Word choices

Fostering has changed some of my basic language. There are things that I never used to say that I do now and things that I used to say all the time that now I don't. And I'm not talking about the obvious cases, like the lingo of acronyms and court terms. I'm talking about subtle stuff, like....

• Instead of "going home" from school or errands, we "go back to the house."
• I refer to myself in the 3rd person a lot more.
• Instead of saying "I have 3 kids", I say "there are 5 at my house right now."(This one will probably vary from placement to placement. L is heavily resistant to having anyone think she is my child, so I fell into this phrasing in order to claim her without calling her "mine.")
• I refer to my husband by name a lot more (rather than "Dad.") (Again, will probably vary from placement to placement, as I imagine we may have later placements that want to call us Mommy and Daddy.)
• I refer to the children by their ages or names a lot more. (Instead of "my son" or "my daughter", it's "the 7 year old", "the 5th grader", or "Peter.")