funny socks

I’m an older mom with a large family of nine children, and also a foster mom for the state. Sometimes the sheer amount of caring for others, makes us moms of big families neglect ourselves a little bit.
One afternoon, I remarked to three of my children, two boys, then ages 16 and 14, and a girl age 11, that I was not feeling pretty anymore. As children will, they began to tell me that I wore drab, uncolorful clothes, and that I was always bending over taking care of some child, so when people looked at me, that’s what they saw. My drab, uncolorful behind.

Okay, that was the wrong thing to say. That afternoon, I got on ebay, and I bought some colorful cow socks. See, I told my children!! Drab ladies don’t wear cow socks. From now on, I will buy funny, colorful socks, and I won’t be drab anymore. My children MOANED!!!

I wrote the ladies on my email list about my idea. They thought I had lost my mind, too, but they were a little nicer in the way they tried to tell me…

A couple of weeks went by, my cow socks came in the mail, I continued my quest to find other undrab socks. But soon that was all pushed aside by the fact that my beautiful little two year old foster daughter, who had lived with us for 20 of her 26 month old life, would be leaving soon in a relative placement in another state. My heart was broken, and I wondered how I would ever live through losing her. There was no changing it, though, and soon the day came, and she left. The ladies on my email list walked through it all with me, from the day she came, to the day of her leaving.

Our family was already planning a small vacation, and they decided leaving the same day our little foster daughter left would be a good idea. I agreed, because I knew that I would see her everywhere I looked in those first few days of missing her. I wrote the ladies on my list the night before the baby left, pouring out my heart, and then I went ‘no mail’ and clicked off the computer until we got back home.

The next week was one of the hardest of my life. I spent much time in tears and prayer, as I tried to reconcile my heart with letting my little foster daughter go. I had loved her so much. Being away from home did help, but finally the week ended, and we came back. Going back into what I called the ‘babies room’ and seeing her empty bed was so very hard. I decided the next day I would take it down until a new foster child came to live with us. In tears, the bed went out to the storage shed. I came back in, and took up my life without my foster baby.

Later that day, my son went to get the mail, and he came in and wanted to know what I had ordered. “Nothing,” I said. “Well, you got two packages.” He tossed them on the table. Puzzled, I looked. One had a return name that I recognized from my email list, the other one didn’t have any name. I opened them, and out fell a pair of bear socks from one, and a pair of fuzzy brown socks from another one. I laughed outloud for the first time in a week. They were sending me socks to cheer me up. Over the next week, socks kept coming: cat socks, fruit socks, poodle socks, all kinds of socks. I don’t know what they could have done that would have cheered me up more. It was such a sweet thing to do, with such sweet timing!

Matthew 5:4 says blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Thank you to my friends who comforted me in my latest trial. It worked, and it taught me a good lesson in reaching out!

Musing of a biological, adoptive and foster mommy

January 2, 2008, my 26 month old foster daughter, MiMi, who I had raised for 20 months and loved desperately, left my foster home to go live with some extended members of her biological family. Six days after she left, Child Protective Services called and asked our family to take our adopted daughter Angel-Leah’s five month old baby brother, Tommy. Angel-Leah had come to live with us when she was two and a half. Unlike MiMi, she had been released for adoption, and we adopted her when she was four years old, just less than two weeks before MiMi left our home. We knew Tommy had been born just a few months before, and had gone into a relative placement. But when it seemed certain that the birth parents were not going to be able to regain custody of Tommy either, the family decided to see if we would take Tommy and adopt him, too, so that he and Angel-Leah could grow up together. We said yes, and one day less than a month after MiMi left, and one day less than Tommy’s six month birthday, he moved in with us. Two days less than a year later, on January 30, 2009, Tommy’s adoption was finalized, and he became our son.
Right now, Tommy is 21 months old, just five months younger than MiMi was the last time I saw her. And he keeps doing things that remind me of her. Now, Tommy is my tenth child. I've also cared for more than 50 foster children during my adult life, and I ran a day care in my home for many years. I also worked in the preschools of some of the churches I've attended over the years. So you would think that any kind of toddler behavior would be so familiar to me.
But today, I was getting him out of his highchair, and I was playing with him, and he laughed. You know how before they can really talk, babies will react to you’re teasing with laughter instead of words. His laughter was throaty, and wow, did I have a flashback of MiMi. Those flashbacks still hurt. I miss her horribly when I have them. They bring tears into my throat and my eyes. And they set me off for the rest of the day, where I keep thinking about her.
So today, when it hurt, and I missed her, I thought - Tommy is my son now. I was only a temporary mother to MiMi; she was never really mine in the way a child you have given birth to or adopted is. In my heart, it felt the same way. But legally, bindingly, she wasn't mine. So my mind went to Tommy. He's mine. I don't ever think about his leaving, like I did with MiMi those last four months I had her, and I knew her extended family were trying to race through a homestudy to get custody of her. I thought, do I value Tommy, like I did MiMi? Was the whole heightened emotion of those last months with her simply because I knew I was going to lose her, so I valued every minute and everything she did?
When I laid him down to bed, he took his bottle and his blanket, settled them the way he does in his going-to-bed routine: bottle in his mouth, and finger trying to find the sensory ribbon he likes to hold when he sleeps. Once he had it all together just right, he looked up at me with sleepy eyes. I smiled at him, and thought, he's not going to leave me. He is safe and secure here. I wonder how I would be feeling if he were in the position that MiMi was? Those last months were such a frantic feeling of 'hurry up and love her'. With Tommy, it's just a 'goodnight, baby boy. I'll see you in the morning.'
I have ten children. Three have left my nest, but are still active in my life and heart, and seven are still here for me to see and touch everyday. Do I value them the same way I would if I knew they were going to leave me, like I knew MiMi would leave? Can I capture those little things, like a throaty laugh, and ‘hide them in my heart’ like MiMi’s laugh is hidden?
In five months, Tommy will be older than MiMi was the last time I saw her. He’s going to stay. He’s my son now. I don’t have to worry that someone will take him away from me. It’s a nice feeling.
Tonight, I keep remembering that children’s song:
“Love is something if you give it away, you’ve got to give it away, give it away. Love is something if you give it away, you’ll end up having more. Love is like a lucky penny. Hold it tight and you won’t have any. But give it away, and you’ll have plenty. You’ll end up having more.”
I took a chance and loved MiMi. As a foster mother, I knew how big the chances were she would not be staying. But I gave her a home when she needed one and in doing that, I also gave her my heart. And in loving her and losing her, I cherish Tommy just that much more. And in cherishing Tommy, I cherish, again, what I have with my older children.
I’m a mother, biological, foster and adoptive. I have a wonderful life. I am a blessed lady!