Samantha: 109 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 75 Months, Week 4
Owen: 33 Months, Week 3
It has been a busy last month, and as I write this post we are already into August, and I wonder, where did July go? I will do my best to recount what I can remember from these past few weeks, but I know I won't remember as many details since so much time has passed.
On Sunday my parents were still in town visiting us. We decided to take the opportunity of nice weather to go out to the Back Mountain Trail to take a walk and let Samantha and Aedan ride their bikes. They enjoyed getting out and being active, and that trail is fairly shady and pleasant to walk on. After we walked (or rode) the trail back and forth, we went back home for lunch and nap time for Owen. While Owen napped I finished up a little more work for my class. I had a lot of assignments due besides our typical weekly discussion post replies, like a critical reflection paper and video teaching demonstration that was due by the end of the day on Monday.
Once Owen woke up from his nap, we went to Hillside Farm to get ice cream. The weather looked like it would be clear enough, but as we ate our ice cream in the gazebo, it started raining pretty hard. Luckily, we were protected from the rain, and we were able to all finish our ice cream while the rain stopped. It cleared with enough time to walk around and see the animals before heading back home for dinner.
My parents flew back home on Monday morning, so after spending some time hanging out at home, I left to drive them down to the airport in Allentown, so I was gone for a few hours, and Ben stayed home with the kids. We had a good visit with my parents, and I was glad they were able to make another trip out to visit us during these weird days. It helped to break up our time at home, and we always enjoy having parents visit us.
The rest the afternoon went quickly because I had to do work to get ready to record my teaching demonstration on the alphabetic principle. I had already decided what activities I was going to do, but I typed out what I was going to say so that I could time myself and make sure it didn't go over the maximum time limit of seven minutes. It took a lot of editing, and recording the video and editing the different segments together took a lot more time than I expected. Aedan did a really good job participating in the activities with me, and I was pleased with the final product I was able to submit, even though it took the better part of the day to get it done.
I put Owen to bed that night and took a cute video of him talking and identifying the pictures from the end of the book that I read to him. I just love hearing his sweet little toddler voice and the way he says "scah-betti".
I turned the camera around so you could see his face a little better, and I got some super cute pictures of him on my lap as we read that night. They were too cute for me to limit them to just one.
When I turned the camera around to record more of Owen's face, it was a little harder for him to focus on saying what the pictures were in the "Picky Nicky" book. He kept getting side-tracked by looking at himself on the video. I just love hearing his little voice. He does so well, and I think he is pretty proud of himself, too.
This video is probably my favorite because it shows him "reading" the whole book by himself. We have read this construction book so many times that he has it memorized, and I love how he looks over at the camera a couple times toward the end of the video with the cutest little smile on his face. This boy is such a cutie with his little dimples and sweet smile.
As Ben and I have been talking more and more lately about our trip, we decided to see if we could postpone our trip to the Midwest because with all the upcoming work I had to do with my class, as well as the covid cases on the rise, we thought it would be better to push it back to the beginning of August instead. Luckily, we were still able to arrange it to stay with the Mosers in Wisconsin and the Chagdeses in Ohio. After finally making the decision, I felt a lot better and like a lot of pressure was taken off my shoulders in trying to get my classwork done before leaving for our trip. The class was a lot more work than I expected it to be, and I had a lot of assignments due in the next few weeks that would take me a considerable amount of time to finish.
It has been pretty hot in Pennsylvania this summer, and we got up to 87 degrees a few days last week. Luckily, we bought the portable air conditioners for the kids' rooms so they can stay cool and not have to sleep in the basement when it gets hot like they had to do last summer. Also, the window unit we have in the living room does a decent job of cooling the main level of our house, which we are thankful for. However, we were lucky to have it be a little cooler this week with a couple days in the mid-70s. It seems like it's much warmer than it was last summer.
About mid-week I got my grades back on the assignments I had completed over the weekend, and I got 100s on all of them: the discussion post, critical reflection paper, and video teaching demonstration. It made me feel so much better to see those grades, and that I wasn't going on a downward trend in my grades.
Here's a little video of Owen talking about the Lego head stack he made. He wanted to send a video to Ben so he could see what he made.
Ben had a work Zoom meeting at 5:00 on Tuesday evening, so in an effort to keep the kids a little more quiet, I got them involved in playing a game with me. Here we are playing Engineering Ants together. We all had a good time playing together, and even Owen could participate. I wish that the kids would play more games with me because we have a fun time together, but often when I suggest playing games as an activity, they never really want to play with me, and I'm not sure why. I enjoy seeing them focused, concentrating on a task, and working together.
Again, as I write this over a month later, I don't remember a lot of the details of the week unless a picture goes along with it. It was just a normal week with hanging out together as a family, playing outside, trying to find time for Ben and I to get work done, and then I cleaned the house some in preparation for our out-of-town guest to arrive on Thursday.
Thursday was a busy day for me because I went to work at Ben's office, trying to get a lot done for the assignments what were due over the weekend and on Monday so that way I could let Ben hang out more when Neil came over to our house for the weekend, instead of making him do things so I could work. Then, I still had to go grocery shopping before coming back home, which took me a lot longer than I anticipated because stores were busy. I ended up getting home right about 6:15 when Neil had already arrived. He brought his dog along with him, and our two dogs warmed up to each other fairly quickly, even though it seemed like Izzy wasn't sure how to feel about having another dog around the house.
Friday, July 3rd, we decided to head out to Ricketts Glen State Park and take a hike on the trail that went up the mountain a little more to see the waterfalls on that side. We have always gone on the left of road to the forest trail, but I thought it would be fun to try out a new trail. The biggest problem was that we just left a little too late that morning, not getting on the trail until almost 11:30. By the time we walked for awhile, the kids were getting tired and hungry, and we brought lunch but left it in the car because we figured we would go back there to eat lunch at the picnic tables. However, the trail to the falls was a little longer than I expected, and since we had never done it before, I didn't know how much farther we had to walk in order to get to a waterfall.
Here are some pictures we took along our hike that morning. It was a really pretty trail, and Samantha even brought her camera so she could take her own pictures as well. Sometimes she talks about how she wants to be a photographer when she grows up. I need to feature some of her pictures on my blog some day. She takes some really good ones!
We finally made it to a waterfall around 12:30. It was a really pretty view looking down from above, and I'm glad we finally made it!
Here's my cute little six year old boy looking down at the waterfall. I think he was wishing that he could walk around in the water to cool off a little bit! He doesn't enjoy hiking/walking for very long, but he was a trooper that day, pushing through and not complaining too much even though he was hot and hungry and tired.
As we were walking on the trail out to the waterfall, we heard a loud noise, as if something fell, and the adults stopped to look behind us and see what the noise was, but we couldn't tell. However, on our way back we saw this large tree that had fallen right across the trail. We were amazed at how loud it was from so far away, and how it had fallen right over the trail. We were glad that no one got hurt by being in the path of the tree when it fell!
That afternoon we got a call that would change our life in an instant. It was a case worker from Luzerne County Children and Youth asking if we would be interested in a placement of a newborn baby girl, just born on June 29th. We would be picking her up from the hospital the next day, July 4th. I pretty much knew what Ben's answer would be, but we always like to consult each other in things like this, so I told the case worker that I would call her back in a few minutes. We decided this was definitely a child we could say yes to, so we called back and said yes. Now, I can't go into any specifics due to privacy issues, but the baby was being monitored at the hospital for a few extra days until she performed well enough on the assessments she was getting, and I was supposed to be called by the on-call case worker who would give me discharge instructions. The kids were really excited when we told them we said yes to a newborn baby girl. Aedan said he would be too excited to sleep that night, knowing that she would be coming to live with us the next day. Samantha just kept asking over and over again if I knew anything about when we would be able to get her. Also, she didn't want to get her heart too set on the idea of her coming because she knew that we have had a few calls where we have said yes and then they found another home or kinship placement instead, so Samantha didn't want to get her hopes up again. I think she was trying to guard her heart because she has gotten so upset the last couple of times when we didn't actually have the child placed in our home.
I spent the rest of the afternoon pulling out the things I knew we would need once we got the baby the next day, like the pack and play with the newborn insert, some newborn clothes, burp cloths, pacifiers, and bottles, as well as the infant car seat. I washed all those items and got things ready because I knew it would be easier to do before she arrived. This is the reason we have kept all the stuff from our kids, even baby stuff, so that way we can be prepared for any age foster child! I have things pretty well organized in our attic, so it didn't take too long to find everything I was looking for and get prepared for welcoming a newborn into our home.
I put Owen to bed that night, and he wanted me to take pictures of him and monkey in bed. He makes such silly faces! And he thinks it's so hilarious to see these pictures of himself.
On July 4th we didn't have any plans, especially since I knew I could get a call at anytime to meet the case worker at the hospital to get the baby. Ben had his Bible study in the morning, I worked on hanging up some baby clothes and getting last minute things ready, and then a little bit after 12 noon, I was on my way to the hospital to pick her up, feeling nervous and excited at the same time. Ben was going to put Owen down for his nap after lunch, but Samantha and Aedan were super excited.
It was a little strange walking into the hospital with an empty car seat, knowing I was going to leave the hospital with a baby that I did not give birth to. I was able to talk with the nurses that had been taking care of the baby girl the last few days and got information on what formula she was using and how often she was being fed. The birth mom also wanted to meet me and talk to me, and I'm so glad I had the chance to connect with her. She was friendly and shared a lot of her story with me. It was heartbreaking to me as I buckled her baby girl in the car seat, thinking that she would not be leaving the hospital with her baby. Her body was still going through all the after effects of giving birth, but she didn't have her baby to help her hormones balance and to help her body return to normal physically. We all walked down the parking lot together, and she walked with me out to our van. It made me sad as she walked back to her car, and I could tell she was wiping tears from her eyes.
It was strange driving back home with a baby in the back seat. She slept peacefully all the way home. When I pulled in the driveway, Samantha and Aedan were waiting in the grass at the end of the driveway when I arrived back home a little after 2:30. They were SO excited to see this little baby girl. (For privacy reasons, I will have little pink hearts blocking her face in any pictures, and I can't include any videos that show her face.) Here are Samantha and Aedan meeting the little girl for the first time. They were so cute smiling and commenting on her little lips and how tiny she was.
Even when I brought her inside, they didn't want to leave her side. They just wanted to sit there and stare at her, and they couldn't wait until they had the opportunity to hold her.
Ben came downstairs from putting Owen down for his nap and was excited to hold our baby girl as well. He took this cute picture of her little feet peeking out of her hospital blanket and commented on Facebook, "The last three times we brought a baby home from the hospital we had 8 months to get ready. This time we only had 24 hours. We will love her as long as she is with us, however long that is." That's how we view foster care, we will love the children that enter our home for as long as they are with us.
Samantha couldn't wait to hold the little baby girl, still in her gown from the hospital. She is so good with babies and loved that we had another girl in the house. She has always wanted a little sister.
I love how Aedan it touching her little forehead gently with his fingers.
Samantha held this baby girl for quite awhile that afternoon, and I love this picture where the baby grabbed on to Samantha's finger.
Do you see this smile on her face? She's so happy.
Here's a little video of what life was like in our house later that afternoon/evening. Our baby girl was sleeping in the swing, Owen, Aedan, and Samantha were wandering around and playing, while the two dogs started showing a little more interest in playing with each other, even though Izzy still wasn't sure. Hopefully Neil didn't mind being involved in our crazy, kid-filled household too much! We certainly didn't expect to welcome a new foster baby into our home while he was visiting, but that's how life goes sometimes.
Around dinnertime our baby girl was getting hungry, and Samantha and Aedan were both eager to feed her her formula from the bottle samples they gave us at the hospital. They enjoyed seeing her eyes open a little more and being able to be involved in taking care of her a little bit. They were such big helpers already!
We had no plans to see fireworks on the 4th of July since most places cancelled theirs anyway. We put our kids to bed like normal and were going to attempt to sit outside and have a fire in our fire pit, but there were so many neighborhood fireworks going off, that our dogs were extremely nervous. In fact, Izzy even threw up a few times because she was so nervous. Neil's dog just wanted to hide under the futon in our basement, so we decided to just hang out down there for the evening where the dogs were more calm. Here is our little baby girl sleeping soundly on my lap, all wrapped up like w burrito, while Neil, Ben, and I watched Hamilton on Ben's laptop. Not quite the 4th of July we were expecting, and we knew it was going to rock our world and the daily routine of our family life (and sleep), but we were excited to have a new placement. I had been feeling baby fever for awhile, and I was excited to have a newborn to take care of. We felt honored to be caring for this little girl so that her mom could take the time she needs to do what she needs to do to get better and get her life back on track.
(Blog about June 28-July 4, 2020)
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