Mommy to Three for a time

I am finding out that being a mommy to three kids is kind of crazy! Literally - especially when they are all three years old and under... I am beginning to see the wisdom in spacing your kids out a bit LOL!

We have been so blessed to have had help from my family for the first full week of having three kids. It helps to have adults outnumber children - since generally with two parents and three kids that isn't the case.

We plan on leaving Ohio in the next couple days though, so we will be back to being on our own. We are not sure how long we will remain a family of five though. It seems that we may be changing back into a family of four.

For those who are wondering, that comes with mixed feelings. Being a foster family, you are aware that you could only have children for a time. So it doesn't come as a shock, but there are definitely feelings of concern for the next stops in the children's lives, how they will grow and develop, will anyone keep teaching them about Jesus, ect.

Honestly, I think that having some time as a mommy of two kids before number three comes along might be a better plan for me. I am truthfully a bit overwhelmed with three tiny ones to care for. But I really do love being a mommy, and I am thankful for the children God has entrusted to us, even if it is for a very short time.

We are learning a lot about parenting. It seems when you have one child, you can let a lot of discipline issues go because they don't affect you as much as they do when more kids are in the picture. So we are beefing up our teaching on immediate obedience especially. But we have been blessed with wonderful kids who really respond well to training.

We are thinking for now, if we go back down to two kids that we are going to stay that way for a while. When our foster license comes up for renewal, we may go ahead and renew just for legal risk adoption. We aren't sure that we want to foster anymore - unless the children are far smaller than Austin. We have realized that it is very important to monitor the possible things that enter your home that can have a profound effect on your present children.

We think that maybe when our kids are grown, we will invest in spending our lives with foster children. We will have the experience and the time. Right now, we have neither. We are hoping for more children in the future, but it seems fine with me to only have two for the present - if things change. And we don't want to spend the money for a mini-van just yet ;)