One Year Today

One year.  It's hard to believe.

On November 29, 2011, I had just arrived at a homeschool park date when my phone rang.  We had been officially licensed as foster parents ten days prior and had been hoping for some sort of call.  Some sort of call was what we got all right.  We were asked if we would be willing to accept a foster placement of four siblings, all age five and under.

Our plan going into this foster parenting adventure was to adopt a larger sibling set from the foster care system while being willing to straight up foster a little one or two while we waited (I've always been a sucker for babies!).

That was OUR plan.  OUR plans never seem to be the right plans, though.  Here we were, faced with a sibling set who needed a home.  No, not a forever home.  Just a for now home.  Saying yes would mean we were jumping into foster care BIG TIME (4 kids!) and putting adoption on the back burner again.  It was a decision that should have been tough.  It should have taken time and deep debate and discussion and Pros and Cons lists and family votes.

We don't roll like that in the Moore house, though.  FOUR little kids needed a home.  We had a home. Discussion over.

I cannot overstate how hard those first days and weeks and months were.  The paperwork.  Oh, the paperwork!!  The appointments, the fights, the therapies, the cussing, the mental disorders, the bio parents who hated us, the violence, the no time to shower or fix my hair or exercise or think, the nights spent sitting up in a chair with a fussy baby or toddler, the blending of two families of four into one family of eight.  I look back and am amazed that we survived.

But we did more than survive.  We became a new family.  We helped children heal.  We showed kids a different way to be parented and a different way to treat those around us and a different way to love.  Their little eyes were watching everything we did so, so closely, and, in time, they trusted us and relaxed with us and became part of us.  Then we watched them go.

We, too, changed.  How could we not?  I don't know that I resemble the me of a year ago much at all anymore.

I am so much stronger.

I am also so much weaker.  We all are.

Let me try to explain.  There are moments when I am expected to do things that I don't know that humans can really do--me and four wee ones in a crowded doctor's office for hours comes to mind.  I am 100 percent weak in those moments.  I have to let go.  I have to know it won't be perfect.  I have to live literally minute to minute, making things ok for one minute, until one minute plus one minute finally adds up to an hour, and then our name is called and then somehow I can keep everyone from destroying the triage area for a few minutes and then somehow I can sing enough silly songs and read enough silly books until more minutes have passed and the doctor comes in and then somehow I must comfort four children who are petrified of the doctor while I also listen to the doctor and talk to the doctor and hold one kicking and screaming child down for an exam while four want to be held and figure out how to get a child to the bathroom while dragging along the three others and getting the right forms filled out and then protect all the paperwork and prescriptions so no one will rip them or spit up on them and smile at all the people gawking in the waiting room when our large and loud group reemerges and then open the maze of exit doors while pushing a giant stroller and holding a child or two and the diaper bag and the precious paperwork.  

Typing it brings tears to my eyes because it is that hard.  It is something that I cannot do.  I can't.  I am too weak.  A year ago, I didn't know that there was much of anything that I couldn't do.

I am a Daves!  Arrrr!

Now I know that there is a lot that I cannot do.  I know all too well how human I am.  I don't like to get preachy but I truly have learned this year that God is essential to our foster parenting four children at once.  When I have to do something that I cannot do, I have to pray and trust that, minute by minute, things will work out.  And they always do.  They do.

There are days (many) when my to-do list is overwhelming to the Melani of a year ago.  Those days, I pray and let go.  Somehow everything works out.  Does everything get done?  No.  Any given moment, you will find piles of laundry needing attention.  You will find me without a bit of energy to put away a single more toy at bedtime.  You will find me asleep on the couch at 9pm instead of playing board games or having deep discussions with my big kids or husband.  You will find take-out bags in our trash can.  I am weak.

But, somehow, learning how I can survive even when I am at my weakest makes me feel strong.

Looking back at the days and weeks and months of this year when we became a family of eight, to when we watched kids who we truly loved drive away forever, to building back up to a family of eight in a much tougher way (sheesh!  I thought 4 foster kids age 5 and under was tough...) is quite a sight.

There were some really tough moments.  There were moments when I utterly failed as a mother.  My marriage has been tested.  My homeschooling has been tested.  My sanity has been tested.  My budget has been tested.  My waistline has been tested.  I have no idea what a full night of sleep would feel like anymore.  I have failed my duties as a daughter and a sister and a friend way too many times. I have a log in my head of all the thank-you-notes I never got around to writing.   I have just plain messed up in countless ways.

There have also been too many great moments to even begin to list.  We are seeing little miracles and big miracles in our children, in our marriage, in our faith, in ourselves.  We have this one life to live, and being utterly worn out on a daily basis must mean we are really living, right?

And, you know what, we are so grateful for the support of our church, our family, and our friends.  We have been given meals, clothes, toys, gift cards to grocery stores and restaurants, help with the kids, and so much encouragement along the way.  Our families have embraced our foster children when they didn't sign up for this at all, and I can't tell you how much that means to us and to the kids.  I have no doubt whatsoever that we could not have survived this year without you all.

We still would love to adopt.  I have beds that are empty.  I know that there are kids who need homes.  We are trusting in God's timing and feel confident that we are doing what He wants us to do at this time.  Adoption was OUR plan.  Foster parenting may be how we are able to one day adopt, but it may also be a very different calling in our lives, someone else's plan for us.

Let Year Two begin.