Full House

Hey! Great news! We are now providing care for two wonderful children as their foster parents for a while. And so far, so good.

And there is kind of a fun story that goes along with this news, a story that starts long before we knew we would be having two foster kids...

It seemed like a good idea at the time. "Sure," we said to my parents, "We'll watch your dog for you while you go on vacation." After all, she is a big, old, slow dog who doesn't do much but lie around the house all day. No sweat.

So then, when my brother called, asking if we would watch his dog for the weekend, the same weekend we were watching my parents dog, we thought we could handle it. His dog is a ... hmm ... how to put this delicately? ... smidge more hyperactive, shall we say. But for just a weekend, we can do that. "Sure, B. Bring her on over."

Then he calls back, "Umm ... do you think you guys maybe could watch her for three or four more days? Our plans have changed." With a bit of hesitation, we say, "Uh, okay." Now, you have to understand that when I say the dog is a smidge more hyperactive than most dogs, I mean she is absolutely insane.

So we were to have four dogs in the house, our two plus the two we were watching. One of our dogs is in the old-and-not-very-active category, and one is a-smidge-more-hyperactive. Not absolutely insane like my brother's dog, but up there. But we would be fine - a little crazy, but fine.

So that, of course, is when we got a call from a case worker, wondering if we might have two foster kids come to live with us. It was the call for which we have been waiting these past four months, so of course we said "YES!" And we had the pre-placement visit which went very well, so two days later, here they are! And they are absolutely wonderful. They have seen and experienced way too much in their short lives, and we are all taking our time about getting to know one another, learning to trust each other, and basically figuring each other out.

Thus we are currently housing two grown-ups, four children, and four dogs, two of whom are a smidge hyperactive. Of course, this is also the week my grandparents are moving from North Carolina to Dallas, and a bunch of stuff from their house will be coming to our house in Kansas City next Monday, some to stay and some for temporary storage. Plus I caught a nasty summer cold that kept me home Wednesday, we have four church people in the hospital I need to keep tabs on, and a funeral set for next Monday morning. Other than that, not much going on!

It's all good! We are still smiling, at least at the moment. But the last week of July, 2006, will go down in Bryan family history as quite a remarkable week, to be sure.