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....