Breakfast in Bed by Mary Cassatt

I'm up and running again today, gathering stuff for taxes, dropping off stuff at St. Vinnies, and running down the doctor to pay a bill I forgot.  That's the nice thing about living near the center of town in a small town. Everything is five minutes away, parking not so hot, like many other places.  My biggest thing today is working on organizing myself.  A routine change, I am trying to embrace it.  I've been in my comfy little rut quite awhile but now I have something new.  Our family has two, not one, two new foster babies, a three week old girl and an eight month old boy.

I already care for and homeschool an almost 11 year old grandgirl on Tuesdays, later in the day three of her sisters join us.  And then we all join the whole family, great-grands, in-laws, aunt and uncle for our weekly family dinner.  Wednesdays I usually take it easy and reconstruct my house.  Now I'm getting approval from family services to provide respite care in my son's home.  They already have six daughters, three whom they fostered and adopted.  This time they hope to adopt both these children, which would give them seven girls and one son.  Did I mention they like help, ha, ha.   Having hit my limit with two sons of my own, I am amazed at their energy and piles of affection and love.  My rut has suddenly changed direction and grown into somewhat of a highway. 

I felt like I was too old, creaky for this, and I liked my regularly scheduled days of solitude.  Well, old I am, and the first two weeks my muscles, back, and shoulders were sore lifting and dandling little cuties about.  But surprise, after two weeks, I'm not sore any longer, and I'm going back to my gym today.  Use it or lose it.  And I got myself an umbrella stroller so I can push a kid around the block if the opportunity arises and laughed because I haven't been out walking with anywhere in quite a while.  Just been hibernating for the winter sort of, reading and what not.

This hibernating has had an unfortunate side effort too.  I had my annual physical and my usually low cholesterol has shot up (and I've been eating like I was going into hibernation) and I have put some weight back on, so my A1c blood sugar is up too.  So my kids in rescuing these tiny humans may have rescued me too.

And this brings me full circle back to yesterday's post about the Komen foundation cutting off grants for mammograms for poor women at Planned Parenthood.  Both of our new additions have two older siblings who were taken from the parents and adopted or fostered out.  It's not just breast exams women need from Planned Parents, it's support and birth control.  Will these mothers go on to have more children that have to be fostered?  I don't know.   The infant girl came straight from birth in the hospital.  We are very lucky to have these two children, and I hope we get to keep them forever, but it breaks my heart there are so many of them out there.