transitioning out of foster care

On Sunday I packed up the last of our little foster girl's stuff at our house. Everything was ready to be moved to her new home and new foster/adopt family. The boys and I said goodbye and see ya later while Bryan was at work. I was handling things pretty well. Saturday and Sunday were hard days because of dealing with 3 kids with behavior issues while Bryan was working. So in some ways it was a relief to say goodbye to one child. I knew the hardness of that would still hit me. Our family went to church Sunday evening and the emotion of it all hit me. I am still dealing with feelings of failure in what we hoped would end in adoption. There are feelings of sadness from all of us that we will miss this little girl. We are hopeful and excited about her new life. We also feel like celebrating our freedom. We have felt more confined to our house with three kids and their behavior issues. So we have mixed feelings of sadness and celebration, disappointment and hopefulness.

Monday night we got to see the new family of 3 for dinner as all 7 of us ate together. This was planned because Bryan missed out on the joint goodbye on Sunday and it was nice to have another thing to look forward to. At dinner we were reminded that little girl is still in a state of stress. She was overly loud and doesn't fully understand that she has left our house permanently. I am sure this will take some time to set in for her. We were also reminded that our attention is now focused off of this little girl and onto our two boys. The boys behavior needs to improve and get back to a healthy place. Neither of them ever had tantrums before this little girl entered our house and now at 5 and 7 years old, they are both having major emotional and physical breakdowns. We know our boys are resilient but they need a lot of love and attention right now. We are happy to provide that for them. I am amazed at how much quieter our house and cars are when there are only 2 kids instead of 3. I am enjoying the quietness and working through all that we have experienced in the last 6 months of foster care. Thank you again for your prayers and thoughts. We appreciate them.