Respite Support.

Which sometimes feels a bit like life support when your really in need of some good respite.

Tonight ‘Abby’ and ‘Carter’ will be coming to stay with us again.  We did respite for them the weekend that the boys came to us.  They’ll be with us until the end of the week.  Their foster mom is super overwhelmed.  Like really, really overwhelmed. 

Maybe the kids should move to a new home?  I’m not sure.  Disruptions are hard – much harder than just saying goodbye.

We’ve not ever asked a child to leave – but with X-man we were darn close.  I had just had Sylvia, my hormones were somewhere between euphoric bliss and crushing discouragement at any given moment, I was having a very difficult recovery from child birth, and X-man was 17 months old and still not eating food or walking.  Developmentally they were about nine months apart, and there were a lot of things that X-man still needed one on one care for in order to get caught up.  Overwhelmed doesn’t quite describe the first few weeks after she was born.

Long story short, we almost asked to have him moved.  However, our worker is incredible and gave us the support we needed to get through my recovery so that we could maintain placement.  The decision to maybe have him moved was one of the most heart wrenching decisions I’ve ever made (post-partum hormones aside). 

 

Initially I would say it’s mostly pride that makes you not want to throw in the towel.  But really, I don’t think that’s it most of the time.  It’s just that you want to be there for those kids.  You want to tough it out with them.  You want them to know that you love them.  You don’t want to cause more hurt.

With that said, sometimes disruptions are necessary.  There are a handful of times that the best thing for the kids is for them to move.  They need to be somewhere where their needs and emotions can be cradled and nurtured.

I don’t know if Abby and Carter need to move.  Not my call.  We’ll just do our best to support them and their foster mom for the time being.  We’ll see how it goes!  Back up to seven in the Popp home!

Faking it.

I liked this idea.
When I read blogs it does usually seem a little like the fake side of the person writing. Like it's their happy side, or their clever side, or the 'who people think I should be' side. I try to be real on this blog. I try to be open and really honest about my feelings about things, or what I am really thinking when my kids are driving me up the wall.
But we're all a little fakey sometimes. (yes, fakey is an adjective. It's just a fake one.)

So, here it goes, I'm gonna be real with ya.

• That wonderful, patient husband I've told you about? Well, yes, he is wonderful and patient. But me? Not so much. Probably I show my worst side to Mr. Popp more often than he would like. I'm grumpy, I get an attitude, I roll my eyes. God is clearly using marriage to refine me, and I just haven't quite gotten the hint. If there were one area that I wish my stubborn-ness would let a little light in on, this would be it, because I regret my grumpy side more with him than in any other area of my life.

• I am really awful about calling people. People in general, but really, I'm not even good at calling my friends. Back when the girls left, I went through a really hard time of loneliness - and even though I was lonely, I didn't call anyone. I always assume they already have something to do, I don't want to be a bother, or I feel like they'd be inconvenienced some way by my need for fellowship. But we all need fellowship, yeah? So, if I know you, and I don't call you, we should hang out.

• Speaking of when the girls left - I've had some seasons in my life where it has been seriously difficult for me to find joy. I think that in general I always try to seem happy to other people (except for Mr. Popp - see bullet number one.) - and I AM happy most of the time - but there are seasons where joy is hard. I think most people, especially women, struggle with this sometimes. And I think most of us try to hide it, which is silly. If we shared this struggle, we'd probably all find a lot more joy.

• Sometimes I don't like being a foster parent. Whew. This is a tough one. Because I want to always like it. I want to be completely selfless and never think of it as a sacrifice. (Because really, truly it is just a giant blessing.) Sometimes though, my heart gets hard, and selfish Maggie shows her ugly face, and I just wish our life was normal. Whatever that means. If it were not for God and His love, there are times I would have quit. Ugh. I hate this side of sin. Let's stop talking about this real part of me.
  

• I lose my patience with my kids sometimes. Not that this is a newsflash. I try to go with the flow most of the time, not get flustered, but sometimes the flow is just heading the wrong way. Or I am. There are days when Brian walks through the door, and I have to hand him whichever child I am holding, and I have to go sit and not be a mom for just a few minutes. I wish this weren't true. I wish I had unending patience. Parenthood is also rather refining.

Sometimes I wish we came pre-refined.
But that's kind of the point - It's why we need Jesus. I need Jesus, because sometimes I fake it. But like I said, I'll try to be real with you here, because I think the refining might be a lot easier if we were all real, so we could see that we're all broken. Let's quit faking it, I'll be real with you, you be real with me. We'll lift each other up in our broken realness.