I’m not a tangible gift person, plus I am very practical. My dh loves buying gifts that are somewhat frivolous and (for me) expensive. For years, he’s tried so hard to buy me things...clothes, jewelry, tech things, flowers. I appreciate his efforts, but truly this year he nailed it. We have a foster baby who’s mama is in a rehab facility and she is rocking her case plan and is about to be reunited with her darling baby. I am so beyond proud of her and her tremendous work at getting healthy for her kiddos. The facility she’s in is truly wonderful and nurturing and helping mamas and kids stay together. This year, I felt he really heard me. He gave a donation to the non-profit facility in my name. It means so, so much to me that he did that, even though he will never truly understand how it touched me. I cried reading his card. We got our girls concert tickets to Billie Eilish, and I’ll be taking them to a neighboring state for a girls weekend for that. They were squealing and shrieking with excitement. It was magical!

I saw the clip a few days ago...no. Just no. And he has three very young children. They have seen videos on it when their dad watches them. It’s sick and disturbing and I’m floored is legal.

My dd really wants to go to a hybrid next year. We have toured one that’s promising, but it’s almost an hour away. Driving her there twice a week isn’t horrible, but I’m afraid any friendships made there will be limited because of the distance, as far as hanging out socially. There is one five minutes from us, which we plan to tour tomorrow. My concern is that I identify as agnostic, and the hybrid is most definitely evangelical. They use BJU texts. At first glance, I’m really put off by the reviews...it seems very conservative, which we are not. I’m most worried about science and history. We believe in evolution and I do not want a white washed history point of view. I wanted to know just how bad these subjects are, and what I should be prepared for. From my understanding, they use those as a jumping off point, but still, I am concerned. Has anyone used these texts in high school and would you be willing to give me any advice on what to look for or counter? I want her to be well prepared for college, which means a solid understanding of science and history. Thanks in advance!

We just went to Fiji for about three weeks. It was the most incredible place I’ve ever been! Not only beautiful scenery, but beautiful people. They took us under their wing and we made some wonderful friendships there. We are saving up to go back in a few years.

We’ve been fostering for two and a half years. Three placements, all newborns. Two of them stayed until their first birthday. It was easier when they were tiny and slept a lot. On average, every month we had 3 caseworker visits, 3 medical appointments (including therapies), an attorney, a CASA, and a child advocate visits in the home. Every week, the transporter picked them up for a two hour visit. And once a year we would get audited-basically a thorough check of our home for safety violations. Every month I have to take them to our fostering agency for a visit there. There are court hearings every three months. One of our babies had to be readmitted to the NICU for ten days, which meant I was driving an hour away to be with him and finding care for my three children while I was there. Another one had several appointments at the children’s hospital, again an hour away. Every month we fill out pages of paperwork. You don’t know what kind of social worker you’ll be dealing with-whether they will be available to you for questions or whether they’ll really be advocating for the child in the way you feel is best. As a foster parent, you get zero say in the outcome of the case, are expected to be practically perfect and willing to do anything your case worker asks of you. Some case workers are more judgemental about how you do things, and you may feel under the microscope with them. It’s a lot, I won’t lie. But it is SO worth it. 100%. We are taking a short break right now, as our latest baby went home two days ago after being here a year, and we are all grieving. However, we all feel we will do it again. We’ve been incredibly lucky to have great people on our team, and we’ve made great efforts to continue to stay in contact with all of our bonus babies and their families as resource parents and friends. They’ve been so gracious in allowing us that contact and welcoming us into their lives. In return, we have expanded our ‘family’ to include their families. Foster care can be bittersweet and heartbreaking, but it can also be beautiful and humbling. I cant tell you if it’ll be too much. I can say it feels overwhelming at times, and it will extend you past the point you thought you could handle at times. Best of luck to you and your family as you embark on this journey. As for the practicalities of homeschooling, it will be different in each stage-your kids are younger and will need one on one time with you for school, but will also be able to finish school in a relatively short amount of time. While they may not be able to help much as far as baby care goes, they can certainly entertain baby while you work with the other child in the next room. My girls were 6, 8, and 10 when we started, and they have been a tremendous help. Once the babies were mobile, I usually sent one off to work independently, worked with another at the table, and had the third sit in the play pen with baby. They could hold or feed the baby with me nearby, or could get them up from a nap and bring them to me. Some times our best laid plans went out the window, but for the most part, we got school stuff done. Hope that helps!

Here is what I have so far. Math-CLE 5, extra Word Problems workbook once a week History, Poetry, Literature, Reading, Narration, Dictation, Grammar, Spelling-Build Your Library 5th grade Writing-Cover Story Science-Elemental Earth Science and Astronomy (BYL has anatomy written in, but since we did that last year, I’m subbing the science) Vocabulary-Marie’s Words, BYL, and an analogies book I found at the convention Logic-workbook from Critical Thinking Company Extra Curriculars-gymnastics (she’s there 16 hours a week right now, that may go up soon), ukulele, and drama class. I’m also looking for a ballet class that we can fit in our schedule, but I’m not having much luck.

I got that one! And several others...I couldn’t resist. They are so pretty!