I have survived a week as an instant parent of two toddlers.
How? I do not know. The Lord had a lot to do with it.
We were blessed to get a fairly well adjusted pair, given their journey to our home. They sleep through the night and on par are like most toddlers I have ever been around.
As a bonus they have absolutely no fear of our dogs and save all the sniffing and licking and general "who are these new dogs in our pack" going on, everyone seems to be getting on great. Though, our younger dog, Buddy, has had to learn the meaning of "no jumping up" and "gentle play" since, he normally likes to be a bit rambunctious.
The only thing that worries me is that many people have said that getting foster kids involves a "honeymoon" period, and that makes me think the other shoe may drop in a few weeks......I'll keep my prayers current just in case.
I envy you. I had wanted to be a husband and father and it didn't work out that way; disappointment all round: me, parents, several women and their mothers too. At least I was never cruel enough to marry one.
I expect that you'll have the usual messes, the incredible noise, the worries, the expense, and the demands on your time that you cannot even now begin to imagine.
I on the other hand have two cats: Calvin and Hobbes, who are intelligent--for cats; neat, friendly, and quiet. The cat is the only animal that is born civilized, and is better than humans in that if it doesn't like you, it goes away instead of either trying to hunch your leg or bark at you or dragoon you into its enthusiasms.
But a cat is merely a cat. It is a beast.
And I have more geek stuff than you can imagine--the ahl bidness is doing well, and with no dependents there is no reason, after I've been prudent, not to spend on myself. I have 16 B&W speakers and a great deal of high-quality electronics. Just bought my 30th Mac. But I did talk myself out of an iPhone.
But that's just geek gear which will be outmoded soon. Oops. Too late.
I envy you.
I slowed down on the Geek Stuff when I got married. I wasn't a Mac Person, though I built every single one of my PC's from the ground up.
There are already signs the honeymoon is ending, but all is not so bad. I am adjusting. What I am trying to decide is if some of this is from the wrong done to these kids by their neglecting mother, or if it is just "normal" kid stuff.
I suspect you'll have to do the best with the damage. I have a strange habit of getting TiVo to get "Adoption Stories" and am astonished at the open hearts of people who take babies into their homes, the ones who make room for those who are in difficulty, the ones who have been abandoned.
Once some 20 years ago I saw part of a chat-show of the Okrah variety on mixed-race adoptions. A black baby, born to a crack mother, had AIDS, and in those days that meant certain death after expensive, difficult and horrible treatment. The baby was awarded, bravely for the time, to two men, and the baby knew no other parents. She reached to them normally, and the rhythms of comfort were there.
Some people sneered that the baby, who is without dead now, should have been parked in a baby warehouse, for why should queers have a baby? Even one that no one else wanted. A rejected baby. But the most absurd was the cause made by a couple of black women in the audience furious because the child was being deprived of her black heritage. By people who loved her when people of her heritage couldn't be found.
Ah well. Just who was looking on a human as a commodity and who was looking on a human as a human?