Paying Attention

About once a day I have an overwhelming feeling to smack myself.

You see, I THOUGHT that I was paying attention in training. I THOUGHT I had all of the ins and outs of being a foster parent memorized. I THOUGHT that the child or bio family would be the most difficult and tiring part of this journey.

Boy, did I think wrong!

I knew that there would be appointments to schedule and attend, but what I didn't anticipate was the many phone calls that I would receive on a daily basis. Or how tiring it is to explain baby D's story to every desk clerk, nurse and doctor that we see.

By our fourth appointment, though, I had finally gotten a routine down to just handing over our FFA agreement and telling them that they would need a copy. Any other questions were answered with a firm "I'm not at liberty to discuss that." and busily finished filling out the 1000th form of which I could only answer 2% of all the questions.

Because of baby D's young age, there is a lot of paperwork on top of the many appointments and I can't even begin to describe the frustration that comes with that.

Example:
FORM - Please list all family health history.
ME - Yeah, okay!

FORM - Brief description of prenatal care?
ME - Your guess is as good as mine.

You get the idea.

Never mind the fact that NO ONE actually knew D's legal name until last week. It's nice to finally have that information.

Between our Angels social worker, the county social worker, D's attorney, well child check-ups, WIC appointments, infant message lessons and raising three very adorable little girls, life has gotten a little full. I mean that in a good way. I don't mind the fullness and constant moving that comes with being D's foster mom. I actually enjoy it.

We received news last week about what may be D's permanent plan and even though that was a hard pill to swallow, I am happy. I know that this is the best possible situation and that this what will be best for D in the long scheme of things. That doesn't make it any easier on us though.

All three girls are head-over-heels in love with this little man and are constantly asking to hold or feed him. I'm most surprised at how helpful Madelynn has been and how easily she became quite the big sister.

Allison was Star-of-the-Week in her class last week and tomorrow it will be Alyssa's turn. I've had such a fun time helping them pick out the items that they wanted to take to class and show everyone.

I'm not sure what room I want to share next for our Home Tour, but I am thinking about painting our downstairs half bath. I may just hold off and make that the next tour when it is finished.

That's it for now. xoxo