What is that?

A few weeks ago Dustin was anxiously awaiting a package being delivered. Before the mail lady put her foot on the gas, Dustin was out the door and halfway to the mailbox. I expected him to come in with a big brown box, but instead he came in with a small, brown animal..

He had found a baby squirrel laying on the ground under a large oak tree we have in the front yard. It was making the loudest racket, and ants had already started crawling on him.

Naturally, just like that everyone shifted their attention to this new visitor and we all got in "action mode".

"Action mode" is very familiar to our home, as it is to several of my other "foster moms" homes. "Action mode" to us means we shuffle through each bedroom in our home to find the best fit for the guest that just showed up on our door step..

Does the child have a past with sexual abuse? Can the child share a room with other children their own age/sex? Should they room alone? Do they need to be in the "smaller kid room" or the "older kid room"? Where are the clean sheets? Boy or girl sheets? I need a pillow. Oh, wait, does the child wet the bed? Better pull out the mattress protector.. (We should buy stock in mattress protectors..)

But, instead of finding which twin mattress our new visitor would sleep on, we were all frantiqually searching for a "cage". All the kids were pulling boxes from every direction- too small, too big, not enough air flow. Can squirrels chew through cardboard?

When a foster child first shows up on your doorstep, no matter the time, there is an automatic "momma bear" check list..

Have you eaten? Oh, it's two o'clock in the morning and here you are cooking pizza. Does the child have lice? How about you take a warm bath while the pizza cool's off. (May or may not grab the lice treating shampoo) Are there any visible brusies? Broken bones? Anything that might have gone unnoticed during the hectic pick up? (I hate this part..) Now you either spend hours holding a scared, broken, upset child or the child is so exhausted they climb into the warm, clean bed and pass out.

What did that look like for the squirrel?

How do you feed a baby squirrel? What do squirrel's eat? Oh gosh, we better run to the store and buy squirrel milk. Ha. We better get a cage while we are there too..

(An hour later..)

Let's make sure we got all of the ants of him. Is that dried blood in his nose? Oh, gosh... Is he gonna die? ...lots and lots of "squealing" from the squirrel.

Being the Momma Bear I am, I had already notified a rescue group that was coordinating in the background how we were going to get this squirrel to the habitat refuge on a weekend.

The rescue lady gave me strict instructions on how we should give the mother squirrel a chance to come back for her baby. There wasn't a dry eye in the house while we nailed a box to the tree outside and filled it with blankets and a warm water bottle (to keep it's temp up, though it was super hot outside).

My kids kept peeking out of the window to see if the momma squirrel was anywhere to be seen. They waited and waited and waited nervously. We must have answered a million, "..what if this happens," questions from all of the kids. The house was full of anxiety as we all waited for the baby squirrel to be rescued by the mom.

The rescue lady called me back and informed me that we had given her enough time and if she hadn't come by nightfall, that he needed to come back inside and they would coordinate pick up the next morning. The momma squirrel never came back, so the baby squirrel got to enjoy it's first Alabama football game inside. Ha.

The children took turns feeding the baby squirrel every two hours. They would replace the water bottle with warm water every few hours, and religiously checked on the baby squirrel. Our younger ones even drew the squirrel "pictures" to take back to it's hole in the tree.

That next morning everyone took their turn saying goodbye as we handed the squirrel over to the rescue lady (who had driven up from Auburn). Everyone cried as we watched them drive away, and in that moment I thought to myself..

Our home "does fostercare". We just get it. We understand that the bad parts are worth the good parts, and the sad times are made up with happy times. Our family unit was made for this.  We aren't anything special, we are just using our gifts that God gave us. We have our ups and downs, our ins and outs, but at the end of the day, we thank the good Lord above for giving us the opportunity to love on His children.. and His squirrels.