we said YES again & other FOSTER CARE UPDATES

For the last number of months (actually, it’s probably closer to a year) I have been sharing our foster care updates via video on YouTube and while I still like that format for many reasons, today it’s just going to be a blog post.

To cut to the chase: we said yes to another foster care placement.

And no: R2 and BB8 are not gone.

So yes, we now have three foster kids.

Plus two kids.

We’ve hit the five kid bracket, this is new territory for us.

For the longer story and some updates on R2 and BB8 read on.

How did we get here?

The last time I shared a foster care update I shared that we were waiting for approval to increase the number of kids we would accept from two to three and our age of acceptance up to 8 years old (it was previously at 4 years old).

Well, that paperwork hasn’t gone through but here we are with three kids anyway.

We wanted to increase the age and have our next placement be in the 5-8 year range to avoid too much conflict with R2 (who is 3, almost 4) and Ephraim (who is 9). And then because of the way rooms were set up we were only open to girls at this point.

So, we said we’d accept a 5-8 year old girl.

We ended up with a 3 year old boy.

Ha!

How did we get here?

I’m still a little confused as to how it all happened myself, honestly.

It was really as simple as this new child (who has yet to be dubbed an online name, we need to get to know him better before we pick one) needed a place to go and we had an extra bed. He’s actually from an hour and a half away from us but the workers brought him because they couldn’t find another home.

What’s the long term plan?

If you are wondering what the long term plan for the-child-who-has-not-yet-been-named-online is, welcome to the boat, there’s not a ton of room here but we’ll do our best to squeeze you in.

His worker pretty much left him at our door and ran.

She did have an hour and a half to drive back home and then she was on holidays for the rest of the week, so who can blame her?!

Personally, if I had to guess, I don’t think he’ll be here very long term. He has other siblings that have gone to other homes and I imagine if they are not put with family in the next while they will at least try to get him placed with another sibling.

But it also wouldn’t surprise me if I was very, very wrong.

How’s he fitting in?

It’s been a few days and he seems to be settling in quite well. He’s actually just one month younger than R2 so they’ve been playing a ton and also having some trouble sharing, but for the most part it’s been positive.

He also plays on his own really well which has been helpful for when the big kids are out of the house hanging out with their friends and R2 and BB8 are at a visit with birth family.

There’s definitely been some emotions on his part, getting ready for bed has been a bit emotional each night but thankfully the other kids are tiring him out so much that other than that first night he pretty much crashes as soon as his head hits the pillow.

What’s going on with R2 and BB8?

That’s the question of this decade.

We are continuing on with our déjà vu from about this time last year. (You can find more about that here and here.)

I thought they would be gone from our home and with birth family last week.

Yesterday I found out they will be here for at least another month and a half.

We’re almost once again in this stage of “transitioning them out” where we go backwards and they do less visits than they were a month ago.

I will continue to say what I have been saying all along: the hardest part is the unknown, the season of transition where you think you know what is happening and then it all changes. And then it changes again. And again. And one more time. Oh, and just another time for good measure.

Thanks for taking time to read this update and for those of you who keep our family in your prayers!

I would love to hear how this format for updating worked for you, do you prefer video or a written blog post? Leave your answer in the comments! I think I generally prefer video but blog posts are easier, I can type at weird hours or here and there are the kids allow, so, I won’t be offended no matter your answer.

P.S. If you are curious, you can view our foster care timeline here.