Over the last few months, we have settled into life with 4 kids. Our newborn isn't so new anymore and we're getting the hang of having a kid in school. A couple weekends ago though, we changed things up a bit. We agreed to do respite for another foster family (the couple wanted to go out of town for their anniversary; how could we say no?). When we agreed to this, we thought we'd have 6 kids for 1 of the two nights, but happily it turned out that Pumpkin and Sissy's overnight visit was for 2 nights instead of 1. So there was only a 1/2 hour overlap when we had all 6 kids.
The respite kiddos we had for the weekend were Ay (6) and Al (5 months). Ethan really enjoyed having another boy to play with, and Taz enjoyed having a kid closer to her age to play with, so it was a win-win for both of them. It was nice for us to, because somehow by adding a third kid to the mix, the kids played really well on their own. I guess it's nice to have a new playmate every once in awhile.
Al was a pretty chill baby. It's amazing how much more he could do than Pumpkin, being 2 months older. The one thing we did not enjoy at all was his sleep, or lack thereof. We were told by his regular foster mom that he only woke up once a night around 3am or 4am. Well, for us on the first night he slept until about 2am, then woke up about once every hour after that, though he didn't need to be fed until after 7am. Each time he woke up he fell back asleep on his own, before I could get to him. The next night was a bit worse in he needed to be fed once in the middle of the night and still woke up about once every hour after that. Each time he woke up he needed his pacifier put back in his mouth. Poor baby (and poor us!); having to adjust to a new place must be hard.
Other than the lack of sleep, we enjoyed having Ay and Al stay with us. Ay had a bit of a hard time when he had to leave. I think he really liked staying with us, probably because he doesn't have any playmates in his regular foster home. When they left, we thought we'd probably never see them again...
...but we were wrong. This last weekend we were asked to watch them again just for one night due to a medical emergency with his foster parent. As hard as it was to say yes knowing that we'd likely get very little sleep again (especially since we were so looking forward to a full night's sleep with Sissy and Pumpkin gone on their overnight weekend visit), we knew it'd be a lot easier for Ay and Al to stay with us and not have to adjust to a complete stranger's home for 1 night.
It was a short stay, but mostly enjoyable. Ay was so excited to be back and the kids had a blast playing together all morning on Saturday. Al, as expected, slept terribly. Even worse than before, actually. Once he woke up and was fed at 3am, it took him 2 hours to fall back asleep. But we took turns tending to him and survived.
It's been awhile since we've done respite (with 4 kids we haven't even be asked in months) and even though it was a bit of a sacrifice, I'm glad we were able to help out (both the kids and their foster parents). I'm glad we had the extra beds and time to take those kids in; Heavenly Father has blessed us so much and we're blessed to be able to share what we have with others.
