I had these grand plans to share my daily experiences navigating foster care with you and then, well life happened. We were surprised to get our precious newborn baby boy straight from the hospital and we needed time to adjust. Just as I was starting to be able to form complete thoughts again, our world was turned upside down yet AGAIN!
We are now the proud foster (and hopefully adoptive parents) to 2 boys. Our little man A, and his newly 8 year old, big brother T!
My word of advise to all those new foster parents or those considering becoming foster parents is sit down and make a very complete plan of what you want and plan on doing. Then immediately light the plan on fire and laugh at yourself.
These last 8 weeks (yes we have had our munchkin for 8 weeks already) have been the most exhausting, frustrating, and amazing weeks of my life.
Let me tell you the 8 things I have learned in my first 8 weeks of parenting:
1. I didn't know I could love my husband more, until I saw him as a Dad.-
I literally get teary eyed just thinking about it. He has grown so much in my eyes as a Daddy. He is patient, kind, self sacrificing, and completely head over heels in love with his boys.
2. Sleep is really not required.- My company is small and therefore not required to offer FMLA and so, they don't. This means I was back at work the day A turned 1 week old! So I learned to function with little to no sleep. Luckily, now he is on a much better sleep schedule.
3. Being a working mother is harder than I ever anticipated.- Leaving my boys everyday is heart breaking. I have cried more than once while driving to work. Especially because my husband is in his slow season, so he is able to spend a lot of extra time at home with the boys.
4. I have given up on clothing that is not stained in spit-up.- No really. His, mine, the couch, my husband, and virtually everything else is covered in spit up. This child doesn't spit up often, but when he does... brace yourself. I should invest in rain ponchos.
5. Cloth diapering gives me a small secret thrill.- Cloth diapering sucked when A was super tiny because I was using prefolds and covers and I just hated it. They weren't what I was picturing and they just were hard (in my opinion). Then he finally started to chunk up and we hit the magical 8pd mark. Now we have our entire OS stash available to us (some still slightly big, but we make it work), and I LOVE it. Seriously I get a secret joy out of the money I save by using them. He still wears disposable at daycare, but we are exclusively cloth at home now and it rocks!
6. These children really do grow too fast.- I look at little A and I amazed at how much he has changed in 8 weeks. He is alert and looking around and SMILING! Now he was 5-6 weeks preemie (doctors aren't positive because he didn't have pre-natal care) and so the smiles are new and rare, but they are absolutely not gas bubbles, but happy big smiles!
7. Boys are messy and hungry ALL the time. - This applies more to T clearly. But seriously I put him in these handsome little outfits and then 2 seconds later he has food on his face, mud on his hands, and grass stains on his jeans. Not to mention he may eat me out of house and home. He needs it with how active he is. He is always outside wanting to play!
8. I never knew how much I NEEDED a boy(s). - I always pictured myself being Mommy to little girls, but God knew I needed boys. They have changed me forever.
Things I also may add-
- Multiple people have commented A looks like Mark and T looks like me. This makes me smile.
- Our family loves these boys as if they were our own.
- We have already talked about wanting to continue fostering if and when the boys are adopted. :)
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