An Ode to Pigs in a Blanket

Well, I'm not actually going to write a poem about pigs in a blanket (if I had more energy I might), I just really wanted you to click on my post, so I gave it a weird title.

I am going to write about pigs in a blanket though. But first, I'm going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, we became parents, fairly abruptly, to three boys, ages nine, eight, and three. These boys, while precious and fun, were also in desperate need of all the love, safety, structure, energy, and attention that we could give and more. During this same time, we lived in a different state than our families, had recently switched churches in an effort to connect with a more local body, and had a very limited support system. It was, certainly, the most challenging season of our lives.

The same week our three year old moved in for good, we were invited to a new support group for foster and adoptive parents hosted by a local church (not a church we attended). We dragged our exhausted, introverted selves out to this group because the organizer was the agency therapist on our foster care team, and I'm pretty sure we would have shaved our heads and joined a cult if she told us it would have been beneficial to our boys. (Side note: Jenn Ranter Hook is one of the most knowledgeable, compassionate, and creative trauma-informed professionals I have ever met and I value all the time we were blessed to have her as a part of our family team).  

What we found in this group over the next several years was very definition of support, camaraderie, and empathy. However, the most striking experience I took away from the group happened after that first meeting. A week later, the group organized a meal train for our family and, twice a week for six weeks, complete strangers showed up to my house with food for my family. I have told this story so many times and every time I say, without exaggeration, that this changed my life.

I grew up in the church, yet I don't believe I've ever seen a more pure expression of the love of Christ in action in my life than in those weeks. Strangers fed my family. Strangers, you guys! They didn't ask me to volunteer, join their church, donate to any cause, or even ask to sit down and chat. They showed up, dropped off great food, and left. Every time I think about it I tear up.

That experience became the foundation of my theology of hospitality. Food connects people, it shows love, extends kindness, offers blessing. It seems so small and insignificant, unless you're the over-tired mom staring down the barrel of three hangry kids and no dinner plan. To her, it's a lifeline.

Once I gained a little more capacity in my life, I began to put that theology into practice. Hospitality, more specifically food, is my ultimate love language. My response to every hard situation in life is to provide food or baked goods. Ask around. It's my knee-jerk response. Why? Because when I was drowning in the waves of life, someone fed my family so I could catch my breath. That act was so life-giving that I want to do that for others.

So, back to pigs in a blanket. We're in the midst of a few hectic weeks, nothing like those early days of parenting, but still challenging. This week my dear friend Christina took the time out of her busy life to drop off two meals to my family. Today's meal: mac and cheese and pigs in a blanket. It took me 30 seconds to serve to my children, and they loved it. My Middle Crazy prayed for the meal and thanked God for Miss Christina for making food for us. I just teared up again typing that.

Meeting basic needs does something to and for us. Hospitality is life-changing. Even when it looks like pigs and a blanket.

Thank you to all those wonderful people who were and are a part of the Replanted Ministry. You are a blessing. Thank you to my dear friend Christina and her family for loving us well. 

Much love from #thecrazyhouse tonight. Let me know if you need some comfort food. I've got you.

It Takes Time

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the day Little Man moved in with us and made us a family of five. That little boy is celebrating the day by puking his guts out. Subsequently I am celebrating by cleaning puke out of our mattress, his hair, my clothes, the rug, and anything else within spit radius. (Please feel free to feel simultaneously happy and grossed out for us.)

Tomorrow will start the new school year, something we've actually done with all three boys before. For the first time we're repeating life events with them. We've been school shopping before, met new teachers, signed them up for sports. It feels like we're starting to get into a rhythm, in some ways. But in many others we're still flying blind, and the constant refrain is "it takes time."

The adoption process takes time. We're getting there. We've been told by our adoption lawyer and our caseworker that it is very likely we can get it all wrapped up by the end of this year. We go to court again in mid-September and we will hopefully get some more details. We're excited for this process to come to a close, but when it does there are still other things that will take time.

The other day I told a friend that I'm happy that the first thing people think about my children is not "they are so traumatized," because that means that they are healing and their scars don't show all the time (we've come a long way from anxiety meltdowns in Target). But, those scars are there. And some things have to get worse before they can get better.

Healing is happening for them. The boys are trusting more and feeling secure as members of our family. But they have a long road ahead of them. Just because you can't see their scars doesn't mean they aren't there. Anxiety attacks and behavioral issues are still a regular part of our lives, but they aren't happening in a vacuum with no cause. These things are the effects of years of trauma.

Andy and I are fixers. We're constantly trying to figure out what we can do to help the boys learn, understand, process, heal. I'm researching, all the time, methods that we can implement to provide more felt security or to reduce anxiety. We want so badly to take this pain and confusion away. But the truth is, these things take time.

So, as much as it may seem like the Young household should be "business as usual" now after a year, our "usual" looks different from a lot of families, and it's just going to take time.

Thanks for continuing to pray for us, think about us, read this little blog, and ask us how it's going. We love and appreciate you all. 

There's an Army Man in my Medicine Cabinet

The last time I (Andy) posted anything on a blog was when Xanga was cool - so bear with me. I've been told that I write like I talk so feel free to respond and interact verbally while you read this.

The army man may or may not be mine but the fact remains that there is a an army man on the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet in our master bathroom and I didn't put it there. He's been there for at least a month a half and I don't see him retreating back to base camp anytime soon. It has been such a gigantic life change to go from being just the two of us to the now family of five that we are. (Wow! I still can barely believe it!)

I can't help but look back over the past ten months and try and list the hundreds of changes that have happened in our life. Bigger house, bigger car, more toys, the seemingly million appointments every month, lack of personal space, and the list goes on and on. But for every one change in our life there's a hundred for each of our boys. Between our three boys they have lived in eight different homes, they have attended three different school districts, they've had countless caregivers, and their list goes on and on and on.

These boys, our boys, are our life now. We can't remember what our life was like before them and we don't care to know. Of all the places they have lived ours is different because we will, God willing, be their last home as children. Ours is different because they are healing here. Ours is different because they can call us dad and mom. And one of the many things these boys need is to be somebody's life. They need to be in a place where they can leave toys everywhere because it's their house too. Building in basic security, that a lot of us got as kids growing up not even realizing it, is what we do most often with our boys.

This is what's been on my heart lately because this is a really tough part of foster care and adoption. It's easy to forget that the boys are stuck in survival mode sometimes and that makes it frustrating for us.

So here's an update on where we are at with our adoption process. We went to court today for what we thought was going to be a kind of pretrial. It was actually just a time to set up the termination hearing. It could have been more than that if the birth parents had decided that they wanted to voluntarily consent to our adoption. So now we await the termination hearing which lasts for a day and a half and its decided whether or not to terminate their parental rights. The birth parents can still consent as late as the day of the hearing.

This is a very strange and difficult spot for us and we would appreciate your prayers. Pray that we can navigate our feelings and have the wisdom to guide our precious and fragile boys through this process. Even though we try on our own too often, we know that God's plan will be the last say.

"Because I Always Come Back"

I know a lot of people are wondering what's going on since the hearing last month, so I want to give a brief update on that before I get to the thing I actually want to say. 

The short summary is that the boys' birth mom decided not to consent to our adoption, which means the case will go to trial for the termination of parental rights. The pre-trial is scheduled for late January. There will be another opportunity for the birth parents to consent to the adoption at pre-trial, but if that doesn't happen a termination hearing will be scheduled after that. We do not know how long it will take for this process to be complete, and after this process we have the adoption process to complete as well. It may be a long road, but we are in it for the long haul.

Also, for those who may interact with the boys, here's what they know: We love them very much, and we go to court to tell the judge how much we love them and how much we want them to be in our family forever. They obviously know that something went wrong in their birth home that made it so they couldn't live there. If you are ever around the boys when adoption or their birth family comes up, please, please do not speak negatively about their birth family. You also don't have to feel strange about it if they talk about anyone from their bio family in front of you -- this is their reality. Their family includes both their birth family and us, and it is not "off limits" to talk about their birth family or their life before they lived with us.

So there's an update on the legal process, and here's an update on our life in general...

There are a lot of emotional issues that we have to deal with, raising our boys who have experienced so much loss and trauma. I do a lot of research, a lot of planning, a lot of analyzing. We really try to be intentional with the way we parent the boys to address the heart issues of what is going on in their grief-ridden minds and hearts. Inevitably, however, things slip through the cracks. Moments pass by that could have been an excellent moment to reinforce healing or safety, and I totally miss them. But that's fine, because I'm human...and because I have a partner in this crazy thing called parenting. And my partner is a straight-up rockstar, and he seizes moments that I am too crazed or too distracted to see.

The boys experience a lot of anxiety when one or both of us has to go somewhere (let's be clear, if we both go somewhere there is a babysitter here with them). We always make sure to tell them where we are going, when we are coming back, what we are doing, etc, to prepare them for this disruption in their new-found stability. Still, this tends to rock them and leave them feeling upset.

Anyway, one evening Andy was getting ready to go to work (night shift, boo!) and Little Man was getting super upset about it, as per usual. And then, BAM!, my husband went into rockstar mode and turned this moment into an opportunity to speak love into our boys' deep insecurities. The conversation went like this:

Little Man: "DADDY, I NOT WANT YOU GO TO WORK!!!"
Andy: "I know, but I'm going to come back. You want to know why?"
LM: "Why?"
Andy: "Because I always come back."
LM: "Why?"
Andy: "Because I love you."

Because I always come back.

This may seem to be one of those things that goes without saying, but to our children, who have lived the majority of their lives with no stability at all, with ever-changing caregivers, with no concept of safety, this is a vitally important fact to communicate.

Since that day, we say this every day to our children, anytime we go somewhere without them. We have them repeat it back to us, so we know that they understand that we are coming back to them, that we care for them, and that we will be here to keep them safe.

This has certainly not erased all of their anxiety, but it has gone a long way to encourage their growing trust in us, which is a great step.

Emotional Container

Parenting is exhausting. So. Very. Exhausting.

I'm pretty sure no parent is going to argue with me on that. There are many exhausting things about being a parent.

Never-ending dishes from 5 people.

Toys. Oh, so many toys. Everywhere.

Constant refereeing.

The mountain of laundry that comes from having 3 little boys...the majority of whom wet the bed, nightly.

The ceaseless effort that goes into trying to raise them to be somewhat well-functioning beings.

Never sleeping in. Ever. Ever.

Yes, all of these things (and many many more) are what makes parenting exhausting many days.

But then there are those days. Days where "exhausting" doesn't even being to describe the day we've had, or how spent I feel. No, some days leave me far more than exhausted, they leave me weary.

Yesterday was just such a day. We've had many days like this. Sometimes it's because several of the many (many) appointments we have to schedule regularly happen to fall within the same 48 hours, and then, just for fun, all the boys decide to lose their minds. Other times, it may be because one of the boys is working through something difficult that we can't see, which sends him into a frenzy over the purple-ness of the berries in his cereal, which somehow today are much more purple than the every other day (yes, this actually happened). Sometimes it's a school thing, sometimes it's a trauma thing, sometimes it's a birth mom thing, sometimes it's a brother thing.

Well yesterday it was like an everything thing. It started at school -- complete defiance. All day long. Then it escalated at home into the mother of all tantrums (several hours of screaming, stomping, kicking, crying, insults, drawing on the walls, etc).

Lucky for us (and not so lucky for the babysitter), we had to go to a foster care training last night, after the worst of the tantrum was over, but before we had a chance to talk him through it. It was perfect timing in fact, because the training we are currently taking is to help better understand and respond to children who have experienced trauma.

This class is gold. There are so many helpful insights. But one thing in particular stuck out to me last night. One of the trainers, who is a former case worker as well as a seasoned foster and adoptive mom, said that foster and adoptive parents of children who have experienced trauma need to be emotional containers for their children. This means providing a safe environment where the children can feel and express the entire range of complicated emotions that comes with repeated trauma.

Often, my children respond in ways that don't seem to make any sense in a situation, or seem like gross overreactions, at best. But, then I remind myself of the things we know they've experienced, and I cannot begin to relate to what is going on in their minds because of the fact that they view the world through trauma-tainted glasses.

Being an emotional container is wearying. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But, if I do not allow my children to feel whatever they feel about what has been done to them (while teaching them appropriate alternatives to expressing those emotions), I am only solidifying in their minds the messages that their trauma has piled up in them -- you're worthless, no one loves you, you are not important.

I refuse to speak one more negative message into the lives of my precious children. So, we battle on through the hardest days. We brace ourselves, as emotional containers, for the onslaught of emotional vomit that has come as a result of years and years of trauma. And at the end of the day, we are weary. But I also know where I can find Rest for my soul and where I can find strength to do it all again tomorrow.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Homework and Heartache -- Timeline

"Create a timeline with five events from your life. List the year the event took place."

I was born 1986

I graduated from high school 2004

I graduated from college 2007

I got married 2007

I became a foster parent 2013

Simple Enough.

Except if you're a foster kid.

This is the homework I helped S with last Sunday evening after we got home from our 48-hour "vacation" in Michigan (their first vacation ever). I quickly thought of a few neutral, at-best, events to suggest (ex: "I moved"). Before I went into damage-control mode, S thought for a few seconds and then came up with the only event he could think of to add to his timeline, "Our vacation to Michigan."

While he finished his timeline, I finished my mini-breakdown in my bedroom, and Andy explained that "Mama is crying because she just loves you so much!"

When S was done, his timeline consisted of the day he was born, playing on a baseball team last year, the two times he moved in the last two years, and our "vacation." The last four events on this timeline happened all in a span of 2 years. That school project was a heartbreaking reminder to me that my son has few fond memories from the first seven years of his life.

Foster parenting is no joke. It is crazy hard. Parenting these boys is super challenging. They have experienced so much trauma, and that manifests itself in their behaviors. Some days S drives me bonkers, but then there is a moment like the timeline thing, and the fact that this kid has had more painful experiences in his 9 years than most adults hits me again...and again.

There's no real solution to this, no happy ending for now. All we can do is love these boys hard through the pain and all that comes with it.

We would really appreciate your prayers as we walk alongside our boys as they navigate through their confusing experiences and try to heal.

Thanks for your continued prayers!