To Foster, or Not

I have mentally written about 5 posts since the last one, but none of them ever seem to make it onto the blog.  Not sure why that happens. 

We have had quite the December.  I went on a girl's day trip to NYC, Rocky started his new job (and new commute), I got sick, Caden got sick, and now Ciara is sick.  I went to a Secret Sister gift swap, 2 cookie exchanges, and have been frantically finishing some baby books I am making for friends and family. 

Lately, fostering has been on my mind.  We (my extended family included) are sponsoring some children from Christmas (by sponsoring, I mean buying presents, and food, and anything else they need). 

One of them is a 14 year old foster child.  On his wish list, he listed fruit.  He doesn't ask his foster parents for it because it is too expensive.  For some reason, that really struck a chord with me.  It almost made me cry.  (I get pretty emotional around the holidays.) 

I have a pretty strong feeling that our family is complete, in that we will not be having anymore children.  Although now that I have put it in writing, some miraculous surprise is probably going to happen.

Seeing how much these kids need, compared to how much we have, I feel like we could do some good.  I argue with myself about fostering in general.  You hear all sorts of horrible stories about how fostering can go terribly wrong, and I do have my own 2 kids to worry about. 

But what about the good stories?  Foster kids are not throw-away kids. 

Then I worry about the kind of influence that a foster child might have on my kids.

To that, I try to think of the influence my FAMILY might have on an otherwise forgotten child.

There are way to many arguments for and against this to write down.

I have discussed it with Rocky, and he is not enthusiastic, but he hasn't ruled it out.  I think he is very concerned about what it could mean for our current kids.  He will be much more willing when they get a little older, I believe. 

For now, I hope that our 7 year old boy and 14 year old boy will have a wonderful Christmas. 

We may not be able to purchase everything you have requested, but we are sure going to try!