God Chose.

-- "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.   Jeremiah 29:11 --

Baby Cuteness went home yesterday afternoon as planned.  It was a sad day, but I know that we'll see him again..... partially because I neglected to give his new foster mom some of his formula.  Whoops. :/  She is actually open to us seeing him ongoing at this point, so we will see what that looks like as we move forward.

Owen enjoyed some last minute snuggles and singing time before Cuteness left. 

Owen (3 1/2) is the child in our family who has had the hardest time seeing Cuteness leave.  After lunch yesterday I encouraged the boys to spend some time with Cuteness.  This conversation followed between the boys:

Owen (sobbing): "But Mommy, I don't want him to leave!  You're the Mommy and you get to choose.  I want you to choose for him to stay!"  (Big thoughts for a 3 1/2 year old).

Elijah: "No, Mommy is just the Foster Mom, so she doesn't get to choose."

Gavin "No, God gets to choose.  And God chose that we would just love him for a little bit and then he would go somewhere else."

And that was that.  God has a plan for Baby Cuteness and I'm glad that we were a part of it.

Sleepy time snuggles. 

Between 4 days and forever

Our first foster placement summarized in one blog post.  If that is possible?

We got the call for placement on Friday, 4/10 around 1pm.  A few short hours later, 2 month old "Baby Cuteness" arrived in our home.  We were told there was a strong possibility he would leave our home on Tuesday (4/14) to go live with a friend of his mom's (we'll call her Helen).

It is just shy of 3 months later and we are now preparing for him to leave on Tuesday to go live with Helen.

How to summarize the three months!?!

First off, there was initial chaos.  Within 48 hours of Cuteness' arrival, the stomach bug started going around our family, a raccoon ate one of our chickens, a toilet started leaking (insert plumber), I was on the phone with Urgent Care for the baby when Elijah choked on his dinner and threw up all over the table, and then we spent two nights in the hospital with Cuteness for dehydration.... he did not weather the stomach bug well.

There was the agonizing month when the county asked us if we would consider being an adoptive placement for Baby Cuteness if the other options did not work out.

But the day to day part of being a foster family has worked well for our family.  It has given us a platform of sorts for great conversations with the boys in our family as well as with friends.  It is evident that the need for foster families is very real.  The day to day chaos is manageable and we are able to do this - and enjoy doing it.  We are enjoying loving on a child who needs to be loved.

The biggest thing I have learned in this placement is what our role is as a foster family.  We really have felt that our role is "to love him like he is our own until he is not."  The most difficult part of fostering this first time around was learning how the foster care system rolls.  There are certainly injustices in the system and I could give many examples.  The biggest is the fact that we didn't have visits with Helen for these 3 months.... even though we requested them and we knew that the county was looking into her as a possible placement.  I feel like that would make the transition a little smoother for our family, her family and for Cuteness.

Tuesday will be a sad day for our family, but it is also a day that we will be able to rejoice in being a family of five again for a time.  We will certainly miss Baby Cuteness a lot, but we will also be busy with our own summer fun.  We will quickly go from having a nap time to the freedom of no naps, no diaper bag, no bottles and no baby food to carry along with us.

Summary: Yes, the foster care system is not a perfect or ideal system.  But we can do our part in it and love a child like he is our own, until he is not.  As long as we can focus on that, we're going to do this again, and again.

Cuteness has been well loved.  We'll miss him and love him always.