Fostering during quarantine is…
Spending all day, every day together in the same house
Realizing maybe you need a bigger house
Reminding everyone to grab their face masks
Refilling hand sanitizer bottles
A nightly toss-up between movie night or game night
You and your foster, sitting side by side on the couch, reading your own books
Trips to Target, to look at new books
Driving in the car just to crank the music up loud (“don’t tell Dad how loud this is”)
Sharing songs from each of your childhoods, and surprising her about how not old you actually are
Running through the sprinkler in all your clothes to play with the littles
Looking up new dessert recipes and learning to make them together
Justifying your driving choices to the 14 year old studying for her driving test in the passenger seat
Digging through bins at Goodwill to score an unbelievable deal
Monitored computer time and silly rap battle videos
Choosing to stay up a little later for quality time
Smiling to yourself when she chooses to pass on screen time for a family game
Seeking one on one time with each child
Treasuring every moment you get to snuggle the littles or run your fingers through your teen’s hair
Teaching the littles that there’s enough mom to share with another child
Getting tired from the around the clock attention three kids need who are between 1 and 14 years old
Learning not to take things personally
Rising above the moments you feel small
Loud giggles on the floor
Silly family dances
Banging hammers on a little wooden workbench
The unmelodious song of a child’s xylophone
Lots of Phase 10, Settlers of Cataan, Monopoly Deal, Dominion, Super Smash Brothers…
Picking up your phone to take more videos than you ever have because each child’s moments seem to be flying by
Stealing away to the bathroom for a couple moments of (unlikely) uninterrupted solitude
Accepting that you can’t always make the three year old and one year old stop screaming just because it aggravates the teen
Learning more about neighbors, and how God might strategically place them nearby for times like this
Remembering to give meds twice a day, and write all of them down each time
Hair, dentist, eye, therapy, doctor and caseworker appointments… then follow up appointments
Unavoidable awkward conversations in front of our foster about waiting for the state to take care of x…y…z…
Wanting to take her into your arms and your home and your family and just take care of things like she was a normal kid… because she is just a kid trying to find her normal
Hoping she feels less like a child of the state and more like just a child
Reminding her that age isn’t just a number yet
Dreaming about unwritten books, stories that need to be told, memories written down
Asking her questions to stir her creativity and fuel that passionate spirit in a healthy way
A bag full of colors, dashed and scribbled across coloring pages
Surrendering control, because who really has control in a house like ours?
Maintaining authority through power struggles
Carefully picking which battles need waging
Discerning fact from fiction
Balancing discipline and correction with Biblical grace
Being brokenhearted about the past you didn’t create
Clearing off a palette for your foster to recreate themselves in your home
Tapping into your emotional vault and being vulnerable
Seeing value in every tear
Recognizing how the enemy changes his tactics and disguises himself
Realizing your anxiety can take a new form and eat you again
Praying for a good day after a bad one
Praising God for how great the good days are
Seeing how much you can handle without ever knowing you could
Taking everything you know (or thought you knew) about parenting, putting it in a blender and throwing half of it away
Hardly feeling like a parent but always feeling like you’re parenting (clear as mud)
Serving, in some capacity, as event planner, health advisor, chef, laundromat, cleaning service, chauffeur, IT professional, spiritual guide, nurse, hair stylist, wellness advocate, teacher, detective, household DJ, emotional regulator, situational diffuser, mom and wife
Forgiving yourself for struggling (and often failing) to maintain text conversations with friends
Finding peace in new places like cooking meals in the kitchen and sweating at the gym
Constant strategizing to offer opportunities for your spouse to have time to themselves
Finding freedom from the bad moments at the end of the day through prayer with your spouse
Being unafraid to lean on your spouse over and over again
Smiling or tearing up at every message in your inbox from friends, acquaintances and even strangers who reach out to say “Keep going,” or “Me, too” or “How can I get involved?”
Remembering how thankful you are that you aren’t in this alone
Finding a million selfies with sweet, dimpled smiles and kissy faces on your phone
Accepting that maybe you’re not doing as bad a job as you think you are
Thanking Jesus for this girl and the impact she has on your life