Ok, deep breaths, calming thoughts & waiting children.

So, I have calmed down considerably since my last stressed out post. A few friends and the hubby told me to "take a chill pill", and stop feeling responsible for everyone else's "good time". They also put things in clear perspective for me. I do this for MY fun. For my kids to socialize, and to get us out of the house and experiencing all that this amazing area has to offer us!

They all also think I should be "charging" dues/membership fees. I don't know about that. I'm on the fence ~ while I realize that I wouldn't have a problem paying (and have paid) to join other "MOMS" groups, I don't know that most people would. I don't have a problem paying meetup.com's fees, and would probably rather seek "sponsorship" from local businesses that we frequent, rather than ask the moms to pony up $5 or $10 a month.

On a positive & completely different note, I got a phone call from Patrick today. Patrick was our foster son for almost 5 years. He is now almost 18, and living in "independent living", with hopes of going to Frostburg in August. He was my first child and it was hard to let him go. There's just so much heartache & so much joy entwined together. Hearing from him reminds me that we should step up to the plate again and take in another "older" child. We got Patrick when he was in 8th grade. We've had at least 20 or 30 placements. Some are for two days, some are for 2 weeks. We did "emergency" care, so when they had a situation that came up in the middle night (because I worked from home) they would call us, and have us get a bed ready for whoever they happened to be bringing by. (Many families who do foster care, will only be available Mon-Friday 9am - 5pm - like office hours....)

We asked for, and received mostly teenage boys, or school age sibling groups. The average age of a child in foster care is 8 years old. However, foster care is also how we got our son. They called up one day and told us about a baby boy that had just been born, and abandoned in the hospital, and was a high risk placement, but one that was likely to go straight to adoption.

The system for sure has it's faults. Children (like Patrick) languish in foster care all of their lives. He had approx 10 other homes before ours. I know that Bill Clinton, when he was President enacted a law that said at 18 months TPR should be automatically considered.. however, if the birth family makes even the slightest move in a positive direction (i.e agrees to take a drug test sometime in the future, or shows up to a meeting), it can drag on and on and on. Even though it's been several years since this was brought into effect, I don't think change can or will happen suddenly for most of these kids.

Rosie O'Donnell mentions frequently while on The View, the stats for these children - there's something like 600,000+ children in foster care, of these, maybe 100,000 are in foster homes, the rest are basically ware-housed. Of that 600,000, less than 80,000 have been adopted. Yet if you know someone who is trying to adopt, chances are they're trying to adopt from overseas... ?? Yeah... For more information on stats, read Administration for Children & Families.

Anyway, as you can tell, I'm seriously thinking of going down that road again. The only reason we stopped was because of all the many issues my son has, he requires various therapy sessions, doctor visits, and lots of nurturing. You can also imagine the challenges living with someone who has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, OCD, ADHD, Bi-Polar, Pre-natal drug exposure, low weight, oral/motor problems, behaviour problems, speech & developmental delays.. to name but a few.

Then there's my daughter. So patient, loving, emotional, funny, quiet, much more reserved than my son. She definitely has a few issues of her own, but all in all, she's a walk in the park compared to Milan.