Our first Valentine's Day being married included me (eight months pregnant) and Stan. A year later there were six of us. Every year since then the make up of our family has fluctuated and so has the way love has looked in our house.
Love is... working with a three year old little boy who has never - I mean, NEVER - experienced discipline. Time-out was such a foreign and scary concept for this child, and the idea of needing to listen and obey was equally as difficult. We started slowly and consistently with lots of encouragement. After continued and creative attempts including: rewards (it's crazy, I know) for sitting for 30 seconds, using a high chair with tray attached (we were well within appropriate boundaries), and allowing him to choose where the time-out spot would be placed (another general no-no) we were able to achieve a measure of compliance and hopefully helped to establish some stability for the child (who ended up being in placement for two weeks) and his family.
Love is... spending hours and hours combing through the hair of two sisters with head lice. How embarrassing and invasive for them to arrive in our home, having been pulled away from family and everything familiar, only to have to be subjected to rigorous sessions of shampooing and lots of combing. This extra expenditure of time was not something we had planned for, but was a blessing as we were able to use that time to share with each other and begin our relationship in such a nurturing and caring way.
Love is... spending four hours every Monday afternoon for eight months driving two little brothers back and forth to a visit with their birth mom which usually started late, included little interaction, and ended early. Listening to the seven-year-old recount the sad details of the visit and his repeated disappointment in his mom's disinterest was hard to hear. Even harder was biting my tongue to refrain from making any negative comments regarding those awful visits or his birth mother.
Love is... opening your home. Not to the children who need a safe and secure home, but rather to the entourage that follows. In each case, there are at least two case workers involved who are required to visit and inspect compliance. There may be a child advocate attorney or social worker who may or may not be closely involved. With little ones we've had as many as three therapists visit us weekly. For just a little while I was concerned that the house be freshly vacuumed and dusted for each of these visits, but I quickly realized that a busy, happy home is rarely freshly vacuumed.
Love is... letting them go. By far the most challenging - okay, heart wrenching - part of fostering is saying good-bye. Many people have commented that they couldn't foster because they could never let a child leave. Here's the thing: we don't do this for us, we do it for them. They don't belong to us; our 'own' kids don't really belong to us - we've given them back to God who has generously allowed us to enjoy being their parents for whatever time He has deemed. Here's the other thing: it's sometimes a relief to know that a child has moved toward permancy (either reunification with family or adoption) and is no longer required to languish in the foster care system. And along with that, if I can be totally honest, there are placements that were difficult and draining, the end of which brought a welcome respite to our family.
Love is... being blessed by each child who has come into our home.
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