Second Hearing for Little Man

We went back to court today to finish what we started a couple weeks ago.  We still have Little Man (henceforth referred to as LM) with us.  Our next court date is late January so we will have LM with us at least until then.

Google is a very interesting thing for finding out all kinds of info you wished you didn't have to know about someone.  I've been able to find out quite a bit on most of the players in this situation and it's not been pretty or comforting.  It's made me very sad, to be quite honest.  I'm very much the "play by the rules" kind of gal and don't get it at all when people totally go against what is right.  This is a situation where I'm feeling very torn on exactly how I'm supposed to feel.  On one hand, I'm super glad we finally have a child in our home and that we're able to make a difference to him for whatever time we're allowed to have him.  On the other hand, I'm so sad about what all has gone on in this family for YEARS!  It is generational sin on display.  I'm praying the cycle will be broken with LM!

As for how LM is doing and how we're doing - oh my GRANNY it's a challenge having a 9 month old at my age!!  Especially since I've been thrust straight into it!  I'm right now taking about 15 times longer to type this than normal because I'm having to check on LM every 2 seconds to make sure he's not into something he shouldn't be in to.  And the diapers.  God helps us all - the diapers.  Wow.  This kid can POOP!  And he's not sleeping through the night every night.  I like sleeping through the night.  Once I'm out, I'm out. And I don't like to be getting up during the night.  Not so with LM.  Oh no.  He likes to be up at, oh, say 1am or 2am.  Oh yes.  I think he's doing it just to torture me sometimes.  But last night he slept long and hard and I was so grateful! He's cutting some teeth, which any mother knows is never a super fun venture for eating, sleeping, or pooping. :)  But over all, he's doing fantastic!  He's such a good little kid!  He loves to explore, to eat, to play peek-a-boo, and to snuggle and give "kisses".

I'm excited to know for sure that we'll have him for his first Halloween, his first Thanksgiving, his first Christmas, and his first birthday!  I'm a planner.  I like to know things way in advance.  I buy clothes at the end of one season preparing for the next year.  That's just how I roll.  The last couple of weeks with LM have been a challenge for me simply because of the uncertainty of the future of it all.  For now, I know I can prepare for the next 3 months.  It's not a lot, but it's something.  And several fun somethings to plan for in the next 3 months!  And for those of you who haven't seen this GORGEOUS little dude, I will be happy to email pictures, because those of you who HAVE seen him can testify - he is FABULOUS!! :)

Our Foster Child

Yeah, eons since my last post, I know.  Been a bit busy. :)

To make a super long story as short as possible... with more details to come later....

We have our first foster placement as of Friday, September 30.  It's a little 9 month old boy.  He is honest to Pete one of the cutest things I've ever seen!  We're already completely in love with this little one!

Mike is out of town this week on a business trip, so I've been a single mom for a few days. **And let me just interject here that if you are a single mom with more than one child, GOD BLESS YOU and I have no idea how you do it!!  I can handle one for sure.  Two is a bit more demanding, but still doable.  THREE, with that 3rd being an infant, and doing it without my husband.... shoot me now!!  My hat's off to any single mom.  Those are brave souls there, folks!! ** Trying to learn a baby who I just got  has been more challenging than I was prepared for.  When you are pregnant, you have 9 months to prepare for a baby to arrive.  Once the baby is here, at least a woman gets some maternity leave.  Not so with foster care.  Nope.  I had less than 18 hours notice that I was getting an infant and was back to work in 48 hours.  And thank the good LORD that this kid has decent sleep habits!  He's gotten even better over the past couple of nights.  That is a blessing for SURE!  You would think after doing this twice with my own that I would have some sort of memory of what to do with a 9 month old.  Yeah - I didn't.  It's been a learning process for sure, but we're doing well.

Today was the first court hearing.  We didn't get to go full out into the adjudication hearing today.  They had to reschedule for a couple weeks from now.  I'm here to tell you, this straight and narrow girl doesn't do well in those sorts of situations.  I have been a nervous wreck since I found out just yesterday that I had to be there with our little guy.  I have been an emotional basketcase since the hearing.  So many thoughts have run through my brain, I can't even articulate any of them well enough to do them justice here.  I know after today how I will specifically pray over the next couple of weeks.  I can't go into a lot of detail, but if you're reading this, please pray that the judge presiding today would remain the judge over the whole deal.  There's a chance another one will be requested, but I'm praying heaven down that this one stays.  Pray our little guy will get to stay with us.  I know I need to pray that whatever God's will is, that is what will come to pass and ultimately I know that's what needs to happen.  However right now, I can't get past my selfishness of wanting to keep our baby.  Pray that I can see these people involved how Jesus sees them and not how my flesh wants to see them, because after today, I need the eyes and the heart of Jesus more than ever before.  Pray that someone will be able to reach this family with the Gospel.  It breaks my heart to see people so far away from the Lord.  I don't understand it at all.  Today just reaffirmed all the more that Jesus is the ONLY way to have any hope or joy in this life.

I hope to update this blog a bit more now.  I need an outlet to get out some of this info, and some of you may want to follow along on out journey, so I will do my best.

Pray for our family.  We will have our baby at least until October 18th.  We have a long road ahead of us.  None of the steps are easy.  We will need Jesus to walk very closely by us all in the days ahead.  Any time you think of foster families, adoption, the justice system, anything like that, pray for us. We are desperate for the Lord to show Himself might in our family.

Keep Up With Me...

On the right side of this blog is my Twitter timeline.  Follow me on Twitter, username is miss_jilly_bean, or become my friend on facebook - or just read the timeline on this blog to keep up with me.  I can spend 2 seconds updating Twitter more than I can find time to sit down at my computer, log in to blogger, type out a big message with pictures, etc, etc, etc.

Hopefully this weekend, there may be time to update the blog and get all of you who still might be interested a picture or two from our trip to Las Vegas.  It was fabulous!!

On the adoption front, we have some inquiries in on a few kids from Arkansas and some other states.  All I can say at this point is, this is a frustrating process dealing with the state!  There is not one single person that seems to be an advocate for US.  If we left it up to someone contacting us about available kids that might fit in our family, we would wait for years and maybe still never hear anything.  It's really maddening sometimes to think that there are families like us that are ready and willing to take these kids who need families and yet no one is helping us!  We are doing all the leg work.  There's not one soul that has said, "Hey, it looks like we have a possible match for you" or "what about these kids, would you be interested?"  Nothing.  But we're not quitting.  We're calling.  We're emailing.  We KNOW there are kids out there and we have a place for them and we WANT them!  I know it's all just a matter of God's timing.  His timing is perfect.  His plan is perfect.  There is a child or children out there that God has designed to be a part of our family.  I'm constantly reminding myself that God is in total control, even when I think these people working for the state are all crazy.

Another Call

This is going to end up being so hard.  It's already hard.  I can tell you right now that I'm going to need to be prayed up every minute in order to have the wisdom and discernment we need in order to know which child to take.

I can't help but think of these kids they called about tonight.  I heard the one year old little girl in the background crying for her daddy.  I'm in tears right now just thinking about it!  I wanted to go grab that child and just rock her to sleep.  And her 3 year old big brother too.  They cannot help what's going on with their parents or what they may have seen already in their little lives.  I just think about Porter and how scared he would be if he was taken from our home.  He would be crying for me and for his daddy.  He would be so confused as to why he wasn't in his house, in his bed.

There are so many things going through my mind right now.  Way too many and way to fast for me to even get them out.  I'm so very thankful that the Holy Spirit can understand my thoughts and my groanings because I can't get many of these things into words.  I'm just so broken for these kids.

God, meet their needs tonight.  Bring them someone that will take care of them tonight and love on them.  Give wisdom to the caseworkers and those trying to place these kids.  They have such a hard job - give them patience and love for these kids.

Our First Call

We just got our first call tonight for a little boy, but we had to say no. That was excrutiating. It's a very real thing now that there are kids right now that are being taken from their homes. And I can't help but wonder what that little boy is going through tonight. I wonder if he's scared. I wonder if he'll be able to sleep. I wonder if the family that's caring for him will take good care of him and hold him when he cries.  My heart is just aching tonight... But I know God has got just the right child for us - and we'll be able to make a difference...

Open For Business

After the busiest week in all of creation, we found out today that we are officially open as a foster home.

That's a very exciting and a very scary thing!  If I knew who I was getting, I could feel a little more prepared.  But we don't know.  And we don't know how long we'll get to keep this first kid, if and when we get them.

We're also going to have an adoption home study done.  Not sure when that will take place, but should be soon.  That way if there are any kids that meet our criteria anywhere in AR, we can have an option to adopt them.  Right now, we're limited to the kids in the four northwestern counties in AR.

We're praying for wisdom and discernment.  I'm praying for an open heart for whoever comes into my home - and at the same time praying for open hands if I'm called to give them back to their bio parents.

This process is not for the faint of heart.... and we're just beginning.....

Foster/Adopt Blogs

I'm on the hunt for other bloggers who are fostering to adopt.  I've found a few.  I've got them listed on a blog roll on the right side of my blog.  But I want to have some more.

If you know of anyone that's fostering or is adopting through foster care and has a blog, please let me know.  I'd love to have more resources!!

Another Day, Another Class

We have another training class today.  Thursday night was about visitations that foster kids have with birth parents.  I've got to be honest and say that the idea of that does not thrill me in the least.  I could write a whole post just about that notion.  But I lack the time today.  Because...

We have another six hours worth of training to sit through today.  The first session is on discipline.  I've heard a little bit about what we can and cannot do, so I'm interested to see what they say today.  The second session will be on adoption, which I'm a little more pumped about.  There will be an adoption specialist there, so I'm sure we'll have plenty of questions for her.  That's the part that I'm really looking forward to today.

Oh, and I'm also looking forward to getting some lunch 'to go' and having a picnic of sorts with my hubby on the Fayetteville Square!  That will be my favorite part of the day, I'm sure.  I hope the weather holds out and is as nice today as it was yesterday.  I'm so ready for spring, it's ridiculous.

Lastly, I'm SOOOO excited for my friends The Maners!!  They passed court in Ethiopia and will be leaving to go get their son on March 27th... FINALLY!!!  Woohoo!!  Congrats Robyn and Ryan!  You know we're overjoyed for you right now and can't wait until you get home with that precious boy!

Training Classes

So, we’ve been going to “parenting classes” as my husband likes to call them. :)  Actually, in order to foster/adopt through DCFS, a couple must attend 27 hours worth of training as part of the preliminary process.  We just finished session 4 of 9  last night.  All the other stuff was basically review of info that we already had or things that we just knew.  Last night was brutal.  It was about loss.  Our instructor, Laura – who I really like – went over the various stages of loss and grief and we talked about what some of the kids that come into our home might feel.  I have an idea of what we’ll be dealing with, but I’ll freely admit, I don’t fully get it.  It’s hard to imagine where these kids come from because I have NEVER been in any kind of situations like these kids come from.  It will just tear your heart right out!

One of the first things she did was she had all of us get three sticky notes and on one we wrote a person we loved.  On another, we wrote our most prized possession.  On the third, we wrote an aspect of our health that we were thankful for.  At first, I thought it was a little silly, but being the rule follower that I am, I did exactly as she said.  Then, she came around to each one of us and began pulling a post-it from the table in front of us.  She took one person’s loved one post-it.  Another one she took was their prized possession.  And so on.  She then asked how that made us feel that she just came and took our stuff.  Of course they were just post-its but still.  Then she came around for the second round and some people had both their other post-its taken and some people just had one.  Some people didn’t have any.  She asked if that was fair.  Was everyone treated the same?  Did everyone end up with the same stuff?  And THEN, she came around and gave us a post-it back, but it was someone else’s post-it.  Not ours.

Some of these kids going into foster care have everything taken away from them in one fell swoop.  They are taken away from their loved ones.  Even if mom and dad have treated them like absolute crap, they are still THEIR mom and dad and the kids still love them.  They may have been taken with just the clothes on their back.  They may have had to leave their favorite stuffed animal or their pet – their most prized possession.  Laura reminded us that as she gave us the sticky notes back, we might have gotten a pet or someone’s PS3 or a loved one….but it wasn’t OUR stuff.  Put yourself in the place of these kids.  They might be coming into our home and having a ton more stuff than what they had back at mom and dad’s, but it’s our stuff – not THEIRS.  It’s not what makes them comfortable.  WE are not mom and dad to them.  We can love them with all that’s in us, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t going to experience the stages of grief over the loss of what they have left.

Then.  Oh then.  At the end of class, she played a video for us.  All it was was words scrolling across the screen and occasionally we would hear a kid reading these words.  It was taken from a psychiatrists observations from things kids have said and things he’s witnessed kids experience.  Oh. My. Gosh.  I was literally crying.  It was so heartbreaking.  I mean, I had an idea, but some of the things shocked me.  And most of it is bringing me to my knees.  It makes my heart break.  It makes Mike really angry.  HOW can parents treat kids this way?!  HOW?!?!  How can ANYONE treat a kid that way?!

We found out last night that the newest statistic shows that the number one reason a child in NWA is taken out of his/her home and put into foster care is neglect. NEGLECT!!  I would have guessed drugs in a minute.  But no.  It’s neglect.  Drugs was second, but still.  Overpowered by neglect.  I could just shake some people for that.

And to make matters even worse, I watched a DVR’d episode of Oprah today about child molesters.  I hesitated for weeks about watching it, but especially last night after some of the stuff we heard, I knew I needed to watch it.  I was crying by the end of it.  Because there are kids even around here having to deal with stuff like that.  It makes me SICK!!  I’m nearly to tears even now as I write this.  One of the guys on there put it perfectly when he said by what he was doing, he was killing who that little girl could have been.  I just want to bury my head and pretend that stuff doesn’t happen, but I can’t anymore.  And it breaks my heart for those kids.

I just know, more than ever, we have GOT to help some of these kids.  Mike and I are so passionate about this.  Whatever kind of abuse these kids have come from, we may not be totally equipped, but we have willing arms to hold these babies that need someone to love them.  And open hearts, which may be the most important thing of all.