How We Became Nine – Part 2

If you haven’t read it yet, HERE is Part 1 of our journey.

It seemed like forever until Halloween finally arrived. We planned to take the boys trick-or-treating and to carve Jack O Lanterns. We couldn’t wait. 

Of course, we wake up Halloween morning and it’s raining. Pouring. Like cats and dogs! All I could think was how was I going to entertain 6 kids in the house all day! 

I was pretty nervous. And excited as well. But mostly nervous. By this point, Matt had come to the house a few times so I felt like I had a pretty good handle on what to expect from him. But, despite the fact that we’d talked to his brothers a little more when we’d picked Matt up or dropped him off, they were still unknown territory.

I don’t know if the boys were nervous about coming over. They had Matt with them, and he’d told them all about us by this point so I really don’t think so. I, on the other hand, couldn’t do anything but think about the visit.

Did I have snacks on hands that they would like? I had no clue what they liked to eat! Would they like us? How would they behave? Would they be bored? I had no toys for the nine year old! (Nathan was 14, and my youngest boy at this point.) What did 9 year olds even play with? I spent all night and the morning leading up to them coming over cleaning up. I wanted to make a good impression.

Josh, Matt and Noah were all excited to be leaving when I arrived. All the formalities were handled quickly since I was a familiar face at the the group home at this point, and we loaded up and left.  We planned to make a run by the pumpkin patch so they could choose a pumpkin for carving before we went home.

We arrived at the pumpkin patch in the rain. Thankfully, they were still open. After a quick discussion, we decided rain and mud didn’t matter and hopped out into the wetness for pumpkin hunting.

Luck was with us that day, because the church pumpkin patch was trying to get rid of the remaining pumpkins. They told us to pick what we wanted at no cost! So we loaded up 8 pumpkins and headed home. We pulled in the drive way and were met with about 8 more pumpkins sitting on our porch. My husband, Tim, Nathan and Grace had had the same idea we did!

Once we got inside, we took stock of the costume situation. Noah was good to go, but the rest really didn’t have anything. One of my other bonus kids Clayton was at the house as well, so we decided to load everyone up and head to the thrift store.

Seven kids in a thrift store was an adventure! It was a very different feeling to be responsible for so many kids at once. Especially a littler one. Needless to say, we got quite a few looks. 

Once we got home, we embarked on on our Pumpkin Carving endeavor. My husband, Tim was great at helping Noah with his. My entire kitchen was filled with pumpkin carving. We’d had three more kids arrive in addition to Clayton so we ended up with 10 kids carving. It was chaos! It was fun!

Matt’s girlfriend at the time also came over for the day. One of the rules at the group home was that they kids were only allowed out for group home trips or school activities. They didn’t get to go to friend’s houses or on dates. If they wanted to hang out with friends, they had to go through a process like we did. In order for this whole day to even have been possible, we’d had to complete a basic homestudy and have a visit from their caseworker, fill out paperwork and the caseworker had to have everything approved by her supervisor. Matt was easier. She could approve things for him, but as soon as we included Josh and Noah, they process got more involved. It took us a month to get approved for this visit.

Needless to say, it was a really good feeling to get to see Matt enjoying time being a regular teenager. I loved getting to watch him just hang out and talk and laugh with everyone.

Joshua was an awesome kid. He was polite and respectful. And cute! Josh was about three weeks older than our Nathan but he was tiny. He looked to be maybe twelve, and was not quite as tall as Grace. Maturity-wise, he and Grace seemed to be more the same age than he and Nathan did. It was immediately obvious that he and Grace shared some common traits. Mainly, both of them being artistic and crafty. Their pumpkins turned out awesome! They were also the last two to finish because they were very detail oriented.

Noah was super sweet. Unlike his brothers, he had dark brown hair and brown eyes. He was most impressed that he could watch Sponge Bob and Scooby Doo throughout the day. The dynamic between him and Matt was interesting.  He sought out his big brother every time he needed something, whether it was to ask a question or help with his costume. He was very particular about some things like making sure he brought the parts of his costume in and had them with in sight. I was impressed with how well Matt took care of his brothers.

Our day ended with a crazy, cramped dinner and trick-or-treating. Everyone got a good haul of candy and had fun despite the rain. Unfortunately, after that it was time to take the boys back. Dropping them off even harder than it had been before. Tim and I had a lot to talk about!

To be continued….