Today is the day before Canada Day and it is for our home a time of transition not just for we grown ups but also for our children Trity, who is 3, Vovey, who is 5 and Kitsy, who is 9.
You see, our children will move away on Wednesday. This means that they have two more sleeps here in their little beds. Then, on Wednesday morning we will get up as usual, have a coffee as I prepare breakfast and the boys will play with toys on the floor of our family room. I will wake up our daughter and then we shall gather together and have a bite to eat.
After breakfast I will tidy up as the children go to their morning routine. We are a big family so the children have learned to to go about some of the daily routine quite independently. They brush their teeth, put on the clothes that I have laid out for them and also make their beds – I normally have to tidy a little afterward, but want them to learn to be self sufficient so this is the cross I bare.
You may be wondering, if you don’t know me, why it is that my kids are moving out all together at the same time. You may also think it is strange for me to let my kids move out at such a young age. We though, have seen many of our children move away before they are through growing. We love them and let them leave and then we keep on loving them some more. Our children return, over and over again like little yo-yos- the same children, new children. It matters not, to us, all the children who come to our home are ours, at least as far as we are concerned.
This said, there is the matter of the other parents. The real ones. They can be difficult and they can be easy. In this case I love mommy nearly as much as I love her children. I consider her to be a part of my family and hope that we can keep this alive so that these three will have another place to call home – we will be honorary grandparents to them, instead of foster parents! We can pick them up when we are needed – or rather when we need to spoil them. A wonderful outcome to a year and a half long placement in our home. We simply provided a soft place to land, when we were needed and then we remain still soft in the heart for these people who are ours to love. Ours to provide for and to nurture. Our family.
So, back to Wednesday morning – after everyone is washed, fed, dressed and ready, the driver will come to pick up the boys and bring them to their daycare and I will bring Kitsy over to Mommy’s. When I return home there will still be the matter of packing up and bringing over the several dozen boxes that I have not yet gathered up, but otherwise, we will be small child free for the first time in a long time. Our big home will be emptied and empty. No messes, no noise, no stomping feet, no slamming doors, no giggles, tickle sessions, tears, little voices and mystery missing cookies. No children. So final.
Since we started to foster, we have had 11 kids and people ask us the same questions over and over. The most reoccurring of these is “how can you have them and then let them go?” and a quick post quantifier “I could not do that!” My answer is this: you don’t foster for yourself, you foster for the children who need to have a stable home while their own home life is disrupted or often times dissolved. We offer the children three R’s, rules, routine, rites of passage. These concepts can be totally alien to the kids when they come. Food in the house, a toothbrush that is expected to be used twice a day for two minutes, beds with pillows in cases and new clothing in a non-violent home can be and have been a huge learning curve for some foster kids. It is difficult to be a foster kid! Imagine that you are dragged from your home, all the people who you know, all the things that you have and all the things that you know for sure and to be dropped into a strangers home who does things very different than everything you do and everything that you thought you knew for sure. To say that these little human beings experience culture shock is a HUGE understatement! Even if things were not as bad at home as the Child Protective Agency first imagines, they also have post-traumatic stress disorder when they arrive and they are scared as hell. Every child looks exactly the same when they arrive – like an animal in the headlights. Poor little things! Terrified!
Fostering is not easy for people who have hearts that feel, and being a foster kid has so many disadvantages that people who don’t see it, cannot possibly get the magnificence of what this system does to human beings.
This story, I know, goes backward, from end to beginning – but I hope that this is not the end – and only the middle. Be well my little children! Stay safe, eat well, grow strong, be who you wish to become and remember always how lovable you are. I have been enchanted by you and our soon to be quiet home will remember you and long for the days of your visits, and wish for the touch of your sticky little fingers.
On my little loves to your life as it should be with your mommy who loves you!
From your mama who loves you too!
