FREE, FRESH, *ORGANIC* PRODUCE!!!!
We received two trays of juicy blueberries, a dozen perfect Granny Smith apples, four pounds of sweet kiwi, a flat of big, ripe mangoes and a half dozen sumptuous Roma tomatoes on the vine! It was like Christmas, or Thanksgiving really. Oh, and we also received a CASE {twelve boxes of 4} of 365 brand {Whole Foods} mango frozen fruit bars, which are sooo delish. It was fantastic!
Each foster family is eligible for 150 pounds of food each month for *each* foster child who is in their care. We didn't think we would qualify until Tomorrow was eating solids, but we do! It's a wonderful way to help offset all of the costs associated with raising a foster child. And for us, a lot of the costs seem to creep up on us all at once, sort of like Tomorrow. Like last month, in which we needed to buy clothes in the next size up, feeding bibs, high chair, mesh self-feeders, and safety gates that we needed pretty much all at once, in addition to formula that's $60 a can, et cetera.
Anyway, we figured that the food from the food bank would be less than fresh or just not of good quality, so we were very pleasantly surprised to find that it is such fresh, high quality food. The items available are different every month as they are items that have been donated because they didn't sell well or were mislabeled or mispackaged, and so on. Thus, it will be interesting to see what is available to us each month. And it's good to get something extra for the work we're doing.
Mike is also helping to streamline the foster parent association's food bank ordering process by revising the spreadsheets they have been using, so today we went to the home of another foster family who coordinates one of the monthly food bank days.
The couple has SEVEN children~ including THREE sibling groups of two!! They have adopted FOUR of them. We met six of the seven children and they were all adorable, obviously very loved, and well-mannered. They played well with our children, and the younger ones actually seemed to bond quite a bit which was amazing and sweet to watch.
They adopted their youngest daughter who is Native American this past November, and they have had her with them since she was only 4 days old, so it was inspiring to hear their story and see their beautiful, living example of foster-adoption. She was born addicted to cocaine and did not even roll over until she was 11 months old, but you would never know it if you met her today. She met us at the door with a great big smile and welcomed us inside. She stayed pretty close to me~ I think because I was wearing Tomorrow who took a nap in the carrier~ and she kept saying "baby, baby!" and jumping up and down and running back and forth and upstairs and downstairs. Clearly, she was very excited for us to be there! She showed and told us many things. Her mom said she has a vocabulary of over two hundred words which I would think is very good for her developmental age. Her chronological age is only sixteen months and she is just the cutest little thing with her Native American eyes, hair and skin, and a little silver and turquoise bracelet on her wrist!
It was so good to meet another foster family, and to see such a stellar example of love. Clearly, theirs is an outstanding example of a foster family, because not everyone has that many children and is still that generous with their energy and time to coordinate something for other families!
They wouldn't let us leave without giving us seven cans of formula, two baby gates, a pack of diapers, a pair of Nikes and a baby sling! I'm so glad I had brought a big bag of my new lavender basil organic dead sea salts as a friendship gift, but I still feel indebted to them already for not only the items they gave us for Tomorrow, but the inspiration they were for us in the short time we were there, just by their example of being able to adopt so many children.
The mom and I made plans to go to a nearby casino restaurant and stuff ourselves silly at a seafood buffet! I'm glad to have finally made a friend who is also a foster mother, and especially one who is generous and kind and not caught up in the drama and gossip that plague so many.I really need to hear and learn from the experience, strength and hope of someone who has seen about everything there is to see on this path of foster-adoption, and can help guide me through the crags, over the ice bridges and around avalanches. Or just be there when I encounter them.
What a great day, and what a neat family. What started out as a way for us to help the agency and other foster families, of course ends up being a benefit to us. Isn't this always the case when we help others? We get energy simply from helping. Today, we cashed in karma like tenfold.
1 comment:
oh yay, honey. Having a friend like that is going go be so good for you in your journey with Mara.
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