My Sunflower

I keep a journal of milestones and special moments with Boy, knowing full well that it might never be given to him, that he might leave our family, making my notes and thoughts moot, or at least, irrelevant. But, we decided a long time ago that we didn't want to not do things simply because a child might leave us, and have wasted months or years if a child does stay forever, so I journal to make note of the things I want him to know about his childhood when he grows up. And if that means I get "too attached" and my heart is smashed against the pavement, so be it.

This is yesterday's entry.

------------

In our garden, we're growing sunflowers. They're 6 feet tall now - maybe more - towering over everything else in the garden. But they weren't always that way. Together, you and I have monitored their growth almost daily, excited and trying to be patient. Some days, the changes were noticeable - new leaves, a wider stem, or a few more inches in height. Other days, there seemed to be no change at all. A few weeks ago, flower heads finally began to form at the very top; tight, little bunches of green fronds. For sure, we were close, I thought. And then - nothing. Days of nothing. It's easy to grow impatient.

But two days ago, we saw those green fronds give way and begin to curl back, revealing a tight bunch of yellow fronds - petals - and I thought for sure we'd have fully-bloomed sunflowers the next day.

I was wrong.

Instead, those thin petals are curling back out ever so slowly, one at a time, making me wonder if we'll ever have a full sunflower - let alone one on each of the 5, healthy plants.

You, little love, are a lot like this flower. We can watch you grow by leaps and bounds one month, and then see your growth stall out, even recede, as you struggle with your reality the next month. It hurts to watch you struggle and know there's not much we can do. And it's easy to grow impatient, or expect a sudden blossoming when in reality, we need to be satisfied with, and celebrate, the appearance of one, tiny petal. And most importantly, we do not lose hope. 

You are my sunflower, and God created you as such. Only He determines when you bloom.

A week later...

It's been a week since we said goodbye to Miss A, and the grieving process has been both helpful and confusing.

Here's what I know:

• That was a fabulous first experience. I had prepared myself for my own horror stories, the kind people felt the need to tell us when we first shared that we were feeling called this direction. The worst of our problems, really, was the sleep inconsistencies, and I'm confident that's just a matter of time and comfort for any child.
• God called us into this. If He hadn't, we wouldn't have survived it, come out stronger, and feel peace about where we are now.
• God is calling us to do it again. Not right away, there's still some healing and breath-catching to do.
• I miss her still, but feel complete peace about how the placement ended.
• It'll be a little while before we're ready to go again. I don't know how long. I'm not even sure how I'll know when I'm ready. This girl who has a checklist for everything has no checklist to tell her when she's ready to turn life on it's head again... But that's okay. God knows. My husband will know. God will tell us. I trust them.

One last post about Miss A coming soon - highlights, favorite moments, lessons we learned... As soon as I gather the courage to write it.

Having Said Goodbye (or: How I Am)

We said goodbye to Miss A yesterday morning, and it's just now beginning to feel real.

The last 36 hours have been filled with preparations for a family wedding, so I have been too busy to dwell on the feelings. So many people asked me today "how I am" that I finally started to process.

The house feels empty. There is evidence of a little girl everywhere. A dollhouse in the living room. A pink cup on the bathroom counter. A random sticker stuck to the floor. Same sheets on the bed, which has obviously been "made" by a 3 year old. The dishwasher has kid dishes, kid cups and kid utensils. Her beloved "pack pack" still holds a pink water bottle, with water in it.

And a giant stack of library books on top of the piano remind me each time I pass that a child lives here; no, lived here.

My heart, like my house, also feels like a mess. And like my house, I can see what needs to be done. But I can't find the strength to do it, and I don't know where to begin anyway.

I need to clean, put things away, process through some crap, and get ready to start again. But today I just keep waiting for her to come home.

thinking about "progress"

today i'm thinking about progress. pretty much since Miss A turned our world upside down, we've looked for any inkling of progress to indicate success.

• from hardly sleeping to sleeping mostly through the night.
  
• from refusing to eat hardly anything that grows from the ground to willingly tasting a few fruits, and not even noticing the "ninja veggies" that often get mixed into dinner.
  
• from being unable to be alone in a room, to choosing to play in her room by herself.
  
• from saying "me scared" any time a room seemed darker than necessary, to deciding "me like dark". (some might call this brainwashing. i like to think of it as pep-talks, when i respond to "it's dark." with "it's a good thing we like the dark, huh?")
  
• from no manners to occasional manners.
  
• from unable to communicate needs when emotional to using "big girl words" to tell us what's wrong.
  
• from some serious hesitations about matt to deciding he's her best friend, and choosing to hold his hand instead of mine.

this morning, i thought about how i was up in the middle of the night 3 times. two were to deal with temperature (i think) and one was to convince her that 6:20am is "not quite morning yet". i realized i was discouraged by this, because i was looking at how it affected me. obviously my goal had been to sleep through the night myself (can you blame me?), but the reality is that if long, restful nights are our goal in life, we ought not become parents.

instead, i need to focus on how she is affected, and call that progress. sure, she woke up. but did she scream at me? nope. did she require 2 hours in the rocking chair at 2am? nope. did she kick and sob? nope. did she demand that the lights be turned on? nope. did she require matt and i to sit in dining room chairs in her room and carry on soft, meaningless conversation, in the middle of the night, so she could fall back asleep to the sound of our voices? nope. (that happened once. true story.)

did she wipe away her tears and use big girl words to tell me she was hot? and later, cold? yep. did she climb back into bed willingly and go back to sleep, instead of wanting to sleep on the couch? yep. (well, mostly.)

that's all progress. so yes, i'm tired today. but she's bright-eyed and sunshiny, as usual. she's proud of herself for being a big girl and i'm proud of her too. she's getting what she needs. she's making progress. that's what matters. (and i can sleep later. like, in 15 years or so.)

magic sleep fix?

our biggest challenge with Miss A has been sleep. it took several weeks before she was willing to go into her room by herself for more than a moment, and it took a "big girl" sticker chart to help her claim some courage and not say "me scared" at the idea of turning on her own bedroom light.

so, sleep eluded us too. some nights were better than others, but most nights included two or three awakenings (four on bad night), beginning with crying and often escalating to screaming for various reasons and lengths of time. just in the last few days have we finally seen real progress in this area, as we figure out the right temperature, combination of pjs and blankies, lotion, chapstick, hair in a ponytail, etc, etc, etc. matt looks at us with eyebrows raised and i say, non-chalantly, "girls are high-maintenance. you knew this."

Miss A, our first.

Miss A came to us after a rough week with her family. it was a friday afternoon, my phone rang and the placement worker, who knew we were waiting and eager, said "there's a little girl waiting here for you". a part of me melted. i told him i'd call him back, then i called matt.

we talked it over, prayed, and decided it was as close to perfect timing as we'd ever get. and two hours later, a sweet little girl with chubby cheeks, bright eyes and the sunniest smile i've ever seen, arrived in our home.

Miss A's heart was, understandably, broken. at 3 1/2, she's too young to understand what's going on - and understanding doesn't fix this kind of pain anyway. we began to look for ways to help her cope and begin healing. snacks. hugs. rocking chair. storybooks.

within a few days, we learned that her family had attended church for a season, so we began talking about the God who made her and the Jesus who loves her. we prayed at meals and always thanked God for her, and within a few weeks, she and I were praying each morning on the way to daycare, and again at bedtime. and boy, does she love church. friends. playtime. and every week, "Did you hear a story today?"... "Yup!" ... "What about?" ... "Cheezus. Me see Him?"

celebrating, but sobered too

at last! our foster license was approved today, and we are currently eligible for placement. there's some serious celebrating happening in our hearts today. we started the process in mid-august, and have been working through it over the last seven months.

it was within a few hours of the final email from our licensor that we received our first placement request email. i was quite surprised. DSHS starts by emailing a list of all currently-eligible families with a summary of the situation, and we can reply if we're interested. while it would've been a crazy night, the situation sounded worth exploring, so i replied and asked if we could talk if the child was still available. within moments, my phone was ringing, a blocked number, which i knew immediately was DSHS. the placement worker told me the little boy had been placed, but that they now had a sibling set available out of our local office. we're not at all prepared for a sibling set, but i asked a few of my questions anyway, and told them to contact us if they couldn't find another place for the kids.

as i drove home from the office today, i reflected on this conversation. surely there is celebrating in our home tonight, but my heart is sobered too. that was a real conversation. with real kids. a real family. real moms and dads with real problems. and real kids with real pain and trauma. suddenly, this isn't just an idea or a theory or a dream anymore. it's become very real. and it will only get more real. so while we celebrate the end of the challenging beginning, i am sobered by the realities of the next chapter, and reminded of the vision God has given us for this journey. our hearts are for hurting kids.

kiddo's room (and a non-newsworthy update)

update: our very last bit of paperwork was turned into DSHS on January 31, and now we're just waiting on our licensor to finish up her report and have it approved by her supervisor. i checked in for an update last monday (2/13) and she said that she'd be writing our report that week, and that we should expect 1-2 weeks for her supervisor to approve it - so 3 weeks total... that was a week ago, and i have an email out to her asking about last week's progress. hoping for good news.

meanwhile, we've been putting the finishing touches on kiddo's room. (read: i've been nesting like crazy.) a few dear friends threw us a blessing shower last weekend, and some very generous ladies turned out to bless our family with lots of lovely gifts, and gift cards to help us when it's time to get a new little one settled in. i had great fun, and matt tolerated, putting the last of the furniture together and officially finishing the room.

wanna see?

{had the dresser & stereo already. made the squirrel silhouette canvases. lamp & rug from ikea.}

{made the curtains & pennant string. spice racks, from ikea, turned bookshelves. rocking chair was a shower gift.}

{beanie babies were a perfect find at value village - brand new and $1 each! the owl wall hanging was found by a friend at a thrift store. she painted it and used it for decor at my shower, and i talked her into letting me have it.}

{embroidery hoops & fabric for a splash of color. framed artwork was a shower gift from a friend who saw me pin these flashcards and knew i hadn't gotten around to it! made the owl-shaped pillow and the pillowcase. embroidered owl pillow was a project my mom started years ago and finally finished in time for my birthday. the turtle on the nightstand is nightlight that projects constellations on the walls & ceiling. the bed was a hand-me-down from a couple at church.}

{the hanger was a simplified version of something i saw on etsy. (they used wood for the owls, mine are cardboard.) i've been in love with this backpack for months and finally bought it last week.}

{toy storage in the closet. owl on top of the shelves is a doorstop, which the dog tries to eat every time i turn around. painting was a shower gift from a friend. made the bunny, fox & owl baskets. chose a curtain instead of a door.}

{another etsy idea. theirs was wooden, i opted for cardboard, covered with a piece of scrapbooking paper with the faux-bois print that i love.}

{a felt board - an old piece of artwork covered felt, plus lots of bits and pieces to make four or five different scenes. inspiration here.}

there it is! finally feels finished, but i'm sure i'll do more puttering around as we wait...

we're expecting, but it's not what you think...

it's been a bit under-wraps for the last four months, but we have news!

matt and i are growing our family a bit non-traditionally: we're becoming foster parents. we're not able to have kids biologically, and we have a heart for kids in need. we have a home full of love, and we're eager to add a few kids into the mix.

we're nearing the end of the "home study" process now, which is an in-depth study of our home and family. we started in mid-august, and we've filled out 44 pages of personal information, done our fingerprinting, TB tests, worked through 36 hours of training, baby-proofed (uh, and adult-proofed) our house, which included a whole lot of unusual tasks, like locking up all of our medications, and we've done a whole lot of thumb-twiddling while waiting for our really wonderful, but very over-worked, licensor to work her magic.

so here we are, four months after jumping into the paperwork. we had a really great meeting with our licensor yesterday, which included an inspection of our home and property, and a whole lot of personal questions. (i wonder how many other parents consider how their family of origin will affect their parenting methods before conceiving... my guess is not that many!) we thought this would be the final step and have us licensed within a few days... we were wrong. in our discussion, she told us that there was an option for us to go with a new program called a "unified homestudy" which would save us some trouble down the road, when we're ready to adopt. we opted to go this route. the good news is that it won't take any longer to complete the license; the bad news is that we have some more paperwork to do. and also, we were wrong about anticipating our license within a few days - it'll be more like another month.

oh well! we have a busy month ahead of us anyway, so i'm sure the time will go quickly...