The First Two Weeks

We have now spent over two weeks with Little Man in our home and I can’t believe it! Well, I kind of can. In some ways it has flown by and in others, it has been a long week.

I never knew it was possible to have such a large range of emotions in such a short time. I have truly been on an emotional roller coaster. I have been excited, frustrated, terrified, proud, annoyed, and so much more.

The day before he came home with us, I felt like I was on a roller coaster going up that first big hill. Time slowed down and I had so much apprehension. Would this work? Would I be good at it? Would he like us? What were we doing? Why did we think we could handle this? Oh my goodness… maybe we’re not ready. But there is no backing out now — we’re strapped in and heading for the top!

Intake went as expected and Little Man came home with us and it was time for us to all find our new normal and start adjusting. There have certainly been surprises, but not all of them have been bad. 

This little guy is great at bedtime! He settled into our bedtime routine really well and falls asleep so fast. That has been amazing! He does tend to wake up super early — like 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. early. So the first week was a lot of “Mom, I’m awake and I can’t sleep anymore,” before the crack of dawn. I was getting up with him, putting him back to bed, getting up again, putting him back again, and trying really hard not to be cranky about losing those last two hours of sleep that I really needed. 

We have been able to teach him what time he is allowed to come downstairs and now he knows to just turn on his lamp and play or look at books quietly until his clock shows the right time for getting up.

Some days he gets so tired during the day that he sits down, falls asleep, and it is impossible to wake him. For hours. The first time he did that really freaked me out. But since then it has happened just about every other day and I am starting to see the signs that he is getting tired and at least be prepared for it. I think some of his medications make him drowsy, but I’m nervous that this will be a problem at school!

It was quite a feat getting him enrolled in school. I had all the paperwork they needed, but the shot records I had been given by his caseworker showed that he was behind on some of his vaccinations. So the school wouldn’t allow him to enroll until those were up to date and the doctor couldn’t see him until halfway through the week. That meant a whole lot of time for me to spend with Little Man, just the two of us. It was probably a good thing, so early on in our time together, but I’ll admit, it was a little exhausting too.

When it was time to see the doctor and get his shots, he became so nervous I thought he might just bolt right out of the waiting room! He got really worked up and I knew that if he refused those shots there was nothing I could do about it. Oh, how I prayed in that waiting room! We had talked to LM ahead of time about why shots are important and promised him that if he would stay seated when it was time for the shots and not freak out and make a scene he could have a reward. But it turned out, the doctor’s nurse was able to pull Little Man’s shot records from a database and found out that the records I had were old and he had, in fact, had all of his immunizations. I almost thought I could hear angels singing when she told me that! Needless to say, we were all very relieved that we didn’t have to face that battle.

On his sixth day with us, Little Man finally got to start school. That was when I received another surprise. As a former elementary school teacher, I could tell that he was very far behind academically. But the more time I spent with him, the more I could see how delayed he really is. This sweet guy is nine years old, but academically, socially, and emotionally, he’s at about a six-year-old level. That is a really big delay! I had glanced through his IEP (also outdated) but thought that it indicated that he would spend a little bit of time in Special Ed each day rather than the entire day. So I was surprised when we got to school on Thursday and I was told that he would be in the Special Ed class for almost the entire day. Honestly, I now know that it’s the best fit for him right now, but it threw me for a loop at first. 

I am so thankful for his teacher though. When I first emailed her to let her know that LM would be with her the next day and just give her some basic information about what to expect, I was surprised to hear back from her that she actually knew Little Man and had previously worked with him a little bit in a former school district! What are the chances? She was happy to see him the next morning and told me after school how much he had grown in so many ways since she had last seen him. She heaped praise on him and he felt so proud. It was such a blessing!

Ultimately, we had a really good first two weeks. I feel like we are still in the honeymoon stage of fostering and I’m waiting for the bottom to fall out and things to get crazy. But for now, I’m just praying that God will give me the love I need for this young boy. I’m praying that we can teach Little Man about Him and see him come to know Christ as his Savior while he is with us.