Our newest kiddo arrived on Wednesday morning, and we have had quite the adventure.
On Monday afternoon, we found out that we would have a foster child arriving at the airport at 11:15 on Tuesday night. It then is about 1.5-2 hours before they are ready to be picked up from the foster agency.1 So, you mathed that correctly, it would be about 1 am when we could pick up our kiddo. We made plans that I would stay home in the morning and let them2 get some extra sleep before taking them to school.
However, on Tuesday night we got a message that they had missed their flight and would arrive Wednesday afternoon. I messaged my supervisor saying that I would be at work in the morning, but asking if I could leave about 45 minutes early to pick up our kiddo. We went to bed with a new plan for the next day.
Around 11, I heard Joshua answer the phone, but I was so groggy I could not process what he was saying. Then at 3 am he got another phone call saying that the minor was ready to be picked up from the foster agency. We got up quickly and got in the car, but Joshua noticed a warning that said my tire was at 8PSI. I had just refilled it after school, and I thought, perhaps, it was low because of the cold weather. Now, it was clear that there was a problem. So, we switched to Joshua’s car, and I messaged my supervisor again about needing to arrive late the next day as we had originally planned.
We were greeted with hugs from a very tired child and brought them home. When we got home, they took a shower. After the shower, they didn’t want to go to bed, but Joshua and I both needed some sleep, so we had them rest in bed with one of the Spanish books we bought in preparation for fostering.3
When Joshua got up to go for work, they were sound asleep, so I slept a bit longer as well. As soon as my alarm went off, I called Firestone and made sure I could
take my car in that morning. I couldn’t let our kiddo sleep as late as originally planned because I needed to take care of my car. (Joshua, being the awesome human that he is, refilled my tire before he went to work).
After dropping them off at school, I took the car to Firestone to get my tire checked. When I called that morning, I was told that it would take an hour to fix my tire. Unfortunately, there was a piece of metal in my tire, and they had to replace it. So, instead of taking an hour, it took 2.5 hours because they had to order a new tire. I was able to get some grading done, so it wasn’t time wasted. I had hoped to have time to stop at Dunkin’ before heading to school because I was TIRED. However, I needed to rush out of Firestone to make it to school in time for my class, so there was no coffee for me.
Our kiddo did a great job at their first day of school. Sadly, they were not well enough to go to school on Thursday, so I stayed home with them. This was for the best. Even though they went to bed at 8:30 Wednesday night, they slept until after 11 on Thursday. Thankfully, by the afternoon, they were feeling better and starting to go stir crazy in the house, so I took them to the park to run off some energy.
The first few days together have gone really well. We are all adjusting well to our new situation. We are looking forward to us all being off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, and our kiddo will probably get to see snow for the first time. It will be another adventure for us all.
Our foster kids go to school at the foster agency. It provides English lesson, cultural immersion, counseling, and other things that our kids need given their unique situation. I will often use the terms school and foster agency interchangeably.
We only have one foster child right now. I am using the pronoun they because I don’t want to give any identifying information in this public space.
They enjoyed this book so much that they told their case worker about it.
I can’t wait to hear about the snow adventures!