A Girl's Day

Last Weekend my girls had birthday money burning a whole in their purses, so we took a Girls Day and went to the Spaghetti Factory for lunch (had a free meal coupon for Gracie's birthday) and then to the American Girl store in Seattle. 

Here she is getting sung to, and her American Girl Doll Molly is in the next seat (unpictured).  All the female servers asked her about Molly and shared int he excitement of going to the AG store.

 Here we are in front of the store about to go in with their dolls in hand.

 We felt a special closeness to Kanani after visiting Hawaii this past summer.

We spent two hours int he store during scavenger hunts and looking at all the expensive dolls and many many accessories.  Let's just say that the girls blew their wad of cash, but we had a great time doing it.  I was a little spent after two hours, but we made such a great memory.  I love these girls!  I do not remember ever having a "girl's day" with both my girls, but it won't be our last!

Visits

Visits are just plain hard for foster kids and families.  They are the last right that parents have and are not taken away until the parental rights are severed or relinquished.  It is weird to feel two opposite feelings at the same time.  I feel excitement for the child knowing that no matter what they will always love their bio parents.  I feel good for the parents to finally see their child that they have missed out on seeing.  I feel protective of the child's heart if the parents doesn't show and if they do for how they interact with them.  Sometimes it is disappointing when the visit does go well since that means that we might have to say "good-bye" soon. It can also make me happy for the parents but protective for the child.  It is a dualistic emotional roller-coaster sometimes.  I want the bio parents to succeed and be re-united with their child and I also want them to fail quickly if they are going to fail so that the least amount of pain would be inflicted on the child.  But nobody really know if a parent is going to get their act together.  We just have to wait and see and endure visits.

Fall

Sorry it's been so long.  Hannah had pneumonia, then I got it and then ANOTHER cold.  Our family has been surviving ever since.  "Let me essplain.  No!  There is too much.  Let me sum up...."  (name that movie)  So, here are some pictures of the things we did manage to get out and do.

Here are the kids enjoying the local Cider Mill.  The sun came out and so did we.

 We did get to a pumpkin patch and do a hay maze and climb on this tractor.

 This shot includes their our good friend as well.

 Gracie being brave with feeding the goat.

 Hannah feeding the baby goat. 

 Jack gettn' in there too!

 This is Gracie's Birthday Party.  She had an American Girl Party and she set up a tea especially for her guests.  (Please ignore the homeschool mess in the background) Gracie dressed up like Kirsten (the pioneer doll) and Hannah was felicity (colonial).  It was sweet fun!  They also decorated their own cupcakes and drank camomile tea.

 And their dolls.

 Then the girls had fun solving a Samantha Mystery.  After that they watched Samantha and had popcorn and went to bed.  Easiest party ever!  What a great bunch of girls!

 Here are the kids earning their keep.  Come fall all the Fuller kids have to rake up the leaves.  With two huge Maple tress in our yard, it's gotta be done.  Gracie is showing off her nails b/c I took her to get her first manicure/pedicure.  She loved it.

 Here she is soaking up the attention at Red Robin as the restaurant sings to her.  She voluntarily wore the hat the entire evening.

 We also celebrated our favorite adopted grandma, Dorothy.

 Here's the Halloween costumes! Little Man was Yoda and he actually kept the hat on all night.  What a trooper.  Although he didn't eat any candy, he enjoyed the people that talked to him.

 Here's the crew:  Hannah is peter pan, Jack is Bobafet, Little man is Yoda, and Gracie is Laura Ingalls.  (That is the WORST picture of me, but the best of my kids.  See how much I love them!)

Whew!  Now I can have a few normal posts.  Happy Fall (to my two readers).  :)

Safe and Loved

So, "Little Man" is quite attached to me.  He cries when I put him down, leave the room, or don't give him what he wants.  He cries a lot.  A mom commented to me yesterday that he loves me a lot.  It doesn't FEEL like love.  It feels more like he doesn't even like me because all I hear is crying.  He is able to play in situations when he knows I am no longer an option.  He plays with a sitter, in the nursery at church, or at the Y's childcare.  He will play with me as long as he's touching me.  I feel like his security blanket in human form.  Did you see how disgusting Linus' blanket is in Peanuts? 
In his one year old head, love equals security, I suppose.  I don't know what he's seen or what triggered this level of clingy-ness.  We bought special sized gates to fit in our larger hallways so that he won't get hurt under toe in the kitchen or swallow small toys or destroy homeschool books in that area.  He does not like our new boundaries.  He stands at his perceived jail bars and screams.  Although they keep him safe, he would rather have me.
I wish I could help him understand that he is safe and loved, minus the screaming.  I know it is a privilege to have a little person's love and to care for them, but it doesn't FEEL that way right now.

Here he is eating cake from his birthday party we had for him not too long ago.  We were the only family that celebrated his life this year with him.  That was an honor.  Even though the crying is hard, I hope it will decrease as he realizes that he is safe and loved.

The Cost of Foster Care

Just as when you are preparing to grow your family through biological ways, parents prepare for the costs that they know of.  They know that they will need all the baby gear and diapers.  They also know that it will cost them sleep and maybe some other inconveniences.  Once the baby is born the new parents soon discover that there are so many other costs to parenthood that they never considered;  their job, body, car, beauty of their house, or whatever other thing they treasured before their baby came.
Foster Care is similar.  Foster Parents prepare with home visits and paperwork in addition to the gear needed for children.  They have the other costs as well.  The parental inconveniences that are good at refining parents of their own selfishness are there too.  But there are other costs as well.  Like other parents, you don't know what child you will welcome into your home.  You can't control the future and do not know how long the child will be in your home.  The difference is that awareness of the reality of those circumstances.  A foster parents welcomes a child that could have biological and emotional problems that come from their previous home. The only difference between that and a biological family that has a child with special needs is the choice.  Foster Parents choose to do this whereas parents with children with special needs do not choose. The Foster Parent also acknowledges that they have no foreknowledge of how long the child will be in their home. This is also the case with biological parents.  Ask a parent who had to bury a child.  The difference is the admittance of a lack of control, and acceptance that grief is a part of that.
Those two differences are huge in people's eyes and prevents people from becoming foster parents.
Choosing to love an unknown child that could have needs beyond what you know is a cost.  Admitting that you do not know and have no control over how long a child will be in your family is a cost.  Loving always has a cost.  They only reason both kinds of parents embrace the cost is the benefits.  Is it worth it?  So many times the cost isn't even considered because the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Are there any benefits to foster care?  There are spiritual benefits.  My adoption in becoming God's child cost my Father in heaven his Son.  Romans 8:14-16  Although Foster Families may not be permanent families it is the same action that God took with welcoming me into His family.  So Steve and I choose to mirror or reflect God's action of welcoming us by choosing to welcome the child that He brings to our family.   In that choice grow closer to Him.  Secondly there is the reality that the foster child will probably move on to another family. I have to completely acknowledge and trust God's sovereignty.  We get to experience and see Him move in very big movements in our family and know that His grace will hold  and sustain us.
  It also changes us.  Just like biological parenting, the inconveniences are ways that we are changed.  We become more patient, loving, giving not because these things are just automatically beamed into us, but because we are grown in painful and annoying ways.  Babying crying is one the ways the God is giving us more patience at the moment.  Sometimes the daily cost seems too much and the benefits sometimes do not seem worth it.  I think I needed to remind myself of the benefits today because I forgot with all this crying and poop.....I mean the tools in which God is changing my heart.

A Few Days Reprieve

 

Little Man is doing a little better.  He still follows me around the house and cries when he wants me to pick him up, but he's overall in a better mood.  A few days without screaming all day is such a relief.  Whatever is triggering this anxiety is getting better.  We are actually able to play and he is such a funny little man!  He loves recyclables, Tupperware, and messing up my laundry.  It has been fun to see this Little Man reemerge. 

Sept. 11, 2001. The Day my world changed

I can't believe its been ten years.  Like most people it seems like it just happened.  For me it was a day of joy amid a world of sorrow.  A week earlier my doctor sat me down and told me how toxic my body was ( I was pre-eclampsic) and the ultrasound showed that our unborn daughter was going to be over ten pounds. Her consideration of those two things was to do a planned C-section.  After recovering from the shock of not having a natural birth, I asked how soon I could get this kid out of my body.  She said Sept. 11, 2001.  It seemed like a good date then.
  My daughter Hannah Rose, was born that day.  I remember before going to the hospital my dad called  (who was on his way to San Luis Obispo, were we lived to enjoy his new granddaughter).  He said, "Turn on the TV, I think something has happened".  I had to be at the hospital at 9am and I think it was around 6am at the time and the scene unraveled before my eyes.  I have never been to NY, and I didn't really know what the twin towers were.  We arrived at the hospital and before getting wheeled into surgery we prayed for those people affected.  Soon my daughter was born.  I remember going in and out of consciousness with the juxtaposition of the horror of the TV and the joy of meeting my daughter for the first time. It was surreal.
Our lives changed that day because we became parents.  These two young people were now in charge of molding a new life.  That is not the only thing that changed that day.  American woke up.  The veil of security and comfort was lifted and the fragility of our lives was realized.  The illusion of control has vanished and now a new found fear and national pride was prevalent.  I still think it was so fitting that she was named Hannah which means "Grace" or blessed by God.  How can God bless on such a day of sadness.  He does.  Really our lives are fragile and God is in control.

"Jesus alone has died and returned from death. Jesus alone knows what awaits us on the other side of death. Jesus alone has defeated death, and declared so saying, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).
The central event of the Bible and human history is the death of Jesus on the cross for the sins of the world and his resurrection in victory over death. It is through sin that death entered the world. And it is through Jesus’ death that sin and death are defeated, those who are far from God are brought near to God, and those facing death can do so knowing that Jesus tells the truth, that he meets us on the other side of death and that he raises the dead." 
You can find this quote and more on the subject from my pastor:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/the-horror-of-death-and-the-hope-of-resurrection/2011/09/08/gIQAGxIECK_blog.html

Now whenever people ask Hannah he birthday her answer is met with shock because unlike other tragedies in history this one is remembered by the date because of the multiple locations of the attack.  I pray that as she grows physically and in understanding of God's Grace that she can point to the hope of a new life without sin, sorrow, or death.