When One Door Closes...

I know many of you are wanting an update and I've been extremely remiss in getting one written until now. As it is, I'm sacrificing sleep when I literally just fell asleep during my nightly phone call with my husband!

This past Friday, we drove to see our kids again... we were supposed to have dinner with them and the foster family Friday, pick them up Saturday morning, have dinner with foster family again Saturday night, and then do our sleepover with the kids at the hotel and bring them home Sunday morning. When we called J-Mom (foster-mom) as we arrived in town Friday, she asked (hopefully, I think) if we'd be willing to do a sleepover Friday night! Okay... duh. YES! When we knocked on the door, J-Mom opened the door looking just a bit frazzled and our two youngest kids come running to the door with huge smiles and arms up to be lifted. I wanted to feel sympathy for J-Mom but the joy from seeing our kids run to us like that far outweighed it! Z even had his jacket and was starting to put it on so he could go with us.

I think I've noted before that this foster family isn't going to be taking any more foster placements (they've had over 30 placements, both long and short). They have two adult children and an 8 y/o they've already adopted. Now that we are adopting our 3 kids, they will be adopting the remaining the 3 children in their home. Sadly, these 3 children are meth babies, ages 2, 4 and 6. The 4 y/o is the same size as our 3 y/o, who is petite for 3... whether due to early neglect or due to the fact that she was a 33 week preemie, I don't know. Anyway, the 4 y/o is i-n-s-a-n-e... totally bouncing off the walls every second of every minute. Imagine a kid with the worst case of ADHD you can... now multiply it by ten. Poor little thing. Just cute as a bug, too. But J-Mom and Papa-M are some of the best foster parents I've ever been privy to knowing and they are the best parents in the world for this little girl and her brothers. Those kids have a great chance at a great life now.

But I digress. I've heard that being tired can do that to a person! ;)

J-Mom had one of her hardest weeks ever with little A (the 4 y/o I described above)... and Friday was just the cherry on top, apparently. We were helping her out by taking our kids Friday night. So we got their stuff and headed off, had dinner and then went back to the hotel to do some swimming. When we started to walk into our room, however, little Z had a bit of a breakdown. We knew - in general - it would happen... the sadness and confusion from the change... and I had ached for the pain my children would go through before we ever got to this point. But seeing Z cry and not being able to do anything for him but hold him and rub his back and murmur in his ear just about killed me. What's worse? Knowing it would be only the first of many episodes. We got him calmed down but he didn't want to go swimming so Mommy lucked out by not having to parade around a public pool in her swimming suit and we sat in a lounge chair watching Daddy with L and B.

We had a good night. We got them all down in their sleeping bags and they went out. We didn't. We tried. But when it's your first night and you're in the same room with 3 little ones, every toss and turn and cough and sniffle has you sitting up straight in bed and waiting to see if you have to jump up to soothe them back to sleep or not. Gil and I did not get very much sleep at all that first night! But we made it through and the kids were great. We got up, had breakfast, and spent the morning at a museum for children where we wore them out playing. We grabbed lunch to take back to the hotel and then laid down for naps afterward. They all slept for 2 hours; I got in just over an hour by the time I finished checking in on Fac.ebo.ok! I haven't napped in forever! Boy, it felt good! We spent the rest of the afternoon playing at a park before B had an episode of bad diarrhea (thankfully in her pull-up) and L decided he really needed to go both number 1 and number 2... and the park restrooms were all locked. We had to drive somewhere to use a restroom before heading off to meet the foster family for dinner.

Here's a tip: don't ever go to Gol.den Cor.ral on a Saturday evening with children... much less 7 children and 4 adults. Apparently, they don't utilize trays anymore. Ever try carrying 11 drinks and herding 7 children (under the age of 6) through a massive crowd of people fighting for the last piece of food being served? I don't recommend it. I also don't recommend going out to eat with that many children where you have to serve yourself and fill and carry all those plates. Pay the tip to have a waiter take your order and serve you. I don't care if the kids don't eat free. Take my advice.

But it was a good dinner and a good time for the kids to visit and have a chance to say goodbye. We had another successful night at the hotel (with a much smaller breakdown for Z) and we all, yes, all 5 of us, went swimming. So it was good. Until morning... when I took a shower and the water backed up into the sink. I hadn't run any water in the sink. But it kept filling. So the hotel plumber came up. It was an hour before anyone else could shower, which really put us behind in our attempts to hit the road. So we grabbed a quick breakfast, headed to say one last goodbye to J-Mom and Papa-M, took some pictures, and loaded up the Jeep to come home.

We're home. All 5 of us. Well... we were all 5 home until Gil had to leave for his weekly work travels Monday morning! But the kids are doing great. We started incorporating the new names yesterday (Monday) and talking about living in our new house. They love their new bedrooms. They ask about Daddy a lot and we sky.pe just before bedtime so we have a chance to "see" each other and say good night. Today, L and B each had 2 little tantrum episodes but they were over relatively quickly. They'll start testing more the more they settle in and they're bound to go through the grief cycle, too, so we're expecting that... as well as some behavior regression. We heard J-Mom's name a little bit more today. Z is pretty clingy. His social worker says he tends to be that way but we never saw it to this extent in all the time we visited. He wants to be held at all times (which I have to say I don't mind too much... it gives me some of the feeling of having the "baby" we missed out on) and today displayed a lot of depression-like lethargy. He perked up in the late afternoon, though, and played and laughed a lot more again so that's a good sign.

All in all, I think we're doing pretty dang well. And yes, the pillows thrown on my dog-hair laden floor are totally worth all the laughter and giggles I hear when a little boy "breaks" down his "fort" and lands on them!