The life of a foster/adoptive parent is far from “normal”. The only time I have had anything close to resembling a normal life in the past eight and a half years is when Sammy was in his first residential placement, which was before Hannah joined us. Even then it still involved driving 180 miles round trip for weekly family therapy, and then another trip sometime during the month for a case review.

Today and tomorrow, nearly all the kids in our state are off of school for the annual teachers convention. I’m not sure why this is held during the end of October instead of the summer, but whatever.

This morning we enjoyed sleeping in, then Hannah coming to cuddle in bed with me for a little while. This lead to lots of tickling and Hannah having the good, old fashioned giggles. These are not the forced or fake giggles that some kids give, but truly happy giggles. It always warms my heart to hear them. I looked at this giggly little girl and my heart just burst with love for her. Then for a few moments I reflected on the fact that Sammy so rarely lets himself truly giggle or be silly.

Foster kids don’t have near enough silliness in their lives. They spend much of their lives worrying about having enough food, who is going to care for them, if anyone is going to hurt them, where they’re going to be living this week, and many other issues that they shouldn’t have to face in their young lives. They need more silliness.

I am the silly one in our family. My husband could use more silliness too. I will regularly grab one of the kids and just start tickling, or get out my bag of marshmallows and start a marshmallow fight. All my kids had/have nicknames that are used just as often as their “real” names. Sammy is my marshmallow, Kory was my grasshopper, Mackenzie was my pumpkin, and Hannah is my shortstack.

With these couple of days off of school, Hannah and I will spend some time being silly, and do some other things we might normally not have time for, like baking cookies, having a tea party, or going to a movie. She also wants to do some scrapbooking. I have several cakes to decorate before Sunday, so that will be on our list too.

Try to introduce more silliness into your lives. It is good for all of us. Laughter helps heal physically and emotionally.

Photo credit – Hannah & Sammy being silly last winter