Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Coming Home

On Saturday we attended a birthday party, put on by their foster mother. Brian and Faith's birthdays are 4 days apart so they were celebrating together. Now that the reality of what we were embarking on had hit us, and Kirk and I were scared. I felt like I was in a daze the day of the birthday party, and probably looked it too. We met their grandmother and her husband and their older half brother.


It was a strange day, and I can't imagine what was going through their little heads. Everyone was taking pictures of the new "family". Everyone was so happy for this happy ending. We were scared, and the kids barely understood what was really going on.

Saturday night, I again felt a panic attack coming on. I had to quiet myself by reading before I went to bed. I kept waking up. Faith and Brian were moving in tomorrow after church.
We were scheduled to pick the kids up a 1 pm at their foster mom's. We left early to stop by IKEA to purchase a dresser for Brian's room. Then we stopped at a coffee shop near the foster mom's to relax for a little bit.

I received a call soon after we got the the coffee shop from their foster mom. she said that the kids had gotten up early that morning and had been asking her every five minutes when "mom and dad" were coming by. They were making her crazy and she wanted to let us know if we were running early, it was fine with her if we came early.

We left right away. As soon as we pulled into their street the kids ran outside to give us hugs. Brian and Faith had gotten us special key chains. Kirk's chain was a cross and mine was an angel with the word "mom" on it. I realized then that it was going to be an up and down, up and down emotional experience.

They were very excited to arrive "home". Brian helped "dad" put his dresser together. He started calling Kirk "dad" immediately. I was "Tina". Faith avoided the terms by calling us indirectly "you" or something else. 

Faith spent a lot of time in her room arranging her "things". For being 9 and 10 years old, they had very little. Their clothes were kind of ragged and they didn't have any toys. It was a little overwhelming to think about all the things they needed. Over the next few weeks we would receive generous gifts from friends and family that enabled us to get clothes and basic needs.

After 2 hours of being in her new home, Faith asked us, "Do you like having me live here?"
Later she asked, "Are we going to live with you forever?"

We ended the day watching some tv. Brian snuggled up next to me. Faith sat right next to me on the opposite side. The whole time we were watching tv, she made constant gutteral, throat sounds that sounded almost like a whimper.

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