silly. The doctors wouldn't let the family watch while they're frantically working on someone, trying to save a that person's life." I found out the hard way that it's true...the family IS allowed to watch, the husband IS allowed to sob over his wife and kiss her cheeks and tell her goodbye and that he didn't get enough time with her while she is being bagged and having all kinds of drugs and blood pumped into her system IF the medical team thinks she's going to die.
>
> It happened to me. I spent nine months, an eternity, "making sure" that my daughter wasn't going to die in utero. The big fat crazy joke of it all is that it was *me* who was in danger. My OCD and the complete and utter lies my faulty brain has been telling me about my abilities to keep myself "safe" are nothing more than a faulty brain being faulty. I have wasted so many precious moments worrying about things that never happened...while I was lying on that bed, watching all of those medical professionals work on me, watching my husband look like he was going to pass out while he watched me die (or so he thought), I wanted to start laughing...so much precious time wasted on trying to control things I never could have controlled in the first place.
>
> I never had obsessions about myself dying during childbirth...somehow, the natural order of things didn't require me to have obsessions about my death in order for me to nearly die. I was too worried about my baby's death, thinking I "had it all covered", that we were safe.
>
> I think that may be the definition of irony.
>
> My entire point is that you've got yourself so convinced that you're not going to die that you're missing out on life.
>
> Someone asked in an earlier email how people found motivation to fight OCD. I fight OCD because I don't have any other choice. I refuse to "miss out" on living my life as a wife, mother of three and friend to many simply because I was afraid that that life may be cut short if I didn't follow through on my obsessions. I realized, four months ago on what I thought was my death bed, that I was being given another chance.
>
> I am SO thankful for that chance. I'm not going to miss out.
>
> Don't you miss out, either. Some day it's going to be you on that bed, and you're not going to get THIS time back.
>
> Rachel

sheer awesomeness

You know, I really don't even know where to begin.


I suppose I shall begin at the beginning. We were at our foster care conference this weekend. It was soooooooooooo wonderful to see old friends and meet new foster parent friends. It is so nice to have a local network of people who "get it".

Scott the Mexican gangster holding FeeBee at the Foster Parent Conference

Asher: I just can't quit you, Baby Man!

We got sooooo many goodies. New movies, kids' clothes, an awesome awesome hotel stay, wonderful food, great activities for the kids, and on, and on, and on. We definitely felt the love this weekend. I love our fostering agency. I love that we got to encourage other foster parents, even though we don't currently have any placements.

I just loved that.

The kids loving on Baby Man at the conference.

It's almost been a year since we became foster parents. I'm going to be honest here (like I'm ever anything but). Our becoming foster parents was a direct result of the loss we'd experienced trying to have babies. Yes, it's probably obvious that I have carried those losses around like a badge...trying to make something out of them. I keep feeling like our losses are a lump of clay and I keep trying to mold them into something beautiful with my words. Like David, I realize that my futile attempts are nothing:

O LORD, God of my salvation,
when, at night, I cry out in your presence,
let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry. Psalm 88:1-2

I can't tell you how many times that Psalm has run through my mind. There has been alot of hurt in relation to the loss, and loss, and loss. In the process of letting it all go I've found that there's a huge part of me that longs to hold onto it. There's a huge part of me that is afraid of my identity without it. 

it's complicated.

This weekend was our fostering agency's conference. I have so much to say about it but will keep my thoughts to a minimum. Hey, how's about I do a bullet-point type thing?

At our conference we:

• Got to see all three kids get a picture with Santa. I felt a tad bit like a poser since we don't have any placements, currently. Santa was all sweet with us and then, without skipping a beat said, "Yo yo yo, dawgs!" to the group of teenage foster kids behind us. It was sheer awesomeness:

Phoebe looks slightly like an angry Russian in her Bolshevik hat.

• met an awesome lady who reads this blog! When we first showed up we were given a gift bag full of goodies and were told to check in and then go down to the "gift room" (ermmmm...a room FULLLLLLLLLLLL of brand new Hallmark goodies, free for the taking! Can you say JACK POT?!) to pick out whatever we wanted to. I slogged out of that room looking like the bag lady down by the river. I think I got about 600 bucks worth of stuff. I'm a nerd. I actually calculated it. By the end of the night the ladies there were begging us to take it! It was awesome. Anyway, the lady I met happened to read here. It was so awesome, but I wondered if I had any boogers or if she noticed that I had something in my teeth or my outfit was dumb. blerg. She and her husband have two very adorable and very feisty little three year olds, along with their older daughter. Hello, new friend!
• There was a lady at our table who kept falling asleep during the conference. It was 9,387 kinds of hilarity. In fact, she always falls asleep during these types of things.
• Had a hilarious conversation in which Scott and I sat with a table of women who had been fostering for about 186 years between the four of them. "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrl, my foster boy tore up my car and I had to have it repossessed. I gave it to the next foster girl because it wasn't no good to me any more." "My little foster boy started fires." "My foster daughter would cuss me out, so I'd make her sit out on the porch while she cussed me out, because Mama knows there aint gonna be no cussing of me in MY house!" Apparently when it snowed the kid got tired of being outside in the cold and the cussing stopped. When I asked these ladies why they continue to foster they responded with an almost unanimous, "because we love it!" (In foster circles, the phenomenon of the inability to say "no" to a foster placement is called "foster crack".)
• I got to have an amazing conversation with Missey Smith after she and her husband Greg led a seminar about stranger danger and the like. Their daughter Kelsey was abducted and murdered from my favorite Target store in 2007. Separate post coming about that.
• I am soooooooo very excited for our next foster placement! So many new ideas and a little bit nerve-racking. I can't wait. I wonder who it will be?
• We heard from an amazing guy who the system had all but given up on. 13 foster homes in as many years, and finally he was placed with foster parents who NEVER GAVE UP on him. He is an amazing man. A post coming soon about my lightbulb moment while hearing from him...
• As you can see up top we got to see Baby Man, the foster son we got straight from the hospital last December and got to have until he was nine months old in October. It was delightful!
• I have one million other things to tell you about. I will be back tomorrow! I'll also be starting an awesome Christmas giveaway each two days from tomorrow until Christmas. 

Hooray!

moments

I've been given the go-ahead by my lovely husband to take another placement, should one become available.

Since our nine-month-old foster son left us on October 2nd after being with us his entire life we've gotten calls for:

2 month old and 12 month old siblings
3 year old brothers
2 and 4 year old siblings

Our last call came just a few days ago, and it was for a little 5 year old girl. She was having to move from her current foster home because she had anger issues and was displaying lots of behaviors. She had destroyed a comforter already and had punched holes in the walls.

I told the lady I was talking to about her that we would *love* to take her but I have other little ones I have to protect, especially a 4 month old who is unable to defend herself. I've no doubt it was the right decision.

I hung up the phone and went back to whatever I was doing.

For me, that moment was just one of a series of moments in my day.

For that little girl, wherever she is, that moment could very well have determined the course of her life...or, a moment like that.

It just made me think.