Survival mode

It's been six days since a new little person came to stay with us.

It's also been six days since I've slept through the night.

When I don't get enough sleep, I get cranky.

Tonight, after a 3-hour meeting at DSS, four different drop-off and pick-ups, and five total hours of driving all over the universe in my van full of kids.... I came to a boiling point. I had a little breakdown. I declared DONE. I put myself to bed and locked the door, and left Mike to deal with it.

And then came the guilt.

My 12yo is picking up the slack. She was cleaning up in the kitchen until an hour past her bedtime.
My 8yo is constantly asking, "What can I do to help you, Mommy? Is there anything you need right now?"
My 6yo is talking less and whining like a baby more. Regression?
And the baby is getting far less attention than he should.

This child and her special needs are far beyond anything that was covered in our foster parent training. This child needs therapeutic care. The funny thing is, somehow "this case doesn't qualify as therapeutic." I am at my wit's end! I can't do allll the things.

We are constantly in survival mode these days. (Or as Mike says, constantly "putting out fires.")

In my head, as the day goes along, I am triaging: What is essential? What can I cut out of my day? How can I par down something, in order to make this workload manageable? But sometimes I can't manage it. And there are never enough hours in the day to do all of the things on the list.

Something's got to give.
,
Today, that something is me.

On the way home from school this afternoon, my oldest asked how long this newest placement was going to stay."Do you think it will be a few more days, or a few more weeks? Or maybe a couple of months?"

I don't know, child. I really don't know.
I don't know how much longer I can go on like this.

At the same time, I don't want to be a quitter. I don't want to give up on this child after a few days. I don't want to be the one who disrupts a placement, just because it is hard. This child has already been through plenty of hard things. Why should we make her move again, just when she's beginning to get used to us?

I guess I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and see what God does with our tangled-up mess tomorrow.