Hello Blogging, My Old Friend

I saw a meme on Facebook this morning.

It was a letter to an ex-best friend. How they’ll always have the fondest memories of their time together and they’ll always smile when they see pictures of their old friend and will wish them well from afar.

It made me think of this blog, as ridiculous as that may sound.

I have been a terrible friend to this little blog . . . my little piece of sanity . . . my dear old friend. It’s a good thing it’s not a plant . . . because lord knows there’d be no hope for it by this point.

SO much has happened since I last wrote a genuine post.

We were approved as foster parents for our county.

We had a call for a placement within two hours of our approval. That placement didn’t work out (which was a good thing for the family involved, so we were happy for them).

A second placement came for a 10-year-old boy who we took on out of sheer excitement rather than being a good fit. We quickly realized how seriously wrong we were in the assumption that we could “just make it work” and I didn’t sleep more than 45 minutes a night for the two weeks he was staying with us.

I cried to my mother a lot the week that “E” left. Out of guilt, and then relief, and then more guilt because of feeling relieved that our household was back to normal. She was quick to remind me that there are always more children who need help, and there will be one who fits what works for our house and one who will need us.

And he came to us on August 4: my beautiful, rambunctious, hurricane in the shape of a five-year-old little boy. He tests and pushes and loves with more exuberance that I would be able to muster with the kind of history that is his life story. His permanency goal is adoption with a concurrent goal of reunification, which means we live in a constant state of love and limbo. So for every day we have him in our lives, I hold his little hand and try to hold the burden of the unknown off his shoulders.

Mahayla has stepped into the role of big sister with tenacity – in both positive and negative ways. She is quick to include him in every part of her day – from makeup and dress up to acrobatics on the trampoline and cruising through the yard on bikes. She’s also just as quick to keep him in the pecking order and enjoys being “the boss” whenever she thinks we aren’t listening. Her baby sister just turned a year old, so she is dealing with a lot of changes in her family on all sides. She astounds me daily with her spirit through all of it.

Speaking of changes in our family, Josh proposed to me on Mother’s Day. We’re planning on a ceremony next Fall. Doing the whole wedding planning thing for the second time has been drastically different from my first go-round nearly a decade ago. I’m a little older . . . a little wiser . . . and much more focused on what’s really important.

It’s a beautiful season of my life, my old friend. I’m hoping to bring you along with us again. <3