Random thoughts

I have several well-ordered, interesting topics for blog entries percolating, but I don't have time to write them today.  So instead, here are a sample of the things on my mind.

Naps.  Is Esther ready to give them up?  Over the past few months she has sometimes taken a long time to fall asleep at naptime, and/or bedtime.  On Monday she didn't take a nap at all, despite two attempts, and did not appear to need one.  At first I was alarmed.  Then I thought, "Wait a minute, if she doesn't nap, I can put her to bed earlier at night, she might stop waking up at 5 in the morning asking to come into our bed, I won't have to lie down with her two times a day to help her fall asleep, and the end result would be that I get more sleep myself and spend less time doing nothing.  Brilliant!"  Then the next four days she took a nap, and obviously needed it.  So I guess we're in that in-between phase where she needs a nap some days and doesn't some days, and I will never know which is which until she either falls asleep or doesn't.  Sigh.

I posted a comment on another mother's blog the other day and signed it, "Mom to another aging-out boy...." I didn't realize until a little later that I had signed it in the present tense.  I guess this adoption is feeling pretty real!

Remember how our home study agency required us to become an accredited foster care family for our state? Well, we have been asked to do respite care for a 12-year-old girl whose foster family is going out of town for a week and can't take her with them.  We said yes!  It was absolute perfect timing--probably the only week this spring we could have done it, actually--and we certainly want to help other families out.  Still, it is a step out of our comfort zone.  I spent yesterday trying to wrap my brain around the fact that we had actually agreed to do it.  It shouldn't be nearly as challenging as our first weeks with our son, especially since she will be in school during the day--but you expect to make major investments of time and energy in a relationship that is going to last a lifetime.  It's a little weirder to do it with a child you have no connection to.  Now, though, I'm getting a little excited.  I don't know much about the girl yet except that her foster family (who have toddlers in the home) haven't seen any concerning behavioral issues during the time she's been with them.  Her foster mom is going to call and talk with me early next week.

I'm getting to write in the blog now because Tim and Esther are out getting gas and "maybe stopping by the dollar store while we're at it."  Esther has been telling me lately something about buying a present at the dollar store and hiding it.  But I really shouldn't be telling you that, because it's a secret.  ;-)