I had the Driveway Dancer Katie drew last fall framed and it now hangs in the living room. This is not a particularly good picture of this picture as the glare makes it look like there’s a bend in the upper left corner. Ah, well, that’s how it goes.

I love the Driveway Dancer.

And tonight the artist needed to know I love her. The girls are bending over backwards to love and care for the new little guy in our house right now and sometimes it is to the hurt of each other. They clamor to hold him, to buckle him in his car seat, to give him a bath, to…everything. And in their desire to help, it moves towards selfishness. Yes, even in our good we are all still bad.

My kids have all long grown out of my ability to carry them up the stairs or rock them to sleep. They don’t need me to bathe them anymore. They read their own bedtime stories. But tonight as I was kissing Katie and Millie goodnight Katie asked me if I would lie down with them for a little like I used to. And I paused for a moment because I was in the middle of switching over laundry when I came upstairs for another basketful, but then I figured if the laundry had waited this long, what was another bit of time? And I turned out the light and climbed into bed with my two youngest who happen to be 9 and almost 11.

When we agreed to enter into the foster parenting process it wasn’t without very careful thought to and about the four children already in our care and keeping. It is because of our own kids we decided to limit our fostering to the 3 and under age group (though I think we can be asked for 6 and under and will consider it if they ask). Our hearts are to help, but not to the devastation of our biological kids. We want to teach them to have hearts for the hopeless as well, but there’s a line we’ve seen blurred in other families that has caused heartache in the home. We trust God in all of this. We also feel the need to set some parameters to how we go about this.

And yes, I fully realize there are older kids in the system desperately in need of homes and families too and perhaps God will call us to that at some point in the future, but I’m thinking if that time comes we will be much further down the road and our kids much older.

Fostering is important. There’s no doubt in my mind that having Craig rock our 3yo to sleep tonight as opposed to him being in the shelter is the right thing. Parenting our own kids in the midst of all of this is also important. I don’t want to lose sight of that. For them or for me.