Family Archives • Page 2 of 2 • The Foster Parenthood

The Breastfeeding Dadvocate

August 6, 2015 by Caleb Foster

In case you didn’t know, it’s World Breastfeeding Week. It’s probably a rarity for a husband to share his opinion of breastfeeding on social media but here goes. I 100% support and encourage breastfeeding. I also 100% support a family choosing what is best for them. That’s that.

Honestly, before The Lady Foster and I started a family I had no thoughts or stances on cord blood, cesareans, water-births, doulas, placenta encapsulation, natural vs. epidural – let alone breastfeeding. When we were pregnant with our first (and by we I mean my wife) I was the epitome of the uneducated man. “As long as mom and baby are healthy I don’t care if we use a catcher’s mitt to catch the baby when she comes out… a little game of baseball perhaps!”

Roxanne on the other hand was prepared for EVERYTHING. If our daughter had been born in a thunderstorm producing whale-sized hail – a whale storm – she’d have been ready. She was adamant about breastfeeding our children and as soon as Scarlette was born the process began. It was right then and there that I became a breastfeeding dadvocate.

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No More Daddy Daughter Dates

August 4, 2015 by Caleb Foster

Daddy Daughter Dates. We understand the implication: time well spent between a father and his daughter. I love these moments with my little girl. She and I regularly have “dates”. However, it may not always be a fine dining dinner setting (though occasionally it is). It is more often an early morning run to the grocery store in pajamas where she helps me carry the hand basket from aisle to aisle. Sometimes we go to the park together or to the library for movies and books.

My case is not that dads have dates with their daughters since that seems fairly obvious – dads should absolutely date their daughters. I hope to show you that simple, everyday exchanges between dads and daughters may actually serve her better rather than an outing to a restaurant or a fancy place in the city. Simply put, daddies should not just date their daughters, they should involve them in the circumstances of the day as long she can handle it.

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Guiding Your Child’s Heart Back to School

August 3, 2015 by Roxanne

Parents – school is JUST around the corner, but you didn’t need me to tell you that did you? Though my kids aren’t school aged just yet, I remember the hustle of school supply shopping (my favorite, I’ll do yours for you…seriously), clothes buying and trying to get back into a routine. I LOVE back to school season. But just like anything new and exciting in our lives, it can be really easy to lose focus on what truly matters.

The Man Foster spent a great deal of time writing a back to school devotional to help you direct your children’s hearts to God during this chaotic season. There are seven days worth of devotionals. He’s provided a page for parents to initially read over for their minds, then a shorter kid-oriented devotional for you to lead your child through. This is a really great resource and we don’t want you to miss it!

You can either purchase the devotional here for $1.99 (what. a. steal) or subscribe to our mailing list here and you’ll receive a coupon code rendering it FREE! The choice is yours!

Here’s an excerpt of the child portion of the devotional on Identity.

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Please Tell my Daughter She’s Beautiful, Just Don’t Stop There

July 31, 2015 by Roxanne

Here’s the thing. It’s undeniable. My daughter is absolutely beautiful. Yes, yes, I’m a biased mother. But aside from this fact, she hears it all the time. It’s a rare occasion for us to go out in public and someone doesn’t comment on how cute she is. Sometimes, it even merits her free snacks or gifts (seriously). And all this is fine and dandy, I know she’s beautiful and I want her to know that too. But I want her to know she’s more than just beautiful too.

(photo credit to Laura Vanderzee, the best photographer in OKC!)

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Raising Children in a High Tech World…You Can’t Google Wisdom

July 28, 2015 by Caleb Foster

The other day I had a thought about my wife. It was not nice – the thought was: “It’s dumb that you don’t know that”. She was referring to the fact that she didn’t know squash molded. I basically thought she was dumb for not knowing that any vegetable would become moldy if left alone long enough. “How could she not know something so basic?”

And then it hit me. I often think this way when people do not know something that I know – or at least about something I think they should know. Have you ever experienced this in yourself? Why is that? What’s wrong with me? Why am I so quick to label someone as unintelligent or plain “dumb” if there is something they don’t know? More than this, it has become increasingly more apparent that this is a staple posture in our culture, especially among younger generations.

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Preparing Your Child for a New Baby

July 27, 2015 by Roxanne

I spent the entire last month of my second pregnancy rocking my firstborn to sleep every night and weeping over the changes she was about to face. It’s a bittersweet thing isn’t it? Having a second child? You know you’re giving your firstborn the greatest gift in the world by providing a sibling to share life with, but it doesn’t always feel wonderful. I ached because her life would look different and she would have no idea why.

My fears were high. Would she understand that we still loved her more than anything? Would she resent us? Would I resent the new baby? Would bringing home baby brother create a wild child acting out for attention? Have we made a huge mistake? How could we ever prepare her for this? I believe all of those fears are valid and normal. Bringing home another baby IS a big deal. It is life changing for your family unit, but especially for your firstborn.

Preparing your child for a new baby is a huge undertaking, and I believe it can be done well. I want to share a few things I know we did right, but unfortunately I know there are a few things we did wrong too. Hopefully you can learn from our mistakes!

(Photo credits to Laura Vanderzee, our very favorite photographer!)…

The Death of The Story & Why We MUST Bring It Back

July 8, 2015 by Caleb Foster

The Story. I absolutely love good stories – even bad ones sometimes. The very reason I love talking to elderly people is because they are nothing more than a flesh and blood story book. Give an old man 15 minutes of your time and he’ll give you 50 years of his life via storytelling. Many people misunderstand these scenarios – where they feel trapped by a conversational novelist behind the cash register and all they wanted to do was pay for their groceries. You can more than likely resonate with this because we’ve all been there. We have things to do, places to be, people to meet and someone traps us in a face-to-face version of “This is the Story that Doesn’t End.”

My proposal is not simply to listen to old people tell their stories. We need to understand why the generation before us was so prone to telling stories. Not stories of someone else’s fabrication, but their own. Why did they do this and why does the generation after them seem to be out of time to listen?
I believe the reason we have lost the love of conversational storytelling is because we have lost our personal radar for story in our own lives. To say it straight – we don’t see a narrative forming in our lives from day to day, we simply see the mundane.

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We Are The Fosters

July 1, 2015 by Roxanne

We Are The Fosters.

We are a family of four. Comprised of The Man Foster:Caleb, The Lady Foster:Roxanne, The Girl Foster:Scarlette and The Boy Foster:Carsten. We are nothing short of a giant mess, but believe whole-heartedly God has called us to share our chaotic life with you.

Our prayer is nothing more than to bless even one person through our writing. We believe in honoring God through His callings on our lives, and we know He has called us to be vulnerable with you. We love Jesus a lot and we mess up constantly. We are broken people, in need of a Savior and the good news is He is available to all.

We’re not always serious…rather, we’re rarely as serious as when we’re talking about our faith. We want to provide a glimpse into the silliness of our lives too. Because, let’s be honest, with two children two and under – it’s one giant mess.

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