This afternoon I got a single sentence email from our case worker, letting us know that the paperwork is all in order and thanking us for the "love and care" we've given to Little One.
Tomorrow morning I will sit in court and learn the exact hour that I will hand him over.
A part of me will break, but a bigger piece of me will know, maybe not yet feel, but will know that I have done all I was asked to do.
Today, I squeezed 2 years of a little boys life into 3 plastic bins and a single photo album.
We've been saying our good bye's for months now. It's time. We all know it is.
And yet, it is bitterness.
I will be watching the world for years to come to see what God will do with this Little One, for He will do something.
And yes, to answer your question ahead of time, yes, we will do this all over again and again, God willing. As long as He calls us to this, we will walk here.
In a matter of hours, I will be done changing diapers and washing crib sheets. Sippy cups will leave the cup board for a season and return to their storage spot in the basement, next to the high chair.
We will have one or two last nights together. A dinner, a bath, a bed time cuddle. A few hundred two year old tantrums.
We will take hundreds more pictures.
We will use up all the tissues in the house.
We will pray.
And then we will wake up and it will be over.
There will still be business trips to the other side of the country, there will be holidays to plan and novels to finish. There will be homework and spelling tests and laundry. We will still have choir practice and wrestling practice and youth group and all the other stuff in our world. We will still put on our dress ups and go to the formal and bless as many other kids as we have dollars for.
We will take a break and pull together as a family. We'll go on a long and much needed vacation.
I will pull back, but at the same time, we will rise again.
This is foster care. This is being a Christ follower. It is brutal and essential.
It is both a shock and not a surprise at all. We dreamed of one path and will walk another. Makes us wonder what the future has waiting for us. I'm pretty sure we didn't make room for 3 more kids for nothing.
In this very unusual fall, sunny and warm and almost like spring, we will let go.
We will die a little or maybe just retreat to hibernate and come out having grown.
I will soon have hours and hours alone without a kid underfoot.
Alone in my home, something that has never happened in this house. I have never been here without a little one. I have never had a season of only big-ish kids. I have never had a season without buckling car seats and changing diapers and loosing a million little mittens.
It will be new. And quiet.
Hopefully productive. There's that never ending list I've been putting off for years or only making tiny little stabs at. No excuses left.
Forgive my drama and my scattered thoughts, as always, I process pen to paper.
