It's a girl...times 3

The very real and very unfortunate thing about foster care is that there is always more kids. Again we were set to be license May 7th but yesterday morning (May 1st) we had three little girls brought to our home. They are 5, 4 and 2. Life as we know it has changed.

After having taken 27 hours of classes you would think that I would be fully prepared for all of this. Honestly as a person who thrives on structure I feel like a fish out of water right now. They are good kids so I am sure in a few weeks we will have a routine and life will calm down a bit. This morning was full of tears and if I didn't have such a great husband then I would have been crying too.


The classes that we took explained mostly how to parent the kids, and as a parent most of it were things we already do. What I don't feel like we went over is what happens after the classes? What is the process from getting the phone call to to getting through the first few weeks? There are appointments that you have to make but there is no centralized place that lists what it is that you need to do when? Or if there is I certainly did not get it from the caseworker in the 15 minutes that she was there.

Let me walk you through my experience so that you will know what to expect. First you receive a call to and you decide to say yes. The case worker schedules a time to bring the kids to you and do a quick walk through. For us that just meant that she looked at the bedroom they would be staying in. (We did not have adequate beds but she knew that we are going to get bunk beds soon so she approved an air mattress for now for one of them.) They give you a folder full of paperwork (most of which you have never seen before) and ask if you have any questions. You come up with whatever questions that you can think of as the kids explore the house and the pile of their stuff gets spread across the living room. Oddly enough you have a hard time coming up with questions but it doesn't really matter because you don't remember the answers to the ones that you did ask once she leaves.

We spent the rest of the day enrolling for daycare, doing kindergarten enrollment for the fall, getting car seats from the Caring Closet  and signing up for WIC. We were all exhausted by the end of the day so I am sure that didn't help our morning to go smoothly. Please pray for all of us during this transitioning time.