Here We Go!

We welcomed our first foster children into our home on Tuesday. We got a shipment of two toddler boys and a 6 (almost 7) year-old girl. We will not be taking any further deliveries for a while. We weren't planning on accepting any children older than Ella, but because of a glorious miscommunication between my sweet husband and myself, here we are!

I would like to say that the transition has been completely smooth, but it seems that instantly increasing your family's size by 75% is a wee-bit challenging. Of course, I knew that it would be, but knowing and experiencing are two different things.

It hasn't been bad, but it has been a whole new kind of difficult. Here are a few things that I have learned in the last 2 days:

• Boys are different. I don't care how progressive you are, gender matters! Climbing, bumping, running, colliding, pulling, and breaking are just a few of the special gifts that these little fellas have in abundance.
• Parenting a child who has been in a different home for the first year, two years, or 6 years is a whole different ball game from starting from the beginning.
• Sorry to be so shallow, but cute really helps.
• This is going to take more ability than I have, more patience than I can muster, and more love than I have to offer, so it's a really good thing that it isn't about me. My God has all that Edwin and I need, all that the foster kids need, and all that the girls need. And He's really good at sharing, which is good because no one else seems to be.