Summer mode has completely taken over me. I know I’m not the only teacher who feels this way. I am completely unmotivated to do anything productive. All I want to do is swim, lay in the sun while listening to Chris Stapleton until my skin wrinkles, read endless amounts of books, watch tawdry reality shows, and sip on margaritas. As of now, I have three (soon to be four) baskets of clean laundry that has been waiting to be folded and put away since last week, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do. I have better things to do! I was very productive yesterday though: I drove to the store and sat in the car as one of their employees loaded the groceries I ordered online. Thank you HEB Curbside!

We are STILL going through the process it takes to get another group of kids. The state seems to add new requirements each year, so it is taking time to do the additional trainings and have someone inspect the house that works with everyone’s schedule. To tell you the truth, I don’t feel rushed to do it and I feel guilty about it.

Foster parenting is not like normal parenting. With all the guidelines you have to follow, there are seemingly endless appointments you have to bring each child to and each may have a different schedule of appointments. You may have one child that has to go to play therapy on Monday, another for a physical on Tuesday, and then supervised visits on Wednesday followed by a court appointment on Thursday, and then the case worker wants to come to your house on Friday. In between you are on constantly on the phone, probably because the doctors CPS tells you to go to don’t take the medical insurance the state provides foster children with, and then you FINALLY find doctors that do…only to find that most of them are an hour away.

And no, as a foster parent you don’t have a say in any of it. If you don’t do these things within the timeline the state tells you, you can get fined and have your foster license taken away which doesn’t look good on your record if you want to adopt one day.

And yet they complain that not enough people want to become foster parents.

I know my husband and I are doing a good thing, dear reader, but it’s beyond difficult to have a normal parent life when the state is involved. It’s worth it though.