Two Weeks Later

Well, it has been nearly two weeks since we received our first foster care placement. These have been the most difficult, joyful, painful, surprising weeks of our lives as parents. Both "Doug" and "Kate" are adjusting to our lifestyle but there is still a long way to go and we don't know when our time with them will come to an end. Kate has been the easiest. At 5 months old she is a happy little girl that loves to smile and eat. We are still working on getting her to eat solid, baby food but she eats a bottle like a champ. We had one successful night where she slept until 5:30am but that hasn't happened a second time. Doug has been quite a testament to the level of our patience. He is a very emotional little boy and cries at the drop of a hat. Phil and I are not used to this kind of temperament as Lilah will whine but she has been telling us what is wrong since she was a year old. Doug did not speak any 'real words' when he was placed with us two weeks ago. Since then he has learned "cracker" & "DaDa" which he calls Phil :) He has made a lot of progress the last two weeks and is able to mimic a lot of what Lilah does. If I am going to be completely honest though, there have been multiple times that I have wanted to throw up my hands and quit. The constant refereeing between Doug and Lilah is tiring, the amount of energy used to keep Doug from melting down is astronomical, and my limit of patience is reached by about 6pm everyday. I thought, as we were going through all of our training, that if a child was placed with us that loving them was going to be the easy part. How could I not love and embrace a child that was depending on me to stand in as their mom? How could anyone be angry or short tempered with a little child coming from such terrible circumstances?? Certainly not ME?! Wrong. So wrong. I wake up every morning praying for God to give me compassion and to pour into me the right kind of love to pour out on these children. I say the same prayer about 50 times a day. I have lost my temper more times that I care to count and I have to walk away for a few minutes. I was not prepared for the emotional struggle that I would face. They prepare you for so many aspects of becoming a foster parent but they neglected to mention how hard it may be to love them without condition. I am willing to be completely honest with anyone that asks "how is it going?" and I have gotten a few shocked faces when I admit that it is difficult and that I am struggling to like one of my foster babies. I see no need to lie and pretend like this path that the Lord has put us on is blissful and rewarding in the moment. We are doing the very best we can as God's children to plant seeds in these tiny kiddos. We are loving them the best we know how and we learn something new about them and ourselves every single day... every single hour. We do NOT regret becoming foster parents. Not for a single second have we questioned that Gods plan is perfect for us. Have we questioned our own abilities?? Only about a million times, but Gods grace is sufficient for us and we are His hands and feet. Thank you so much for your prayers, please don't stop praying for us. We love you all.

Foster Placement #1

It's funny how smart God is. Phil and I sat back for a very brief moment last night and considered all that had taken place in the last 48 hours and we saw God's hand in every single second of it. To start, we took a short trip to Waco as a family for the TCU v. Baylor game (GO FROGS!) which isn't a typical Saturday for us. We got to spend some sweet time with family and we got to enjoy uninterrupted time with our daughter. We weren't sure if we would spend the night in Waco or make the trip home late that night but decided to go ahead with the latter. After falling into bed about midnight we slept hard until my phone started ringing about 4am. I didn't recognize the number so I clicked it off and laid back down only to have Phil's phone start ringing with the same number a few seconds later. I had to wake Phil up, of course, because that boy can sleep through just about anything. He answered and I knew immediately we were going to be asked about a placement. The first two placement calls we had received had left me feeling jumpy and nervous, a little sick to my stomach, but I felt pretty calm sitting there in bed trying to hear everything our social worker was telling Phil and I started praying. He hung up and relayed everything he could remember (he was still half asleep) to me and we considered our options. TWO babies?! But this is our first placement, why do they keep asking us to take TWO?! Both children were under the age of two and being pulled out of their home for drug use, it was going to be an immediate placement and that's all they could tell us. It took us about 5 minutes of debate to come to the conclusion that God wouldn't put us in a situation that we couldn't handle and deciding to have faith in His plan we called back to tell them that yes, we were open for the placement. During the time we were waiting for the kids to arrive we assembled a crib upstairs, dug out all of Lilah's bottles, toys, and what clothes we could find that would fit a 5 month old. The kids arrived at about 7:15 Sunday morning. The 5 month old girl, we are going to call her Kate since real names cannot be used, and 17 month old boy, we will call him Doug, were a stab to our hearts. Doug attached himself to Phil and wouldn't let go and Kate sat grinning in her carseat while we went through all the paperwork, what little background information the CPS worker had, and a walk through of the house. Our sweet Lilah woke up just after they arrived and was completely smitten with Kate from first glance, she didn't leave her side until Daddy offered breakfast :) We spent Sunday morning changing diapers, bathing kids, doing load after load of laundry to remove the foul stench that came with the babies, and praying. I did a lot of crying. I wouldn't even notice I was crying until I couldn't see through the tears. It has been the most emotional experience of either of our lives. Lilah has done AMAZINGLY well! I am so incredibly proud of our angel girl and her ability to love these kids, to accept them into her house and into our family. I can see Christ in my little girl and I cannot tell you how that fills my heart to overflowing. Our first night as a family of 5 went better than we had anticipated. Kate only woke up twice, ate well and went back to sleep. Doug only fought bedtime for a short while and slept for 10 hours. Lilah crawled in bed, read her bible, and said her "I love you's" just like she always does and slept for 10 hours as well. Day two was tougher than day one but I had some wonderful help from my Mom and my Nana :) They have been so compassionate and encouraging, helpful and selfless! I am so blessed to have the support of people that love my family and respect the calling that the Lord has put on our hearts. Day three is just beginning as I hear my girl stirring from her bed, duty calls! Thank you for your prayers and Phil and I ask that you please continue to pray for us, all 5 of us. It is likely that we will have Kate and Doug for a while and we want to pour into them throughout this time we have together. All our love, the Collins'

Teenage Dreams

Ok, random, I was driving home from school today and that Katy Perry song was on the radio (the one about living a teenage dream...) and it made me think about how much time I spent dreaming about & begging God for my "boyfriend/future husband". I mean, seriously, I constantly had daydreams about what it would be like to have a guy brush the hair out of my face or reach over and hold my hand while he was driving or .... a million other super romantic things :) I'm blessed to be older, a bit wiser, and to have all of those wonderful daydream fantasies be my reality. I am grateful that Phil and I both had the wisdom and patience to wait for each other. That is all! I told you it was random. *Side note: I do not encourage or make a habit of listening to most of todays pop music.* haha.