Everyday I’m in awe—not just with how stinkin’ adorable my daughter is (of course, I’m biased)—but that I get to be her mom. I’m fully aware that things could have turned out very differently for us all. Thankful doesn’t seem like big enough of a word.
This journey hasn’t been easy. We had some really trying times back in October and November. But everything now is so…easy. And fun. Do you see that giant smile? Everyday we get to soak up that joy that oozes out of her and we could almost forget how difficult things were at the beginning with the DCS drama. And like her older half-sister, she could have been bounced around from foster home to foster home before being adopted. But we are thankful for the way this chapter is turning out. We are thankful for her. And thankful for this season of fun and easy.
I’m eager to get back into foster parenting. Having our home “closed” is hard. Even though it’s the easy road. It’s hard because we signed up for the challenge; and now we’re not doing it. I suppose in a way we’re still doing it. Precious came to us through foster care (though she ended up being removed from state custody and put into our custody) and we still haven’t finalized her adoption…but it just doesn’t feel like we’re doing enough about the foster care situation. There are so many kids still out there in our city that need good foster parents. And I want to help.
I probably need this forced break more than I want to admit. It’s time for the three of us—me, Jason and Precious—to bond as a family. We were still reeling from the situation with Ladybug in a lot of ways and this break from foster parenting gave us time to process all of those feelings. By the time our new home is finished and we’re ready to reopen (late summer or fall, hopefully), Precious will be over a year old. We will be a very different family than we were last July (when we were first certified) and it was just Jason and me. There are a lot of things to think about and different ways to prepare this time. We have our daughter to think about now—what is healthy and safe for her—when we consider welcoming new kids into our family.
Sorry for the rambling. I’m sleepy and I was just going to post pictures to publish in the morning. Then I decided to pour my thoughts out and try to make sense of them here. I don’t have a neat little conclusive bow for this. I’m very thankful for our daughter and I’m thinking a lot about our future as foster parents.
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She is beautiful! Love the headband.