Foster Friday: Planning for Balance

I have mentioned many times my love of planning.  There is just something about knowing what is happening and being able to see it in a spreadsheet that makes me happy inside!  Hell, I enjoy just making the plan.  Actually, I really enjoy just about anything with a spreadsheet.  I digress.  Since we are licensed (woo-hoo!), we now are trying to figure out how to plan for the unknown.  It does seem pretty obvious that we would get to the awkward point of teatering between no kids and kids.  But I think the reality really hit me when our license was finalized.  Before the arrival of the kid(s) was in the future.  Sometimes distant future.  Sometimes short-term future.  But with our new title of "Licensed Foster Parents" the kid(s) could be here now.  Like right now.  Can't finish this post because we need to go get the kid(s) now.  NOW.

And because I'm excited about what's around the corner, it makes it harder to continue to plans our lives as usual, without kids.  Sure it is what is our "normal".  But I don't want that normal anymore.  I want the new normal that is going to be complete chaos with hopefully some fun here and there.  The flipside of course is that I don't want to put our lives on hold either.  There is more to me than being an almost-foster-mom.  And once I am a foster mom, there will still be many other titles that I will be proud of.  Wife.  Friend.  Daughter.  Sister.  Accountant (can't forget those spreadsheets).  I guess this is our first lesson in balancing our many roles in life.  Be ready and available for the kid(s) while still staying true to who we are today.  Even if we are super excited  about who we are about to come!

Is it bad that I want to say that things are slow moving in our foster parenting world?  Last week I said that and then we found out we were licensed.  So maybe me mentioning the slow pace of things this week will make that call come a little sooner.