Becoming Foster Mom

Today I am writing to you a little under the weather...The hard part about being a mom is you rarely get days off. Like both of the kids are sick right now, and I am too. My husband had to go to work today, so guess who's left to care for the kids?Yep, you guessed it...ME!I have been trying to get back to blogging... again.This Summer has been interesting, to say the least. I'll be updating you guys on some of the stuff I've been struggling with and some of the good things that happened this Summer.

My plate has been FULL and there's so much to share.

But let's jump into the topic for today...My Husband and I decided earlier this year that we wanted to definitely go ahead and do the training and get licensed to be a Foster Family. So finally in July, we got a call for a baby boy who was 3 months old. We had signed up to foster newborns thru 4 years old, so this was perfect.We got the call at midnight literally and I think I had just fallen asleep good. We had tried to be prepared up until this point with clothing and such, but my husband had to run to Walmart for diapers and formula.They said they would be there to drop off baby boy in about an hour and a half. We had alot of clothing still from our son, crib, bassinet, toys, bouncer, play pen and swing. So we pulled all of what we had been storing, out of our attic frantically awaiting for his arrival.When he arrived, he was just in a diaper strapped in a car seat. They had a hospital bag of things they tried to gather up at DCFS, which amounted to a couple of onesies and sample bottles of formula and a small package of diapers. The social worker had me sign papers and that was it.So here me and this baby are sitting here looking at each other.As a mom of a 5 year old, I almost had forgotten how small 3 month old babies are. I looked at him and he looked pretty healthy other than a rash under his neck. He gave me about 30 seconds before he began to cry.I figured he was hungry so I fixed that sample bottle of formula and he drank that. Then 10 minutes later, baby boy starts waling again. So I give him another sample bottle of formula and he drank that.Around 3am, we finally got him to settle down and we put him in the bassinet to sleep. I think we both slept until around 9am. Both of us had a loooonnng night. Baby boy sleeps through the night most nights, so we haven't been tooo exhausted (thank God for my husband who gets up with Baby boy at 1am and 3am for feedings). But we have had our days!For me going from just a 5 year old, to a 5 year old and a baby has been quite a learning experience. It's sort of like being a new parent all of over again. Aside from becoming even busier, learning baby boy's habits, his likes and dislikes, court dates, visitation, doctor visits things have been going amazingly well.Although it's been 5 years since I've cared for a baby full-time, it's really neat how those motherly instinct kick in without hesitation.Baby boy is almost 5 months and is almost crawling. We can't believe how much he's growing just in this short amount of time!Becoming a Foster Mom has definitely been rewarding and yet has tugged heavily on heart strings. I am only two months in, but what an experience this has been so far.Next time I'll share about the day I went from 1 child to 3 kids within 24 hours,Until then, be blessed...