The Bailey Brag

I could make videos of this child every single day. He is the funniest kid we’ve ever known. He knows lyrics to songs we’ve never heard…apparently through his cousins and/or their Lego Rock Band video game. Yet still he all but refuses to memorize his alphabet and other simple pre-kindergarten activities. I won’t worry. He’ll come around.

We hope you all had an amazing Easter Sunday with your families! We did with our boys! We went to an 8 am service at church because we taught our 2nd grade class at 9:30 so we were up and out the door very early. The only family photo we have was taken by a friend as we were rushing in to the early service. After church we went to my moms for lunch and lots of playing with cousins. We didn’t do an Easter egg hunt or anything this year. We do not do baskets or anything with our boys and most of their cousins if not all know there is no bunny. I did do something neat with our boys this Easter. I grabbed an inexpensive vine wreath at a craft store, one about the size of someone’s head, and we stuck toothpicks all in it to resemble the thorns they pierced Jesus’ head with. We asked the boys to remove a toothpick from the vine every time they made a sacrifice for someone else throughout the weekend. It was neat to hear what they viewed as a sacrifice for another. After they all went to sleep on Saturday night, I removed all the toothpicks from the crown and replaced them with shiny white and silver ribbon. On Easter morning, after we read the passages about Jesus’ resurrection, I showed them the crown. It was beautiful and it really gave them a sweet visual about how Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.

I should mention my baby niece was in town all weekend so this was a huge treat for me! I can’t get enough of this child. She is so precious.

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Surely the photo below doesn’t break any privacy rules we agreed to since it doesn’t show any faces. I guess we’ll find out. I just wanted to share one photo of our boys’ first trip to the zoo this past Saturday. Our foster boys, that is. They have never been. They also went to a birthday party on Sunday at Pump-It-Up, or as our biological sons would call it, the “coolest place on earth”. They had a big weekend of firsts and a lot of fun. They were so tired at the end of each day. We learned just yesterday that they are leaving us on Monday so we’re happy we were able to squeeze in those fun things last weekend.We are devastated to say the least. We knew this day would likely come but not at such a short notice. I had conveyed to many of you that there was a meeting today to determine the future of our boys and I want to thank you all for praying like I know you have. Perhaps this is an answer to those prayers and I know that we aren’t always supposed to be pleased with the outcomes. The boys are going to live with their grandmother in Sweetwater. There are many, including myself, at DCS and CPS who are fuming over the outcome of today’s meeting because so many think it is a huge mistake to let them go now before the grandmother takes care of things on her end. God is in control of all so who are we to question the results.

Please keep all our boys in your prayers this week…pray that our foster boys will transition smoothly to their grandmother’s house. Pray that AJ will have a smooth transition to his new school as his grandmother is switching him on Monday to Sweetwater Elementary School. Pray that Tyler and Jordan will just be happy. Please pray for our boys and especially River…he and Tyler have become very big buds and are inseparable all day every day. Most of all, just pray for AJ, Tyler & Jordan that they will be set apart from all the statistics and triumph over this very bad hand they have been dealt. They are all very sweet, smart & loving little boys and all have an amazing future. I pray we have given them just a glimpse of Christ while they have lived with us and please pray that their grandmother begins taking them to church.

My angel boy, Wheat, has been reading since he was about 4. I worry about him often because he would rather sit and read books all day every day than do anything active. He is already reading big kid books like Treasure Island and Moby Dick, you know, books we weren’t forced to read until high school in which some of us never read and just bought the cliffs notes.

The other night he was granted permission to sleep with Jason and I, something they all still love doing because we co-slept with all three of our boys up until just about 2 years ago when our king size bed just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Now they all rotate from time to time sleeping with us. So he was laying in bed beside me and we were all reading. I noticed he was holding his breath for several seconds and then letting it out repeatedly only to hold it again. I remember him doing this at a very young age and I don’t know why he does it. When it finally became a disturbance to my reading I asked him why he was holding his breath. This was his answer:

“Well, you know how reading is kind of like talking in my head? If I breathe while I read then I might not be able to hear the words.”

This sweet kid has so much traffic in his head he needs street signals. He told us this same night that one day he wanted to hand write a dictionary….whatever that means. I cannot wait to see how this child chooses to use his brain for the greater good.

River has a friend named Greg in the form of a wart on his right pinky finger. Greg has been River’s friend for a year or more. When Greg first appeared, River was not too thrilled. I quickly made up a story about how sometimes little friends in the form of warts hop on for a ride because they want to be a part of your life for a while, encouraging you and protecting you along the way. We often talk about it. When he gets discouraged about Greg, I remind him that one day Greg will decide to hop off and go protect someone else and that he should enjoy this time with him. River doesn’t tolerate discomfort or pain very well and the last thing I want is to unnecessarily put him through a lot of pain over one silly wart.

A few weeks ago River came to me crying his eyes out. Just when he had finally become content with Greg, Greg had two babies on the same finger. River said “Mommy, Greg had babies!” I guess it’s time to get the doc to take a look. River reminds me every other day about the ‘Greg babies’ and wants to go to the doctor to get them removed. He has no idea what he’s asking for.

After getting to sleep very late (early to bed, late to sleep…it’s a chronic thing with me), tossing in my sleep having had a very odd dream about my mom and an alpaca, then back up at 5:30 in order to spend 20 minutes with my husband… I am awake, fresh, and ready to tackle the busy day ahead of me which is of course chock full of a hundred things to do. So what do I decide to do to gear up for my busy day? Drink coffee and blog, of course. I just put one child on the school bus and the remaining 5 are still asleep so why not? Forget that my kitchen is a wreck from last night’s dinner, there is no less than three loads of laundry crammed in one basket screaming to be folded. Forget that I should be waking up 3/5 kids to feed breakfast, make them get dressed and do chores before their drama class. And forget that I have a list of things I should be writing down in preparation for my meeting with my resource parent support worker this morning and finding something to wear to Jason’s company Christmas party tonight. Need I continue? Seriously. If I am going to blog, it is going to have to push other things to the side. That’s all there is to it.

Yesterday we went shopping. When I say “we”, I mean myself and the 5 children who are not forced to attend school outside of the home. I can actually tell a difference with only one missing even though I still have 5 to care for. That one when couple with his 4 year old brother is a handful. When they’re apart, they are manageable. I thought fostering a school-age child would be difficult but so far it’s actually quite nice. The only major adjustment is having to make sure I do not forget to always be home when he gets off the bus. Although I am truly a stay-at-home-mom who never runs the roads shopping or doing mommy groups all day every day, I have never been bound to my house for any reason. I have just done it by choice. So it has taken discipline to remind myself I can’t hop in the truck to make a run to the bank or the post office when A will soon be getting off the bus. So, yes, the crack must be in our drinking water because I was positively on crack yesterday when I decided I could go by myself with 5 boys to spend the 3 foster boys’ DCS clothing allotments all in one trip. $200 for one, $175 for the next and $125 for the little man. You have to spend it all at one time so I had a spreadsheet of what they needed; pretty much consisting of everything except socks and underwear since we had already bought them that with our own money weeks ago. When the caseworker arrived to pay for it all, even being a bit late, I had only gathered goods for one child. She was less than thrilled but when she saw my two buggies filled with nothing but children, she understood. She was nice to help me collect things for the remaining two boys and after a total of 2 hours in Target, we finished. All the boys got one giant bag full of new clothes and a new pair of shoes. Whatever they need after this is up to us. In my opinion, for babies who grow out of clothing quickly, there should be more than one allotment issued. I’m just sayin’.

When we got to the truck and all bags were loaded, all kids strapped in their car seats, I issued a warning to all that for the next 5 minutes I did not want to hear a single noise….”or else”. I just sat in the driver seat and took nice, long and deep breaths. That’s the best time….when I am in the truck and everyone is strapped in car seats. If any one of you wants to come hang out, please do. We’ll just have to go sit in my truck.

So as if shopping with 5 boys isn’t crazy enough…..while I was shopping, the boys’ caseworker called and said she needed to pick up A from school and T from me and take them to the dentist. This was a 2 hour notice. I felt blessed to even have that. So instead of taking everyone home for lunch as I intended, I got the privilege of taking them all out to Chic-fil-A for lunch. It was bitter sweet because T had never eaten there before. I later learned that A hadn’t either. Have I mentioned how many odd looks I get when I am out with my crew and all the many “Are these kids all yours?” and the “Where’d you get all these boys at?”. Since after lunch I shed yet another boy and was down to only 4 I decided while the crack was still in my system I should stop by Earthfare for some food. Luckily, Wendy, my fellow-former-foster-parent-now-mom-to-six-kiddos-friend works there and walked around a bit with me and then proceeded to check me out (charge me for my food, not look at my bod). This was all I could handle in one day. We came home, put up groceries, and then the boys came home from the dentist, one having had two cavities filled. God made 8 o’clock bedtimes for days like this.