While that is a very good question but in all reality very short answer. Busy!!!!!! A good busy. Busy loving on my 6 kiddo's every minute I can. Why? Because in a matter of 2 months 4 of our 6 kiddo's will be leaving and the other 2 will be going up for adoption. Almost 18 months ago when these beautiful kids came into my home I would of never imagined that they would all leave at the same time. This is going to be 2 of the hardest months. In our 3 years of being foster parents we have never had so many kids at once and we have never had kids for this long. When I found out that the first kiddo was leaving I couldn't stop crying. Yes, I know as foster parents its all goal to send the kiddo's back home but that doesn't take away the pain. Not even a week later I found out that 3 more of our Kiddo's will be leaving. This group is going to be even hard than the first kiddo. It's not that I don't love them the same but you see the littlest. She's my baby. We have had her since she was 3 months old. Its going to be hard on her because to her I'm her mommy and she knows no different.
I've decided I'm not counting down the days that we have left. I'm going to hold on to each and every day like its the last because we may have up to 2 months left but they will also be gone on visits for longer periods of time. If I added them up we probably only have a month at the most left together.
This is not only going to be hard on us it is also going to be hard on our kids. To them they are brothers and sisters. Some don't even know their brothers and sisters they will be going home to. So not only will they be losing us they will also be losing their brothers and sisters.
So for the next 2 months we are going to have as much fun as possible.
We will be celebrating 2 more Birthday's.
We are planning one last trip together before everyone leaves.
Well and just having fun.
If you did notice I didn't say much about the 2 that are going up for adoption. Let me start here. Eighteen months ago if you would have asked me to adopt these 2 beautiful children I would of said yes. However, through the 18 months things changed. You see one is not much younger than me so we have struggled with the your not my parent your my friend thing. One of them also did not like kids coming and going from our home. This is one of the big things that changed our minds because we don't feel our call of being foster parents coming to an end so there would be kids coming in and out as long as God has called us to be foster parents.The last thing is that the teen told us she didn't want to live with us forever. As a teen we wanted to respect the things that she wants. It wouldn't be fair to her because it was something we wanted.
Well 2 months ago everything changed. First it started with her saying she wants to be adopted. Then to asking questions about adoption. Then questions like is it okay to have 2 mommies, does my new mom have to replace my old mom and do I have to change my name. Then out of no where the question, will you adopt us? We told her it was something we would have to pray about. So we have been praying and we all feel like this is something we are suppose to do. Within the next week we will have a better idea of where things will be going. Just because this is something we all want does not mean that its going to happen. There are a few things that could happen. They could be placed with a family member, we could be denied (this is a possibility because of the lack of age difference) and they could go to another family that God has intended for them.
So for the next few months we are going to stay strong and hold on to everyday with them. We also know that God will be with us through this and they could all be leaving at the same time for a reason. We know we can't see what's going to happen after they leave but we believe God has other kids for us and we know that in time everything will make scene and we will see God's big picture. After these kiddo's leave our focus is going to be adoption. We will still foster but we are going to be taking emergency placements so that way our home is open to kids who are open for adoption.
We love fostering but after 5 years of empty arms we are ready to have some that will can call our own and never have to worry about when they are going to leave.
