lovemakesroom

If you want to know what foster parenting really looks like, don’t look at the posed family photos.

Look at the calendar.

No seriously.

Open the calendar app of a foster parent and you’ll see enough color-coded emotional damage to send an organized person directly into cardiac arrest.

Therapy.
Sibling visitation.
CASA visits.
Doctor appointments.
ENT consultations.
Travel time.
School schedules.
Behavioral support.
More therapy.
Court-related meetings.
Medication reminders.
Group sessions.
Visitation transportation.
Follow-up appointments.

And somehow somewhere in the middle of all that?
You’re also supposed to remember spirit days, wash tiny socks, thaw chicken for dinner, sign school papers, emotionally regulate yourself and convince a three-year-old that pants are not a government conspiracy.

Welcome to foster care.

Or at least… welcome to our May.

May 17th – May 27th: The Stretch That Took Me Out

I’m pretty sure these ten days aged me approximately seven years.

At one point I looked at our calendar and genuinely wondered if we accidentally enrolled ourselves in a competitive sport.

Every day had something.
Most days had multiple things.
Several days had overlapping things because apparently children cannot simply have appointments one at a time like civilized people.

One child had therapy while another had medical appointments.
One needed emotional decompression after visits.
One needed extra reassurance before bedtime.
One needed snuggles.
One needed space.
One needed structure.
One needed repeated reminders that yes, we do in fact wear underwear with jeans.

And all of them needed consistency.

That’s the part people don’t fully understand about foster care.

The appointments aren’t the hard part.

The emotional carrying is.

Because trauma doesn’t politely stay inside designated therapy hours.

It shows up at bedtime.
At dinnertime.
In transitions.
In overstimulation.
In panic.
In control battles.
In hypervigilance.
In meltdowns over seemingly tiny things.

And as foster parents, we become part parent, part chauffeur, part scheduler, part therapist, part detective, part emotional support human, and part snack distributor.

Honestly, snacks are carrying at least 40% of this operation.

The Calendar Was Chaos… But the Bedtime Photos Told a Different Story

Somewhere in the middle of the madness, I walked into the bedroom and saw this little boy asleep in our giant bed.

Curled up under oversized blankets.
Stuffed puppy tucked beside him.
Completely knocked out.

And I just stood there staring.

Because children who don’t feel safe don’t sleep like that.

Trauma changes sleep.
It changes nervous systems.
It changes how deeply a child can relax.

Kids from hard places often sleep lightly.
Restlessly.
Defensively.

So seeing him absolutely passed out in the middle of this giant fluffy cloud of blankets honestly hit me harder than I expected.

Because while the calendar looked overwhelming…
the bedroom looked peaceful.

And suddenly it clicked.

The chaos is part of the healing.

The endless appointments.
The driving.
The routines.
The consistency.
The showing up over and over and over again…

That’s what creates safety.

The safe sleep doesn’t happen accidentally.

It’s built.

Built through bedtime routines.
Built through consistency.
Built through showing up.
Built through emotional regulation.
Built through hard conversations.
Built through snacks, structure, and seventeen reminders to use gentle hands.

Foster Care Is Weirdly Both Beautiful and Completely Unhinged

One morning the kids woke up before 6:30 AM and started an entire dance party with Alexa.

Another day involved multiple doctor appointments stacked practically on top of each other.

Another included sibling visitation and all the emotional waves that come with it.

Another involved trying to coordinate work schedules while simultaneously emotionally supporting multiple children with completely different needs.

And somewhere in there I’m also:

• buying groceries,
• attempting laundry,
• stepping on tiny shoes,
• reheating the same coffee six times,
• and wondering why nobody warned me how sticky small children are.

Like honestly…
why is everything sticky?

The Emotional Side Nobody Talks About Enough

People love to say foster parents are superheroes.

Respectfully…
absolutely not.

Most of us are just exhausted adults trying our best while operating on caffeine, Google Calendar notifications, and pure stubbornness.

Some days I feel incredibly capable.

Other days I stare into space while holding a fruit snack wrapper wondering if I’ve entered my villain origin story.

But I think what matters most is this:

We keep showing up.

Even when we’re tired.
Even when the schedules are overwhelming.
Even when we’re emotionally stretched thin.
Even when we have no clue what we’re doing.

Because consistency matters more than perfection ever will.

And healing rarely looks dramatic.

Most healing looks like:

• safe sleep,
• calmer mornings,
• deeper laughter,
• fewer survival behaviors,
• routines becoming trusted,
• and children slowly learning they don’t have to stay in fight-or-flight mode all the time.

That kind of healing is quiet.

But it’s powerful.

The Truth About This Season

This season is hard.

Beautiful.
Meaningful.
Chaotic.
Exhausting.
Sacred.
Loud.
Tender.
Overstimulating.
Funny.
Heavy.

Sometimes all within the same fifteen minutes.

But when I look back at these ten days, I don’t just see the appointments.

I see connection.

I see trust being built.

I see kids beginning to exhale.

And honestly?

That makes every single chaotic calendar notification worth it.