This whole world of foster care is an emotional roller coaster, no doubt, but fortunately our days aren't only made up of these really heavy tear-jerking episodes. There are times of joy and times of sadness and times that are just downright funny.
For instance, J came in knowing a lot of stuff that the large majority of kids his age would not know. He has said and done things that are not age-appropriate at all, but when he gets mad, the only thing he knows to do is call us a chicken. The good news is that there have really only been a couple of times when he's gotten mad, but one particular time was on a morning when he did not want to wake up (welcome to my everyday, buddy). When my nurturing approach in waking him did not work, Josh went in singing to him. That completely ticked him off (it would have done the same for me, to be honest), and did not start his day well. He did not like his shirt and did not like his coat and did not want to eat that for breakfast and did NOT like it "when you sing to me, you CHICKEN." We had to try to keep a serious face through all of that because there were obviously a whole lot of worse things that could be said but for some reason "chicken" was what he came up with.
I've laughed a lot at his interactions with Josh because the two of them are just an unlikely pair. If you know my husband, then you know he is just a huge dork (don't feel sorry for him that I say that - he embraces it and knows that I love everything about him and his nerdiness). If you don't know him, then just picture a big white southern principal nerd guy doing the dances that our little black kid shows him. I wish I had a video, but just envision it and I can promise it's as funny in real life as it is in your head.
His interactions with my kids are funny too. My most memorable thus far came when he was singing lyrics from Nicki Minaj's Anochonda. If you don't know the song, it's really vulgar. For the first couple of weeks he was here he would sing one line over and over but he wasn't even singing the words correctly. The words he was trying to sing go "My anochonda don't..." but he was saying something that sounded more like "my anna gotta dote." Well one day when it was just he, Adri, and myself in the car, the following conversation took place:
J: (singing) "My anna gotta dote"
Adri: "Your auntie's gotta coat?"
J: (laughter) "No Adri... my anna gotta dote"
Adri: "Your nana's got a goat?"
Me: (trying so hard to keep a straight face) "That really is a weird thing to sing about... why would your nana have a goat anyway?"
J: "ummm... I don't know."
I will never be able to hear that song the same way. Nana having a goat is so much easier to explain.
Speaking of songs, when we took in a foster kid who had obviously been exposed to very little age-appropriate stuff, I thought it was possible that we had the one kid in America that wasn't obsessed with Frozen. WRONG. His favorite song is "Let it Go." How can this even be? He wants to play it on repeat at all times, and for anyone else in the world who also has a 7 year-old girl then you understand me when I say "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE LET IT END!" Don't get me wrong, I love the movie and I love the soundtrack, but really, I've had enough. My very dramatic 7 year-old attended a Frozen camp this summer and has reenacted her scene close to 5 billion times. Same child is Elsa for Halloween. I am Frozen-ed out. Anything but Frozen. But nope, as unlikely as it is, J looooves "Let it Go" and he belts it out with a lot of emotion. I caught it on video this weekend in the car.
I love seeing him experience new things but I also love watching his face when he is taking in a new situation and it seems like all he is thinking is, "these people are so strange." A couple of weeks ago when we were at my sister's house, she had her dog dressed in a Halloween costume. J was very confused and asked us several times why the dog was dressed up. It wasn't in a "this is cute" way but in a "is there no one here that recognizes how weird this is?!" kind of way. I get it, dude. Super Murphy is new to your world. He does take some getting used to.
We laugh when we think about the stories he'll have to share later about these weird people he lived with. But I'm thankful for laughter. Laughter keeps things from being so serious all the time. It's good for the soul.
