.30 cent dishes and 28 bottles of lotion

in preparation for the impending (sometime in the next six months) arrival of our (for a time) little boy (or girl, or boys and girls), we have had to take on every single room of our house. yesterday, i bought cute sailboat dishes at michael's for .30 cents each, because apparently kids break glass ones? today im cleaning out the hallway bathroom (formally known as my bathroom, home of 28 bottles of lotion). kidproofing a house is not for the faint at heart. especially if you have never met the kid and have no idea what age they are or if they have a history of vandalizing or pica (eating non-food materials). try it sometime. the anticipation is ridiculous. and you have no idea what youre anticipating until they get here. imagine being pregnant and maybe youre having a little baby but maybe youre having two 7 year old boys. its kind of like that. ambigous love that can only currently be expressed through sorting through every toxic item you own and only keeping what can fit in a small locked closet.

on foster parenting

there is a little boy who lives in my mind and probably in my city. there are moments when i think i know his name and face. when i pass kids in the hallways of my school, i wonder if he looks like them. i wonder if he is them.

i know that he is broken.

i know that we are being called to hold him until he is whole again.

i know that since we started the process of getting our foster care license last week, i can think of little else. 

there is a pile of rocket ships and dinosaurs and snowboard pjs. there is a list of 38 things that have to happen before we are able to take a child into our home. 

i baked pumpkin bread yesterday, because moms do stuff like that. 

foster parenting is tricky and right. it is what we are being called to do, and somebody will get hurt because in foster parenting, somebody always loses. i hope to do everything in my power to make sure that somebody is not an innocent little boy. (or girl, or sibling pair) 

what a wild life!