There’s been a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ and now we’re going right into hurry, hurry, hurry!

Though it was supposedly 99.9% definite we’d meet the children on Friday, that didn’t happen. At 10 am we were told that the court didn’t issue a written declaration, and we’d have to wait for it to be issued on Sunday instead. On Sunday morning a tentative appointment was made for us to meet them at 2 pm, and not confirmed until 12:40, which gave us enough time to get directions to get there and drive for an hour to be there a few minutes late.

As soon as we came through the garden gate, they ran over and asked us our names. I said our first names (I had already made peace with it before arriving), which was good since that’s what the social worker prepared them with. We then played tag and hide and go seek with them, the games they requested.

Afterwards, I showed them the album we prepared. I put pictures of our family, our pets, the front of our home and the garden. I added in pictures of each of the children (it had been sent some a while back), as well as a picture of them with their parents. My intention wasn’t just for them to see our family, but to know from the first minute they looked at it that they are part of our family, and that their parents will continue to be part of them.

The children were very happy to see themselves, but when they got to the last page where the parents picture was, they began to shriek in excitement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw their social worker became very emotional and went to stand to the side of the garden. A bit later, she came over to tell me that’s the first time in all the emergency placements she’s made that anyone has put in pictures of the parents in the album, and she began crying again when she told me how touching that was.

I prepared a stuffed animal to give each child, which initially I had on their beds. Before I took the picture of the room, I made sure the stuffed animals were there. We looked at the pictures of their beds together, with them asking to know where they would sleep.

Towards the end of our visit, the little boy said, ‘Right you’re a mother?’ I told him, yes, I am. Then he asked, Are you going to be my imma and abba (mother and father)? The social workers don’t prepare you for these questions. I told him he had a first mother and father, and we would be the second mother and father (I wanted to be very clear from the beginning that we aren’t replacing them), but we weren’t called imma and abba – we were called Mommy and Daddy. The social worker exclaimed, ‘Amazing, that’s perfect!’ (Mental eye roll on my part since they initially thought it was problematic to introduce ourselves like this.) Right away the children started calling us Mommy and Daddy.

They wanted to go home with us right away, but I explained that we would come back the next day and we would all go together then.

Right before we left, I gave them each their stuffed animals. Then I showed them that the stuffed animals were in the picture of their beds. This helped them to connect the toy in their hands to the place they were going to be; the boy asked me initially where was he in the picture of his bed, so seeing the stuffed animal he was holding in the picture on his bed was helpful for him. They really liked this.

Right before we left our home to meet them, I was on the phone with the social worker who had just come out of court, who wanted to clarify what day I preferred them to move in. The social workers were pushing to have two meetings first (Sun/Mon), then for them to come the following day (Tuesday). The concern I had with that is that Tuesday is a day off for my other children, and I didn’t think that them coming then would be good.

I preferred they would come before anyone else was here and would have a chance to adapt to the new environment before introducing more people. So I preferred they either come the next morning after our first meeting (Monday) or wait until Wednesday. She told me she didn’t think the court would allow them to wait until Wednesday, so it would probably be Tuesday. I felt that was setting all of us up for a very hard beginning but it didn’t seem I had a choice.

We drove for an hour to the short term foster family’s home and then learned the children would be coming home to us the next morning when I heard the social worker tell the foster mother that. I also learned that the foster family who has cared for them for nine months was just informed about us coming to meet the children right before we got there. The foster mother was in shock. Her husband came home while we were outside in the garden with the children, and while the social worker was speaking with them I heard raised voices and crying.

The foster mother said to me at the end of the visit, ‘I can’t understand why they’re doing it like this. There’s supposed to be a transition period, not a rush like this.” While we were there she contacted friends and her family members to come that evening for a goodbye party for the children; she didn’t want them to suddenly disappear without the people who had gotten to know them being able to say goodbye.

The truth is I agree. This has been in process for ten weeks with us (presumably longer before they found us), and it’s unfortunate there was so much urgency at the last minute. Stephen Covey talks about the four quadrants of time management: 1) the urgent and important, 2) the important but not urgent, 3) the urgent and not important, and 4) the non urgent/not important. Clearly social services is living in the first quadrant of urgency and this creates tension in others by forcing them to operate in that quadrant as well. Personally, I prefer to avoid urgency as much as possible by thinking and planning ahead, so that I can spend more time in quadrant 2. I’m very good at working in a crisis and getting things done quickly, but that doesn’t mean I think it should be done like that.

By the time we came home it was already past dinner time. I had less than a half hour to rest before the Zoom meeting with a couple of social workers and the current foster mother, to learn more about the children’s routine, likes and dislikes. I’d like to keep things as similar for them during the transition period so this was very helpful.

I had one minute between ending that and women walking into our home for the new series we’re hosting weekly. We’re viewing and discussing the lectures of Dr. Karyn Purvis on trust based relationship intervention; we began just last week.

It was a good day, but a very long and exhausting one. (If you’re wondering how I have time to write this – last night there was no way. I fell asleep last night in a second, but woke up at 4:30 am and am taking time to write this before things get very busy and intense.) We’ll be going back in just a couple of hours – I’ll put ds10 and ds6 on their school van, and then head out first thing in the day for another visit. That will include time at the foster home, then time out together, then a trip to get ice cream. Afterward we’ll bring them back to the foster home, then leave for a half hour.

After the half hour, we’ll come back and bring them home with us. We should have an hour at home before ds6 and ds10 arrive back from school.

(I expected that the children would be brought to us, but it was explained to me that they don’t want to past foster parents to drop them off because it could be interpreted as being abandoned by them. Rather, they want us to come and get them because it shows the children we want them.)

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My husband and I are feeling a lot of trepidation right now. It’s huge to bring in two new children to the family, and there’s a lot of concern in our extended family on what that’s going to look like. We want to continue to be available for our children and grandchildren as we’ve been before, and don’t know how having these children with us will impact our relationships.

The suddenness with which this is happening hasn’t allowed time for some plans to be made that would have been helpful to have in place. My husband is entitled to paternity leave for foster children (six weeks since they are twins), which is amazing because it’s so important to their transition that both of us are as available as possible. However, we don’t know about what we need to do to apply: I’ve requested the necessary paperwork from the social workers and been assured they will give it to us, but not gotten it yet.

It’s that urgency thing again; they can’t get to is until they get to the things they think are more important. His employers need more notice than a few hours; he needs time to be sure he leaves with all the work tied up and to set up a plan with them. But everything was undecided until it was suddenly decided.

At this point it looks like the children will stay home for a couple of days before returning to the kindergartens they’re currently attending. I need to immediately find schools for them for the coming year – I’m expecting the local department of education to call me about this today, who has been chomping at the bit wanting to get their registration taken care of for the coming year – but I need some time to do research.

I don’t want them to be placed wherever the local representative determines is good for them without me knowing what the options are and advocating for what I think is best for them. My experience is that they are well-intended but can’t help but be impacted by whatever is most expedient for them.

Avivah