A day of RESPITE

res·pite/ˈrespət/

Noun:

A short period of rest or relief from something difficult or unpleasant. Good Golly that sounds horrible but this is what we had Saturday.  As many of you know we are in the midst of fostering to adopt three remarkable boys.  D7, W5 and J4.  They are a handful and we also have 4 previously adopted children Mr. E16, Gman14 and the twinklies who are 13. A few weeks ago, exhaustion and just plain worn out mom and the Bigs(my name for the teens) were ready to quit, cry and raise the flag of surrender.  Thankfully, my awesome hubby reacts with less emotions than me.  Yeah, it was a bit rough, yeah the situation gets a bit intense more times than we would like and the memories of before the Littles was dancing like sugar plums in our heads. Quitting is NOT an option, but a day of rest or relief was and through organization and planning (getting people off from work), and a family that are foster licensed and would have the means to take in 3 boys for the day happened! Saturday, we brought the Littles to a meeting place where the fabulous foster family took them off for a day of football, snacks, outdoor running around, horseback rides and pure joyful time.  None of the Littles even napped! That was huge!  They went all day, I mean all day. We drove to pick them up at 8pm, and I told them they needed a bath, and D7 says, "oh can I please go first Mom, I am so tired, I just want to go to bed!"  We did speed baths and they were asleep before their little heads hit the pillow. The Bigs, along with Mom and Dad spent the day together, we went out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and shopped in Cruces, and just spent money and time together.  It was so refreshing not to have to watch over little brothers or herd them here and there.  But they were missed. The drive home down the mountain was beyond good.  I got glow sticks for everyone, and it was good.