tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86273729607184158072024-02-06T21:18:01.337-08:00Katie Gets It WriteRed Shoes and Good NewsKatie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-68950638593972199062023-02-14T11:02:00.000-08:002023-02-14T11:02:40.931-08:00In my dreamsSometimes, I dream about them. The little ones I fed and diapered and kissed and snuggled and dressed for months, sometimes years, and then handed over to someone else. They show up in the middle of the night and I watch them playing or crying or maybe they're in a highchair or a carseat and I reach for them and say "Auntie's here" but they don't know me. They don't remember me. I want to touch Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-78127531925212629982022-12-07T10:38:00.000-08:002022-12-07T10:38:40.059-08:003 Things Foster Parents Wish You KnewWe've been foster parents for about seven years now, which sometimes feels like forever and sometimes feels like no time at all. I'm sure you know how that goes. We've learned a lot, laughed a lot, cried a lot. Said hello and goodbye a lot. I can't say it's been easy and wonderful, but we have no doubt it's been worthwhile.About a dozen foster children have come through our home--some have stayedKatie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-37350375730731286402021-12-31T10:40:00.000-08:002021-12-31T10:40:40.696-08:00Sometimes it's too muchSometimes it feels like I'm making a difference. Like I'm doing something important for a child. Like it's worth all the stress and heartache and driving and appointments and frustration and sacrifice.And sometimes it's too much. I'll have a nightmare that the adopted family of a former foster son of mine decided they didn't want him anymore and dropped him off with a stranger without asking us Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-63511108804684282402021-06-23T11:56:00.000-07:002021-06-23T11:56:03.740-07:00The Trouble With BabiesI love babies. I love the feel of their tiny hands wrapped around my finger. The smell of their hair and the smoothness of their skin. I even love the squeaky cries they make when they are merely weeks old, which grow lustier and more opinionated as weeks turn into months. I love it all. And that's one of the reasons we've chosen at this stage in our lives to only foster babies.But.The trouble Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-67835066196622280952021-05-11T08:55:00.001-07:002021-05-11T08:55:57.379-07:00There's no plan for thisImage by Amanda Randolph from PixabayI've always been a planner. I knew the when and where of what everyone in my family was up to even as a young child. I was meticulous with school work and schedules growing up, which helped me achieve a 4.0 GPA even while involved in numerous sports, activities, volunteering, and work.Planning has also served me well as an adult, allowing our Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-52956845157218746922020-12-08T08:47:00.000-08:002020-12-08T08:47:25.093-08:00The Purple BowlFor me, it was a purple glass bowl I had set down on the counter. For Ellie in the movie Instant Family, it was a beautiful crystal dish she'd tucked away in the top of her cupboard. Both smashed to pieces by foster care.Both symbols of devastation...and love.Have you seen that movie? It's about a married couple who become foster parents to three kids. Their lives are flipped upside down as they Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-75978118856175775222020-08-05T09:12:00.000-07:002020-08-05T09:12:17.034-07:00Just enough for todayHe was taller. Had a different haircut. But I would've known him anywhere.
Little Man.The first child I ever brought home from the hospital who was not born from my body. The first child to need me in a way I'd never experienced before. Our first foster son. Gone from our family almost two years now but still always in our hearts.
His aunt and uncle, now his adoptive parents, didn't have to letKatie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-5623346764146094462020-05-05T16:20:00.000-07:002020-05-05T16:20:11.913-07:00A very fine line
When you're a foster parent, one of the easiest things to start believing is that you're "better." A better parent, a better provider. Better at meeting a child's needs. Better at communicating and keeping track of schedules. An overall better citizen of the world.
And of course it must be true, right? Because why would anyone take a child away from his parents and give him to you if you Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-86263943034835679952020-02-12T11:13:00.000-08:002020-02-12T11:13:16.531-08:00Too involved
This is what a woman said to me recently when she learned I was a foster mother: "I couldn't do it." She took one look at the baby in my arms - a baby who isn't mine but needs me desperately - and shuddered. "My heart would get too involved."
I thought about her words for a long time afterward. They're still running through my mind, actually. Is my heart not involved enough? Is that why I keepKatie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-27027765397842163642019-12-04T12:48:00.000-08:002019-12-04T12:48:52.045-08:00Foster care math
He arrived on a Thursday evening, covered in sweat. He wore a shirt and jacket that were too small and a pair of shorts despite the freezing temperatures. He carried a blue and black blanket that reeked of...something. And that was all he had.
One outfit plus one blanket equals the sum total of his earthly possessions.
I peeled the sweaty clothes from his back and coaxed him into the tub withKatie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-43896060814198542432019-11-05T10:25:00.001-08:002019-11-05T10:25:50.795-08:00Dangerous dreams
It's a risky thing to have a dream. Having a dream means leaving the relative safety of the sidewalk and stepping onto the unpredictable road of the unknown. I believe it was Erin Hanson who wrote these words you'll see all over Pinterest: "What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?" Flying is awesome. Flying is definitely the desired result if you take a leap of faith. But...what if Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-50817695869155416532019-08-28T13:00:00.000-07:002019-11-15T10:55:54.352-08:00Top 3 Questions People Ask About Foster Care And Adoption
When people find out we have adopted or that we are foster parents, they always ask questions. Some of them are wildly inappropriate. Some of them are hurtful (as a friend said to me recently, "To be involved in orphan-care ministry is to be misunderstood."). But for the most part people have genuine and sincere questions that I really do want to answer.
Here are the top three:
1) How much Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-72095841833949070612019-07-16T12:26:00.000-07:002019-07-16T12:26:08.239-07:00Plans change
It's been nine and a half months since Little Man left. Nine and a half months of my heart dropping into my stomach every time I see a little blond-haired boy. Nine and a half months of missing his belly laugh and wondering how he is doing. I can still feel his arms around my neck. I don't know if I'll ever not miss him.
But time marches on. We fostered another little boy for a few weeks, and Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-61397648657760312642019-06-25T15:50:00.001-07:002019-11-15T10:56:43.768-08:00The Camp-Out From Hell
(In honor of our upcoming vacation, I thought we'd revisit the 2017 Camp-out From Hell. You can't make this stuff up.)
It started with a "Daddy, I don't feel good" before we even got to camp. (And by camp I mean the KOA in Great Falls, which I know doesn't even qualify as camping to some of you, but we needed an easy place to meet up with my family and this was it.) Andy pulled Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-87279010107794791512019-05-29T09:17:00.000-07:002019-11-15T10:58:11.533-08:00Life Before: Things I Never Knew Before Becoming A Foster Parent
Before I was a foster parent, I never checked the online roster for our county jail to see who had been booked the night before. I never even knew you could do that. And I had certainly never received a phone call from an inmate there. But that was life before.
Before I was a foster parent, I had no idea what acronyms like TPR, FEM, or CASA* meant. No idea that a bio parent only had to be Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-64540345520568541042019-05-07T13:34:00.000-07:002019-11-15T10:58:55.044-08:00Invisible, part 2
I didn't think I'd ever write a sequel to my original post about the invisible challenges children and parents face when a child struggles with something people can't "see" from the outside, but I've found myself thinking a lot about this subject again lately. Maybe because of Easter. A lot of invisible challenges are exacerbated by the holidays because of over-stimulation, change in diet, Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-7489465899158063252019-04-02T10:26:00.000-07:002019-04-02T10:26:46.601-07:00One night at a time
You're trudging through your day--doing laundry, packing lunches, taking meat out to thaw for dinner--dreaming about putting the kids to bed early and eating ice cream straight from the carton. You're tired. You've been watching your days slip away so fast that months go by in a flash. Maybe you're frustrated about something going on in your life. Maybe you're overwhelmed. But you put one foot Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-50359652814453653392019-02-06T13:24:00.000-08:002019-02-06T13:24:29.547-08:00Women, foster care, and abortion
Yikes. Those are some touchy topics. Why would I even want to go there? To be honest, I don't. But I've been hearing and reading some interesting comments lately that I can't stop thinking about...so here we are.
There are people out there right now making this correlation between foster care and abortion. They say the foster care system is a raging dumpster fire (they're not wrong) andKatie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-77533221179222742792019-01-08T12:33:00.000-08:002019-11-15T11:40:06.306-08:00Reunification
A lot of people don't know that the goal of foster care is reunification - the family being reunited. This is something stressed over and over again during the training and by workers involved throughout the process. The whole point of foster care is to remove a child temporarily so a parent can focus on doing whatever needs to be done to parent successfully. Then the child is returned.
Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-68853776077905969402018-12-11T13:24:00.000-08:002018-12-11T13:24:01.886-08:00A broken Christmas
It was one week before Christmas, 1994. Multi-colored strands of lights blinked in the windows. My mother's tree, with its white lights and crystal snowflakes, graced the living room, while the tree in the family room that belonged to us kids...well, let's just say what it lacked in beauty it made up for in enthusiasm.
My siblings and I were eagerly awaiting the big day. The excitement was Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-64322381719250965452018-10-23T10:04:00.000-07:002019-11-15T11:40:28.433-08:00Are you done fostering?It's been awfully quiet around here lately. No more belly laughs from Little Man. No more begging for cottage cheese. No more throwing balls at people's heads. Never thought I'd miss that.
Over three weeks have passed since he left, but I still hear him in the morning sometimes, babbling to himself in his crib while he waits for me to come. But of course, he's not there. Many Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-63265775587933597382018-09-25T12:54:00.000-07:002018-09-25T12:54:19.836-07:00To the woman who will take my placeHello. I've been putting off this letter, but time is running out. In a few days, Little Man will leave me and find himself in your arms, in your house, eating your food, riding in your car. And it won't matter that I rocked him through the night at three days old as he went through withdrawals. It won't matter that I held his legs down when he got all his shots. Or Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-62031776494326661362018-08-28T12:43:00.000-07:002018-08-28T12:43:33.937-07:00A moment of wavering
Little Man has never really enjoyed riding in the car. Even as a baby, he would fight his car seat. Now, as a toddler, he still whimpers when we buckle him in and then proceeds to fight sleep the whole time, even if we're driving for hours.
So there we were, about four hours into our six hour drive. Little Man had thrown every toy we'd offered onto the floor. He'd eaten every snack we Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-33044065508322798572018-07-31T13:59:00.001-07:002019-11-15T12:57:59.856-08:00An abundance of sacrifice
I knew going in that being a foster parent would require sacrifice. When you take in a child, you're making room for them in your home and your life. You give up time and attention and sleep. You give up clean floors. You adjust your daily schedule to accommodate their naps or therapy appointments. You rearrange your birthday dinner around their bio family visits.
I knew all that.
And the Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627372960718415807.post-13618196115862607462018-07-03T12:53:00.000-07:002019-11-15T11:41:31.973-08:00Choose your own adventure
As a child of the 80's and 90's, I read my fair share of "choose your own adventure" books. You know, the ones where you start reading a story and then throughout the book you have the chance to choose what happens next. I thought they were fun books as a kid. You just never knew where you might end up.
Now, as an adult, I know that in real life you don't make a choice part way through Katie Pownerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02721093793293410687noreply@blogger.com2