heartbreak

I went to work at the beginning of the school year.

I really don't consider it work, except for the 5:30 alarm clock and the fact that I am away from home everyday.
I get to go to my best friend's house and watch her grandson, her foster baby, her niece who is also a foster child,and any other little rugrats I can find in the afternoons.
I love it.
If I didn't miss my own girls so much (they all 3 go to public school now...which makes me think I need to change the name of my blog a little bit) I'd say it was the perfect situation.

So, the heartbreak.
The foster baby is 15 mos. old. I wish I could post a picture of him on here, he is so adorable. He has huge brown eyes with the longest lashes ever. They melt me.
I've known him since he was 3 mos. old. I started watching him everyday at 7 mos. old. I started taking him home with me at 11 mos. old. I fell in love with him somewhere along the way.

A few months ago my husband I started talking about becoming foster parents. With the main goal being able to be a real part of his life.
But we just talked about it.
This week I've learned that he is leaving.
I wish I could go into detail about the reasons, but it's so compicated, I don't think I even get it. Ofcourse my heart doesn't want to understand it at all.
He leaves Tuesday.
Today he walked for the first time, like real steps all the way to me. He is a little delayed physically, so this was a huge deal. He was so excited and so was I that we both were just laughing about it, and suddenly my laughter turned to sobs.
In my mind the last few months I have been trying to picture him being part of my family. Which my whole family has fallen in love too. Even my husband.
And now my mind has to picture never seeing him again. My mind can at times make sense of the situation and see that it will be best. But my heart does not.

Why do some people come into our lives and just grab us by the heart, only to leave all too soon?
I'm trusting God with this. What else can I do.

Would you pray for this little boy, for whatever God has in store for him. And for my heart these next few days........

It's been good, but hard

4 days of school.

It feels more like 4 years.

These have been the slowest days of my life. Time seems to stand still waiting for them to be done each day.

My middle girl(4th grade) is adjusting well. She's had one bad day so far. They had taken a timed math quiz and everyone finished except for her. She was crushed.
I later talked to her teacher and told her about how upset she was. Her response was very comforting. She said that there were other kids who did not finish as well and that even if she was the only one who wouldn't have finished it would not concern her. This was just a small quiz to see where the kids were all at. She told me she felt honored to be her very first public school teacher ever, that's never happened to her before. She told me that my daughter is doing very well socially and is very polite and funny and she can tell she will have many friends.

I already knew this about her. Her social skills are not what I was worried about. It's the schooling part that has always been hard for her and she knows that about herself. We've been doing alot of praying about just being aware of it. Not worried about it.

My youngest daughter (1st grade) seems to be doing good too. She does not tell me a thing though and it drives me crazy. I get lots of yes and no answers, and I need details!
She is a little more quiet and reserved and I imagine her playing by herself at recess and not talking at all in class.
I did get to go have lunch with her on Friday! I was so excited that I forgot to take a picture and I couldn't even eat my own lunch I had packed. But I didn't cry when I gave her a hug goodbye!

Today is Saturday and I am so glad to just be home and relaxing, well cleaning, but that's like relaxing to me.
Except the part where I was cleaning the office, which has always been our school room. I wanted to take the small table out that the girls sometimes did school on. Last year, for my youngest daughter who was doing Kindergarten, I had taped this cute long piece of paper on the table that had the alphabet on it. When I started to take it off, I started crying. Big tears dropped as I kept peeling the paper off. Tears are dropping now as I write this.
It's been hard.
Questioning myself.
Missing them.
Feeling so out of the loop about their day.
Wanting things in our life to be different.

But I'm relying on Jesus each and every day.
And my girls have made me so proud as I've watched them handle this major change in their lives.

Here they are on the first day of school as I walked them to their classes and made them pose with their teachers!