Rapid Fire Posting

Just a quick apology for the 7,000 posts in one day. I've been typing bits and pieces for the past couple of weeks and I finally got some time today to separate them into posts and publish.

If any of you have seen me in person in the past 2 weeks, you know it's been rough. Baby 4 is giving me a run for my money with these behaviors- lots of whining and sneaking, being rough with the animals, repetitively asking the same questions, going into women's purses, touching people's phones when we're out in public, jumping around like a maniac when we are walking together so I either have to let go of his hand or let him break his arm.

The newest is constantly being concerned with "Next"- he wants more food before he's eaten half of what he has. He asks for another movie before the first one has loaded in the player. When we're playing, he's asking about what we'll play next. If we are going to McDonald's today, he's asking if we are going to the toy store tomorrow. If it's playtime he wants to read a story, if it's story time he wants go outside, if we're outside he wants to eat, if it's snack time he wants to watch a movie.

It's made for some makeup-less bad hair days for me. I don't want to dwell on the negative stuff, but it has to be mentioned.Our kids come to us broken and we can't fix them ourselves. Baby 4 doesn't know that all the stuff he has here will always be there for him. He doesn't know that I will always catch him going in someone's purse because I care about what he's doing. He doesn't know that I can have a conversation with another adult and still keep him safe, so of course he'll act up to get my attention when I'm not solely focused on him. How can he possibly have any security at all when he has been told by relative resource that he is going to live with her? He doesn't understand what's going on! I don't even understand what's going on!

So that's why there was silence here for 2 weeks then a million posts on a Sunday- because I can't handle behavior modification and blogging at the same time. Today was a rainy day, and I let 4 watch 2 movies in a row because it gave me a break to finish a whole thought and write it down. I won't be offended if you don't read everything I posted today. Honestly, I blog more for myself anyway.

I don't know if I've actually shared why I blog, but now is good a time as any. I blog for a couple reasons:
~ To give people a choice about how much they want to know. I am constantly talking about foster care and our experiences, and I never know if the person I'm rambling to really cares. This blog gives me an outlet to vent and lets my friends and family who actually care listen and the ones who don't aren't exposed.
~To document our journey. I've always journaled and kept photo albums, but when I found out you can print your blog int a photo book using Blog2Print I was very excited to have a nice book of our experiences to show my kids as they get older.
~To connect with a community of like-minded foster parents. I have met a lot of foster parents in the real world- some are good, but most annoy me. Either they have different fundamental beliefs about foster care and how children and families should be treated, or they are negative about the agency/system/child/family, or they add foster care into their list of charity work and feel really good about their philanthropy. Sometimes they are just weird. Anyway, I wanted to read about other normal and maybe even Christian people's experiences and offer my own story. I've found some great Foster Moms just like that through their blogs.
~To educate people who have questions. Both people I know in real life and strangers that are considering foster care need answers. I've had so many of my acquaintances say I read your blog, I never knew what foster care really was! Or I never knew you dealt with infertility, I was going through that same thing when you were! The only info I have about strangers that come here are the search engine keywords they use to find me. Blogger tells me how people end up on my blog, and it is usually by typing a phrase into Google. I saw one last week that said, "Does God want me to be a foster parent?". I'm so glad our love story was there to tell that person YES, He does.

So again, I'm sorry for clogging up your newsfeeds and reading lists with my happenings. Thanks for following me though! I love your support and comments!