So maybe I'm not a good foster parent....

It’s odd.  I have been itching to do a blog about Baby A for a while now, and then someone said something to me last night that really hit the nail on the head.  He said, “You’re not a good foster parent.  You want to keep them all”.  I laughed, because that just might be true.  I guess I haven’t quite mastered the whole “love them and then give them back” thing. 

Baby A is 11 months old today, and I picked her up directly from the hospital when she was 48 hours old.  She’s mine.  Maybe not legally.  But in my heart, and in her heart, we’re mommy and daughter.  She is attached to me like no other child ever has been.  All my other kids were fine with being left with grandparents or aunts, but my babysitting resource pool is nearly drained this go-around because Baby A isn’t usually a happy camper when I leave her.  In the nursery at church, she will scream and gag until somebody waves the white flag and comes to get me. 

I get asked several times a week, “are you keeping her?” or “are you adopting her too?”  The goal of DHR is to reunite children with their biological parents, as long as a safe environment is available.  I don’t get to choose whether or not we keep her. Do we hope to adopt her if she becomes available? You know the answer to that question.   

Believe it or not, I *am* capable of being a true foster parent. One who takes care of babies/children and then lets them go.  I’ve actually done that a few times.  Granted, those were short-term placements and I knew from the beginning that those children wouldn’t be with us very long.  But still.  Cut me some slack.  Geez. 

At some point with this baby, I transitioned from Foster Mom to Oh-my-gosh-I-will-die-if-we-lose-her Mom. 

More than anything in this world, I want to wrestle with that feisty little baby for hours every night because she fights sleep. 

I want to play Word With Friends at 2 a.m. because even when she goes to sleep, she doesn’t stay that way. 

I want to see her crinkle up that little nose and grin at me when I tell her “no-no”. 

I want to sing “Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty” over and over and over because that’s her favorite song. 

I want to watch her waddle around like a cross between Otis from “The Andy Griffith Show” and Clyde (the orangutan) from “Any Which Way But Loose”. 

I just want her. 

All 17 pounds of adorable stubbornness, on track to be the most rotten baby ever raised in the Garnett home – and believe me, we’ve raised some rotten ones --  I just want her. 

I want her, I want her, I want her.  Forever and ever.