Foster Care to Adoption: The Foster Room

When a mother prepares for her new child, one of the first things she begins to do is dream of their room.  Many mothers work continuously at this as they wait patiently. A few months before the child arrives, the room is perfectly finished and the mom begins spending time in the room, dreaming about what it will be like to have her child home, in her arms, in that room.

I, however, am not that mom.  Out of my three biological children, not a single one had a prepared nursery.  With my firstborn, we lived in a town home where you could not paint or hang things on the wall. I was also a newlywed and college student, so she had a crib and a dresser. That was pretty much it.  My sister actually went to my house as I was in the hospital with baby #2 and put her room together for me. We moved into our 'first' home a few weeks before she arrived and I had a toddler. Cut me some slack. We did the same crazy thing a month before our 3rd child was born, so naturally, he didn't have a room prepared either.

Perhaps the 4th time is a charm.  The foster care room is DONE!

Whoops. Looks like I'm missing a drawer knob. It's done EXCEPT for that ;)

                      We chose bunk beds because we want to have room for siblings if needed.

Our caseworker teases me because in nearly every question about how we will prepare our children or talk to our foster children about issues, I said "read books".  I started a collection specifically for these children in hopes that they will find understanding and love through the words of the stories and the arms that hold them while reading.

 We agreed to take a child between the ages of 0-9.  I struggled with what to put in the room in the way of toys, not knowing the age or gender.  However, most of these children are at a much lower level socially and mentally than their age, so I believe I was safe with a kitchen and train table.  In our house the rule is they share toys (with asking) and special/important toys can be put away or they can close their door to play alone.  I also have way too many toys in storage I can bring out when we discover what the child is interested in.  

Our walk-thru home study is tomorrow afternoon where we discover if our house is safe enough for children (ha!) and turn in final documents.  Lord willing, we'll be on the call list.