Waiting Six Months

It’s been six months since the two little ones left me, thus opening my home to be officially ready for an adoption placement. I received a letter on Friday from CHOR stating I was approved as a foster parent for another year. I read the report penned by my previous  family worker and in it she mentioned their placement had been my longest. Their leaving also marks the longest I have gone without a placement since I became a foster parent. Technically, the kid has been with me for a month, but most of that time he was there under the assumption that he would soon be leaving. Having him as a full-time permanent placement only became official last week. No one knows how long his tenure will be in foster care, but from the things mentioned at his planning meeting, it does not sound like he will be going home as soon as his mother believed. He would need to be me until November 17^th in order to surpass the record of 8 months and 19 days from the previous placement. That feels like eons from now and so many, many things can happen between then and now.

 

I had a baby shower to attend over the weekend and so while out shopping with my mom, sister, and aunt this past Saturday, I popped into the Carter’s outlet store to grab a few baby items. It was just me and the kid in the store – my mom and aunt had left because the mall is an outside mall (fantastic for southern California, not such a great idea for southeastern PA) and it was rainy and cold; my sister was in another store where we would be meeting up. So, I grab a few three set items for summer in the 9 month size, thinking everyone will be buying newborn baby clothes, and marched to the register before I could start thinking about all of the tiny baby boy clothing I had returned in January. The young girl behind the register asked me if I would like to give my email address for coupons. With a teenager standing next to me. Before I could control myself, I snapped, “I have no need” and shoved my bank card in her hand. There’s no way for her to know these items were not for me, but of course it bugged the hell out of me. Being in the store bugged the hell out of me. I’m fairly certain we were breaking land speed records to get out of the store after purchasing the items. Baby stores make me feel claustrophobic. My lungs start to spasm and my throat clenches shut if I even think about fawning over the adorable outfits, so I am always in a rush to get in and out before hot tears spill from my eyes. Usually I am able to make it to my car before I begin bawling. This time I didn’t even cry. Go me. I also managed to stay the entire duration of the baby shower, including the oohing and ahh-ing fest during the gift opening. A lot of my co-workers were there and so I was able to distract myself by talking to them about non-baby things, so I did ok. There was one point when I glanced up to see adorable newborn outfits draped across a swollen pregnant belly that my heart twitched remembering the care I took in picking out an outfit to bring home the Christmas miracle baby, but I quickly engrossed myself in a conversation about the new DSW store opening this week, thus averting a melt-down. Maybe I’m growing up? Maybe I’m just getting to be a really good actress….. Even though he is not a baby, having the kid with me certainly eases my anxiety when involved in baby/child/mother activities. Before the baby shower I joked with the kid about having a code word that when uttered would cause him to pest me to leave, thus creating an escape scenario. Luckily, he had a friend there (the daughter of one of my co-workers who he knows from school) and so he was engrossed in whatever trouble they were getting into on their cell phones while I chatted with my friends. And we didn’t need to use the code word. A kid in the Sunday school class asked me where my baby was, meaning the little boy who was with me last year. Exasperated and unsure of how to respond (the boy who asked me is slightly mentally handicapped, so I couldn’t really get angry with him), I pointed to the kid across the room and said, “that’s my baby now.” Later, I was receiving prayer from my pastor and he said, “God loves your heart, you have a very soft and kind heart.” And here I thought it was a damaged and broken heart, stitched together with a little hope and many tears.