We doubled the number of children at our house this week. Yep, it’s been busy.  We first heard about our new foster placements in the middle of last week.  I immediately felt powerfully drawn to them. Ask my sweet, patient husband…there were some powerful emotional outbursts around here as I attempted to wait patiently to see how the situation would play out.  I think I’ve mentioned this before: I am not good at patiently waiting.

After a couple of painfully slow days, we learned on Friday that we’d be bringing two little boys into our home.  We don’t know the whole situation at this point.  We are attempting not to get our hopes up (yes, you’ve heard that before).

The first couple of days were rough, as they always are.  These poor kiddos have recently been through the most traumatic event of their lives; something no child should ever have to go through.  Each time we receive a new little one (or two), our lives stop for the first several days.  I do not make “to-do” lists.  I don’t do much cleaning or work on extra projects. Sometimes I don’t even turn my phone on (sorry if you’ve been trying to reach me). We focus on the sweet little person who is so in need.  We get to know each other.

Usually these small people have had no sort of routine, order or structure in their lives.  Sometimes they are accustomed to going a long, long time between meals.  We spend our first few days introducing them to our healthy home.  Here, we have regular meals. Sleep and rest time are important. We read lots of books; give lots of snuggles, tickles and kisses; we play together and spend a lot of time outside.

We have seen huge progress in these boys over the past couple of days.  When we first met them, they were terrified and exhausted (for good reason).  But as we have regularly met their basic needs, their sweet and silly personalities have begun to emerge.  More smiles and words, more trust.

I have seen changes in Ellie and Ethan as well.  There has been less bickering, fewer arguments and more giggles.  Toys have been willingly shared with our new arrivals.  Ellie, especially, has been a huge help.  I literally could not have made it as well through these first difficult days without her.   Her kind, loving nature emerged more than ever this weekend.  Her bossy-go-gettive-ness took a turn toward jump-in-and-be-helpful-ness and what a joyful thing it has been for me to experience that.

Try as I might (which, truthfully, is not very hard), I am already falling in love.  Having felt so overpoweringly about these two from the get-go makes me wonder what is in store for us.  An inkling of our family being complete has entered my heart.  It’s all I can do to not go back and erase that last sentence; what if I’m wrong?

 I suppose there is one thing I can count on for sure: right now we are doing what our family is meant to do.