Remarkable

Just taking a precious free moment to process my thoughts, and remark on my last week in my new position. It's been a whirlwind week, weird office hours, late nights, early mornings, and breathing through the chaos. But it's been exhilarating. Coming from the world of newborn adoptions, foster care is quite different. You look at the world through a much different lens. In my last job, it was a bit more of a rosier picture. Great, courageous women thinking ahead and making a plan for their child, choosing a family that will be parents and raise the child as their own. They each had their reasons, and had the where-with-all to acknowledge they weren't ready or able to be the kind of parent or family they want for their child.

Foster care...well, it's the dirty underbelly of child welfare. For example, the agency I now work for only accepts Level 2 or higher foster children - meaning, our foster parents are trained and ready to parent these kids in care who require therapeutic services. 85% of "our" kids have been sexually abused and have behavioral issues. These are the kids that smear poop on themselves or their surroundings, because it's a defense mechanism they've developed to make themselves "untouchable", even if for a short time. In the last week, I've had the distinct pleasure to meet some of these kids, including a 3 and 4 year old brother and sister just yesterday. They have their issues, for sure. But yesterday they were all about cracking jokes...and that is so, so remarkable to me.

Case worker: "what are you doing in there?"
Boy: "I'm still going potty, one more minute!"
Case worker: "Are you going number 1 or number 2?"
Boy: "Number three!"