Fostering Hope

Mother's Day is one of those problematic days that sounds completely nice, but is packed full of opportunities for disappointment or hurt.  When you're dealing with a kiddo that is experiencing separation from their biological mother, the pain of having a day to celebrate mothers can be pretty overwhelming.  Add to that the emphasis that well-meaning, but uninformed folks place on that relationship, and it is a day rife for tears and anger.  I don't know that all of our foster daughter's anger and outrage over the last few weeks can be directly attributed to Mother's Day preparations, but it's likely that the activities they were doing at school in preparation kept the separation from her family fresh in her mind.  There was a tea party in her kindergarten class where moms (the invitation at least also specified it could also be a mom "stand-in") were invited to the school to be celebrated by the kids.  Unfortunately, I just started a new job so I wasn...

This is such a common question, and one that's easy to gloss over.  But there are times when being asked this question immediately results in me breaking down in tears.  Sometimes life is just overwhelming.  And sometimes this normal. simple question that is thrown out without much consideration or thought floods me with the reality that in that particular moment, I can't just say, "Pretty good."  We just finished a weekend of being unable to answer "Pretty good" to that question.  Our six-year-old foster daughter is experiencing some pretty serious regressions with her behaviors.  While we understand that her behavior is communicating her pain and frustration and anger, we still have to ride it out with her.  And while her needs are front and center, it can feel stifling to feel like we don't have the flexibility or freedom to have our emotional needs met, too.  On Friday night, we had plans to meet some new friends from our church for dinner...