Today it means canceling all appointments because of the physical
exhaustion that not only effects you, but all of the “little” that
willingly (and sometimes not so willingly) trudge along with you through
the endless hallways of doctors offices, schools, and DHR.
It
means having huge boxes of bulk snacks piled up next to your trash can.
It literally looks like we run a convenience store, but in all
actuality it’s just half a month’s worth of after school snacks. (It
also means being nervous that the once “endless” supply of snacks will
eventually disappear faster than the cash in your wallet..)
It
means having a four year old who doesn’t “pretend play” with baby dolls,
but instead “for real” helps mommy with the new baby. Mommy only has
two hands, two feet, two eyes, and two ears and sometimes that isn’t
enough to keep the wobbly, “I just learned to walk but now I should run”
baby from bopping her head on the coffee table while mommy is elbow’s
deep in a massive blow out that the two year toddler thinks would be fun
to smear on the floor all while the newborn baby’s pacy fell out of her
mouth, again, for the hundredth time. It means walking into the nursery
and finding your four year old talking ever so sweet to her new baby
sister that has only been her “sister” for three days. It means having a
four year old that knows the “5 S’s of soothing a baby” because shes
watched Mommy console a drug withdrawing baby and she’s been to the
doctors office visits where the doctor diagnosis’s colic. It means your
four year old is always willing to share her clothes, her toys, her
shoes, but most importantly her momma.
It means having to climb into the back of the minivan every other day to rearrange car seats to make room for a new child.
It
means having to sleep sitting up, with one eye open in the hallway of
your own home to make sure a scared, broken child doesn’t try to escape
in the night to find their “momma”.
It means rearranging
bedrooms and taking down/putting up bunk beds in the matter of a five
minute phone conversation where a tired, overworked and past exhausted
social worker says, “…can he stay for the night?”
It means
forfeiting your beloved iPhone to a hopeful five year old, who wants to
hold onto it because he “just knows” his mommy is going to call him any
minute, but the reality is she won’t.
It means staying awake
even when every child in your home is asleep, but your mind and soul is
on overdrive because you can’t help but micromanage the next 24 hours
and reflect on the past 24.
It means being angry and
exhausted. People are so blind when it comes to realizing the on-going
issues of child welfare in their county. People are quick to sympathize
with the starving, dirty child on the television at two o’clock in the
morning in another country who needs to be saved for just twenty-two
cents a day, but easily turn the cheek to a child in their own county
that needs a home- a child that your child might play with at school on
the playground or a child that you could have very well passed in the
grocery store last weekend. I am angry that more people don’t step up
and help so that I, and the other struggling and exhausting foster
parents, can take a step down.
#IAmExhausted #SomethingHasToGive #WeNeedMorePeopleOnTheBattleFront
No comments:
Post a Comment