So here we are well into our foster care experience. The girls are thriving emotionally. They are having weekly visits with their mom which seem to be going well (other than the orange cheese curls somebody is feeding the baby!). After their visit last week, we got a call that the older girl had lice. Great. Then Friday the baby gets sick and ends up in the ER. Pneumonia. This morning-the day before Thanksgiving-my son vomits in his room at 4 a.m. Super. Add in about 30 phone calls to and from caseworkers, 2 prescriptions, 2 dentist appointments, 2 doctors appointments, a phone call to the doctor, a birthday party with 12 kids, a splinter the size of a toothpick, washing bedding 6 times, getting the kids to church early to sing, a meeting with our pastor, baking for Thanksgiving, grocery shopping and my husband at work during most of this and you have my week in a nutshell. I need a good long cry, but I just don't have time for it. On a good note, I just finished a really good book on my nook (read mostly while I'm in the bathroom). It was "The Widow of Larkspur Inn" by Lawana Blackwell. Excellent book. I'm going to need to check with my church to see if they have any more of the series since I got this one for free. Praying no one else gets sick tonight so we can go to dinner at my husband's grandmother's house. Even though we have to take the 'long way around' and give my daughter motions sick medication, the food is worth it. Grandma puts on a great spread. Then Friday, we are supposed to have 36 people here. REALLY hoping no one else gets sick because telling that many people they have to find a new house to eat last minute is not going to be fun. Happy Turkey Day!

So I have made it through two weeks of having two foster girls in the house. Contrary to previous posts, it has all worked out wonderfully. The girls have fit in our family incredibly well. We have had bumps and blood and tears and screaming and prayers followed by more prayers and giggles and dancing and smiles. Not that it's all sunshine and roses, but we are making it work. The girls have had two visits with their mom, and she promises them they will go home tomorrow. This is a possibility of course since they have a court hearing. It has been implied several times that they will be leaving our home afterward, and while I am happy that they might be placed with family, I am also saddened by the though of not having them with us. It is quite comical that a family of five suddenly seems so small. As my husband and older two kids are in the attic getting the Christmas decorations down, the four year old's are watching cartoons and the baby is squealing at they kitty, I am quite surprisingly at peace with the chaos. Of course any minute someone will burst into tears or ask when supper is, and my fantasy bubble will pop as I am dragged back into the reality of raising another woman's children with my own for a system that just doesn't seem to make sense most of the time. And, as if sensing what I am typing, the baby is making a try at the stairs....

I wonder if 'marital insomnia' is a real term? I'm talking about the point in which a husband and wife just cannot sleep anymore. Not that we've slept too long and we should get up, but the toss-and-turn-up-and-down-can't-get-to-sleep nights. Speaking of up and down, when on earth did I become old enough that I get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night? So, back to the issue at hand: sleep. I need some. My husband has always been able to function on less sleep than I need. I held my own during the breastfeeding months of all three of my babies, when the youngest was still nursing every 3 hours night and day and I had a child in kindergarten and a preschooler needing my help, not to mention the full time job outside the home. I had been a professional napper since my college days when I was a commuter with a full time job and would take 20 minute naps somewhere between Physics and Statistics in the commuter lounge which consisted of a few old couches and a tv. Naps have just not been possible lately. The kids have been home for the summer, my husband's schedule is hectic and unpredictable, not to mention we had three foster kids for nearly a month. I think that's when my sleeping trouble started. Having six kids ages 4,4,6,7,8,9 cause more than a little stress and I don't think I dared close my eyes for the first few days. It got easier with routines and learning rules, my house was actually cleaner than it is right now because it had to be out of necessity. I think all my stress was turned inward and it kept me up at night. Well, those kids have been out of our home for almost two weeks and I still can't sleep. Maybe it's the money worries, but who doesn't have those? Is it the August heat? Is it my struggle on where I am in my spiritual walk? Is it because I need new pillows? Because my husband flops around every night before snuggling? I have no idea.

About eighteen months ago my husband and I started talking about being foster parents. We had several reasons for this, but the most pressing on my mind was because I had always dreamt of having four children, but after my third was a near life and death experience, we opted to have my tubes tied. So I was thinking I could have a baby in the house without the pregnancy and delivery and possibly we could adopt to finish our family. I approached my husband with my thoughts and he was supportive. So our adventure began. We prayed about it and discussed it with our families. Everyone thought it was wonderful. We went ahead with the application and through the seemingly endless paperwork for clearances, physicals, backgrounds, and a multi visit home study. We found out we were approved and in the same breath the woman asked us if we would accept a placement of two little boys. I was hesitant, but knowing I had the room and feeling my heart soften to these boys, I agreed. Then there was the
"oh yeah, by the way, they have a five month old baby sister." We took them all in and asked for their removal two days later. I was a mess. Emotions took over and I didn't sleep even thought the baby never cried. I just was overwhelmed with the situation. Then, five months later I accepted another placement of a group of three siblings. Girl, boy, girl, same as mine and nearly identical ages. This situation sounded perfect. Playmates for each of them. That lasted 3 weeks. It was a lot of work, but the personalities of our kids and theirs didn't match. I felt bad, but they went to a foster home with no other children and that foster mom is more than happy to have them! Fast forward to yesterday when I received another call for a four year old girl and her ten month old baby sister. This is what we thought we wanted: a baby and a sibling. A chance to hold the family together. We discussed it and then said yes. I waited for that feeling of regret, but it didn't come. At least, not right away. I have just decided that I am not built for this. I want to help kids. I want to be a better person. I want to teach my kids good things. But, I cannot take another woman's children into my house for an indefinite period of time. Don't get me wrong, it's not the kids. This time is difficult because they cry for mommy. The older girl came with a binky permanently implanted in her mouth, and the baby expects to be held constantly. So yes, that is hard, but my emotions are eating me apart. I am physically ill, unable to eat or sleep with empathy for these girls and for their mom. I have cried in the bathroom and called out "God, please help me!" I have cried in the kitchen. I have taken ibuprofen. I have given my kids extra hugs and texted a veteran foster mom, and prayed without ceasing. I can't do it. I want to see this one out without asking for their removal because then I would be a failure. Then these kids would be uprooted again. But......then I could sleep. I could eat. I could stop crying (temporarily). I guess I thought my heart was bigger than this, but it's not. Honestly it is just not for me. Now what? Wait it out , or be a big wuss and giant disappointment? I feel like I would be judged just as harshly as the mom who let this happen in the first place. I would still be sad that I couldn't have that fourth baby, but an occasional sadness is better than a constant feeling of terror. God bless all the foster families out there.

Ask and ye shall receive.......

I am not a patient person. Let's just get that out of the way up front. Patience is not a virtue in which the good Lord endowed this woman with. And, because of that, I feel I am often tested in this area. In the Bible study my Sunday school class is doing right now, we are challenged to wait on God. Not, the event, not the date, not the decision. Wait. On. God. Wait on God's timing. All in God's time. Light bulb moment. When I was little someone very close to me overheard me saying "I can't wait for..." and they told me "Don't wish your life away." That single phrase has come back to me many times as the years have accumulated. That's what we are doing when we say "I wish...I can't wait until....When that happens, I'll...Once this is over...." We are not waiting on God. Even if we are praying about it, we forget to wait and listen. I very often catch myself in my prayers, saying, "God, if You will...then I will...." Nope, this isn't what He had in mind. Turn it all over to God. I'm pretty sure the majority of the Christian population believes they do this. To actually do this, I believe  'the event' has to be imminent. When I was preparing to deliver my third child by (the first) C-section, it was a high risk pregnancy for several reasons. So even if I hadn't had placenta previa, even if she wasn't transverse, even if I hadn't had a history of pulmonary embolisms, even if I wasn't on anti-coagulants, I would have been high risk. My husband came home more than once to find me sobbing with fear for him and our two other children and this unborn baby. My grandfather was sure I wouldn't survive the operation. My entire church congregation was praying for us and waiting to hear any news at all. And, for some reason on that day. I was calm. I continued to pray. My family joined me before I waddled down the hallway. Even through the fear of being paralyzed from the epidural, I lay calmly on the table with tears coursing down my cheeks. I had turned it all over to God. I was waiting for God's decision. That time was very traumatic for myself and my entire family, but I remember this intense calm that I felt for that day.  Knowing that God is in control has never really been a problem for me, but letting him have control without making him wrestle it away from me has always been an issue. It was a wonderful feeling to have put everything in His hands that day and wait. I have been searching for that calm again lately. My husband and I have decided to be foster parents. It was a lengthy process of paper work and home visits.We finally received notice that we were approved and within hours we had a sibling group in our home. It lasted three short days. It was my decision to have them moved to another home and I wonder if I was too hasty. I was working on my time. How would I take care of three extra children all with special needs? How would my kids adjust to this sudden insult of heir mommy being otherwise occupied? How would my marriage survive the stress? Why isn't this going how I planned it? Bingo. Bin-go. I had planned it all out. I did pray about it, but I forgot to wait. I forgot to listen to God. Did I foil his plan? I don't know. The kids were kept together and are in a good, loving Christian home. For that I am thankful. Now I am waiting again. Waiting for another phone call from the county when I should be waiting on God. This time I can't seem to get it right. I can't find that calm for very long, and by this point I am almost afraid to pray for patience, because there is only one way to learn patience, and that is to have to practice it. And, let me say again, I am not a patient person. 

Dinner as Usual

I had a Mommy meltdown this evening. A relatively calm one, but still a meltdown nonetheless. In what seemed a typical family moment. I was clearing the table after a family dinner while my husband was using that time to work out a stressful work ]day on the drum set in the living room. The three kids were actually playing together. Chasing each other with pillows giggling and running, I called them in to finish their chocolate milk from supper so we could plant seeds in the little greenhouses I had purchased a week ago. They obediently came in and picked up their cups and began drinking. This does not seem as if it would be a precursor to a meltdown, so cue the giggling child to spit out her entire mouthful of chocolate milk onto the clean table. Ever so calmly I ask her if she is OK, make sure she isn't really choking , and I tell her to clean it up. She casually walks over to get a dish towel to wipe it up. This action probably wouldn't bother some, but I am constantly out of clean, dry dishtowels and it is just a pet peeve of mine when someone uses them for anything other than drying clean hands or dishes. At this point I do have a moment. One of those palms flat down on the table, head hung down in frustration, count to 6 1/2 (because I can't make it to 10) and I tell her in a louder than necessary voice that she should have used a paper towels. She looks at me and says "It's only milk, Mommy." Ah, the wisdom of a child. I should have laughed. I should have pulled her into a hug and said "You're right, honey." Wouldn't that have been the lovely mother-daughter moment we all think we live for? Didn't happen. Instead, I go into a loud rant, trying to be heard over the drum set, about how they have pillows in the kitchen, they didn't clear their plates like they should and a plethora of other things that I can't even remember. And, while my poor precious babies are looking at me as if I have flashing eyeballs, what do I hear behind me? The loving support of my dear husband? I wish. I hear a snicker. Now, at this moment I could have laughed right along with him, but no. Instead, I whip around on the attack and scream at him that I don't have the refuge of playing the drums for 20 minutes so please just let me yell this out without him laughing at me. Probably not in the top 10 of reactions that could have occurred in that moment. He looks at me  just like the kids were looking at me and then the trio of trouble makers start laughing. He actually does the one thing that would help in this situation and herds them all upstairs for showers, pats me on the bottom and tells me to get into my truck and get out of here. Most moms would jump at this chance, and maybe I should have. But, where would I go in my truck that gets such a low gas mileage number that I can not, will not show it in print?  Shivering at the quick calculation of how much it would cost just to get to town, I continue cleaning the kitchen. It actually feels wonderful and I realize that this is all I needed all along. I craved the ability to clean the kitchen while someone else did the shower routine with the short people that live here. I didn't need to go for a drive to let off steam, I just needed 5 minutes. Of peace. And. Quiet. He got the kids all bathed and changed, tucked in, even read books to them and I didn't have to request his assistance. This is not to drive home any point about him not being a hands-on dad at all. He is a wonderful father and husband, but, like most men I would assume, he just thinks since I do it every single day of my life that I don't want his help unless I specifically ask. True to form, my normal motto is that if I want it done right I will just do it myself. Control freak some might say. I will not argue. So the night ended like a clip from the Waltons, with me kissing the kids and saying goodnight as I came back downstairs. Maybe I should have these mini meltdowns more often.  As if the guilt of not being the one to do the nightly routine isn't already getting to me. Ugh.

Recycled Sweater Pillow with Embellishment Tutorial

So this is my first tutorial. I decided to do this after I Googled and looked on Pinterest and could not find exactly what I wanted. I am by no means a professional, just a stay-at-home mommy trying to keep busy while two of my little ones are at school.

This is a completely recycled pillow. I bought the sweater and the sheer fabric at Goodwill, and used a pillow that I made probably ten years ago that my sentimental husband wouldn't let me get rid of!


Step 1
 So, to start, I laid the pillow on top of the sweater and, using my rotary cutter, I cut out a square the same size as the pillow. (I could do the same size because my sweater was very stretchy. If your isn't you need to make sure to leave enough for a seem allowance.)

Step 2
  After I had the pieces cut out, I decided to put some embellishment on it. I LOVE hearts and Valentine's Day (such a pushy holiday) is coming up, so I dug out a heart shaped cookie cutter-also from Goodwill-and traced this basic shape onto a piece of paper. I then stripped some sheer material, it worked out to be around 1 1/4" or so, it didn't have to be perfect.

Step 3
I cut out the heart shape and pinned it to the front side of the pillow shape and then using a contrasting thread, sewed the sheer fabric strips onto the sweater around the paper heart. Then I removed the paper heart and continued to sew a heart shaped spiral to the middle. I chose a contrasting thread color because I didn't have any to match, but the color did match my comforter.

Step 4
I am beginning to get excited at this point! It is looking very cute! Next, I pinned the two sweater pieces right side together leaving an opening at the bottom to shove the pillow into. Sew around the edges. I used a 3/8" seem allowance just to be sure.

Step 5
Turn that baby right side out, stuff the (polar bear) pillow into it and stitch up the bottom using a blind stitch (or slip stitch). My slip stitch needs improvement, but you can watch lots of videos on YouTube.

Step 6
Put the pillow on your bed and wait for your honey to come home and wait for him to notice, that yes-you did do something today!

It's the little (green sprouting) things.....

I think I have a control issue. Not a huge one, but noticeable. Last weekend we were celebrating my son's seventh birthday which also happens to be on New Year's Eve, so ,understandably, most people were leaving our late afternoon party to head out to other festivities. So naturally, they all decided they wanted to be close to the end of the driveway so as not to be blocked in. Sounds simple enough, right? But it nearly pushed me over the edge of a very narrow cliff to watch them all pull into our very long driveway, pass the house, turn around in the gravel parking area out back, drive by the house again on the way out and park with their two passenger side tires in or very near the front yard. We ended up with nine cars parked along the driveway and no one parked out back. My problem with this? It took weeks of back-breaking work for us to cultivate anything that remotely resembled a front yard. I lived six months in my freshly built house with a twenty foot high pile of dirt and rocks where my yard should have been . After finally getting things roughly leveled out, my husband then spent hours on his dad's tractor to get the grade just right and make it smooth. Then came the rock picking. Walking bent over picking up rocks and loading them into the wheel barrow. Then the raking and raking and raking. Finally putting the grass seed down with help from the kids. Then the fertilizer. Then spreading the hay all over it and itching from head to toe from the stuff. The dream was coming closer to reality. Then came the rain. Rain is good for grass one might think,but no, torrential downpours are not so good for a freshly seeded lawn. Down the hill it all went. The soil, the seed, the fertilizer, the hay, my lawn. All gone. Deep breath. So again with the raking, the seed, the fertilizer, the hay, the itching, and the waiting. By this time any patience I had was gone. Do you know what there is in the absence of grass? Dirt. Mud. More Mud. And, just to keep the image vivid in your mind, let me remind you that we have three young children. Which means there was more mud inside than there was outside. And all for this reason, I was having a fit about where people were parking. They were too close to my grass. I spent a lot of time on that yard, and I love to sit on my front porch a look out over my lawn to the hickory tree that seems to protect us. But, I couldn't articulate that, I just flopped about the kitchen complaining about where people were parking ad vowing to place no parking signs in the grass next year. Hopefully they will all forgive me and show up next time I invite them. What a petty thing to get so upset about. I should just be thankful that this is the only thing I had to worry about on that day.