catching up, and a story

So many things have happened in the last few months that getting stung by a scorpion, something that should rate an epic post based on my past history of talking about every critter I encounter, seems unimportant.

So let's start.

I passed my boards in December (thank goodness, now I have another 10 years to forget everything I learned again).

We also learned in December that our little Babes, who had been with us a year and a half, would probably be heading back to his family soon.  Then early in January we got the call, and he headed to his new (old) home.

Because of privacy concerns, I have never talked about being foster parents here on the blog.  We probably won't be getting into another long-term fostering situation any time soon,  so I feel like I can be a bit more open about things.  And maybe I can be a source of information for others who are interested in learning more, because there really isn't a lot out there about Belize's system.

Belize's foster system is probably a lot like every country's, in that it is government run and holy cow it can be super frustrating to try and work with the system.   It's just a fact, and anyone who wants to get into fostering needs to know that up front, and have a really solid reason to become foster parents, because sometimes you will need to repeat that reason like a mantra to keep from poking your eyes out with a spoon in frustration.  We decided to become foster parents as a sort of ministry, I guess you could say.  I am trained in health care but am unable to work in Belize, and I wanted to find another area to serve.  I've already worked with teenagers, and I felt like my husband and I could offer something to the littlest needy ones. So we signed up to foster children two and under (we figured we could squish a couple of tiny ones into our tiny house :)  There is a process of interviews and paperwork to go through, and then they called and asked if we could take our Babes.  We said yes.

We saw him grow from a shy little baby, to a giggling crawler, to a tantrum-throwing 2-year-old, to a confident, crazy, athletic, and caring little boy.

And then we had to let him go.

In Belize there aren't enough foster parents, so those kiddos who can't stay with their families are put in children's homes, which unfortunately tend to be overcrowded. I can't imagine the challenges of running a children's home, and I'm sure those in charge do their best.  But I believe that if it is possible, a child should be with a family.  That is what we think about when we are sad about our little guy.  We gave him a family when he needed one.  We accept the sadness as our price to pay for his comfort and safety and happiness.

We are still foster parents, but we have chosen to move towards adoption and foster-to-adopt for the moment.  Perhaps in a few more years we will go back to long term fostering.

As for the scorpion sting.... short story is it was in my closet, on my skirt, and stung my STOMACH when I went to put the skirt on.  It felt like a needle punched into my belly.  I panicked and googled and then was quite relieved to find out that scorpions here aren't much more dangerous then a bee sting.  My lips did go numb for 4 hours though...

This update is not over, more to come....