A knock at the door, 

a parcel for Tia

No deliveries expected, an early Christmas present?

 

 A Cadbury's box, much too tempting to be left under the tree.

Besides, there might be a note from the sender

 It really should be checked out.

  The Little Princess pounced on her favourites, 

And I found the note

And told her all the chocolates were for me.

 Six years ago, I brought a baby boy home from hospital. A tiny baby boy, wrapped in a blanket, frail and exhausted and with a range of interesting medical problems. 

He stayed with us for a little while, and I told my friend about him, and about how he was going to need a forever family. 

And he went to lovely carers, and I gained my lovely Little Princess, and we met at hospital sometimes, and I had reports about him, and thought that was the end of it. 

But then he came back. He and tLP had great fun together; gone was the fragile baby, and here was the bouncing toddler. Still with a frightening number of medical problems, but doing generally rather better than people had anticipated. 

And I told my friend about him, and how he needed a place to stay, and I told the social workers about my friend.

And it took quite a while, but now they are mother and son forever, and in the midst of their celebrations, they found time to remember the date, and to send a parcel of chocolate weighing more than that little baby did the first time I held him.

I'm not a foster carer any more; something it still feels fairly strange to tell people. And I don't know what's happened to a lot of the children I have fostered - I hear the initial endings and then life moves on and that's how it should be. I don't forget the children, but they settle into new families or back with original families, and the period of time they spent with me is filed under temporary aberration, unfortunate episode, or something more positive but still finished. That's fine; as far as I know, they have gone on to have very happy lives and I'm pleased to have played a part in it all. But it is very lovely to have been remembered, and it is lovely to know that we will stay connected. And it's always lovely to have chocolate! And yes, I did agree to share it. 

Tia

 

Wahey for the Wahooligan!

Six years ago, I collected a small and somewhat fragile baby from hospital, and took him home for a while. I love having babies for Christmas; there's an excellent precedent.

I remember celebrating one week without a hospital admission; it took longer than you'd think. I remember his first admission for RSV, his first seizure, his first joy at a particularly nice crinkly flappy fluffy toy.

And I remember extolling his virtues to a friend of mine, trying to push this baby and this friend together.

Three years ago, we welcomed the Wahooligan back into our lives for a little while. And that same friend and her family stepped in to help out for a while when we went on a previously booked holiday, and when tLP had hip surgery.

And my friend fell in love with the Wahooligan, and I think the feeling was mutual, and so they stayed together.

And lots of things happened, and life got complicated, and that's not my story to tell.

But today I stood in court and watched a Judge pronounce them Mother and Son. A new name for the Wahooligan, and a long long time coming.

In that courtroom were all the people the Wahooligan had ever lived with, along with the social workers who had done their part in making it all happen. And one small boy, staring at his Mummy and calling for a toy.

There's been a lot of loss, a lot of sadness, and a fair amount of serious medical whatsittery. There's also been a lot of continuity, for the Wahooligan's former carers were also tLP's former carers, and for a little while former siblings played together as friends as adults caught up and remembered.

And today a new name, a new relationship, a new family created. And from now, I very much hope, the start of a long and happy ending.

So Wahey for the Wahooligan, and may he be singing on for a long time to come!

Tia

Sweetness

Sweetness is:

• a small child, waking up every morning and calling out "You are my favourite person in the whole wide world and in the universe."
• the same small person, wanting something; "Axcuse me, if you possibly, could I have maybe a piece of paper?" Or a wipe, a pencil, a cuddle.
  
• half-stirring, as I give her her late night meds "Aahhhhh. MY Mummy...." and drifting off gently again.
• or at midnight "I sorry I waking you, Mummy, but please may I have a turn over? I am not comfy in my hips."

And she is mine. Discharged from hospital when she was as well as the medics ever thought she would be, and placed with foster carers who loved her and kept her safe as the search for a permanent family went on. And with a long and complicated set of gloomy prognoses she waited, and I waited, and the courts and social services did their bits, and then finally she was mine, and I was hers.

And now every morning I have a daughter who needs "ten kisses" to store on her fingers in case she needs them during the school day. And I have a daughter who hugs the bus escort and thanks her for looking after her on the drive home. And I have a daughter who makes friends with everyone she sees, or at least everyone who will slow down long enough to respond to her hello. A girl who brings me dandelions and pages and pages of illustrated stories only she can tell me. A child who loves to sneak up quietly, and rest her head on my arm, or slide her hand inside my cardigan and hold on gently; she has a hundred different ways to snuggle in.

And she's here through adoption. And it did take a while - she was two years and nine months when the adoption order was heard in court. Twenty two months when she moved in with me. Eighteen months when she first visited our house, fifteen months when I first met her, and nine months when I first heard of her existence.

With hindsight, some of those delays should have been avoidable. Christmas slowed things down for a month. There were two separate panel meetings, one to approve me as an adopter, and one to approve me as her adopter. Three months could have been saved if they had both happened at the same time. August and summer holidays slowed things down again.

But, she came when the time was right. If she'd come earlier, I would not have been in a position to foster a child who has since become quite special to us. She would not have had her familiar foster carers to support her through adjusting to overnight non-invasive ventilation, but would have had to have learnt to cope with that whilst also learning to live without them. I would have had a year or more juggling three extremely complex children, rather than just a few months. Social Workers would not have had time to sufficiently examine other prospective parents. Sometimes, adoption needs to be slow.

And four years on (not that today is any kind of anniversary; just that adoption has been in the news, on Women's Hour, on You and Yours, and therefore on my mind these past few days), the delays don't matter a bit. True, I missed her baby days; I didn't get to see her first birthday, her first Christmas, her first taste of real food. But I got her first drink, her first non-pureed food, her first words, her first reading and writing. And I get all those things I listed at the top of the page too. They're mine, because she is mine and I am hers.

It isn't easy, it isn't perfect, and adoption doesn't create a new birth family. There are issues to do with adoption, as any adoptive family knows. There's loss, such a lot of loss. My daughter had just one extremely loving and experienced set of foster carers from when she left hospital until she came to me. But that means that on that day when I finally picked her up and drove off with her, knowing I didn't have to bring her back again, she lost her second set of parents. She loves me, I love her, but that loss takes its toll. The fear that I might disappear on her one day is always there, however deep down it gets buried in the good times. And there are questions. Some I can answer, some I can't. All difficult.

But despite all that (and the tantrums, and the challenges, the crayon on my walls and pencil on my furniture, the destruction which comes with driving a tank), the Little Princess is my Little Princess. And that makes me one of the most favoured ladies in the land. Teams of people weighed things up and decided I was the Little Princesses best option. And they handed her over, and let me get on with it.

The statistics say adoption levels are reaching new lows here. I know that, to an extent, Special Guardianship is taking over. And that's all good too - my Mog is mine through Special Guardianship and it is absolutely right for all of us involved. But if you're considering adoption, then why not investigate it further? You can't have the Little Princess; she's mine, I found her first. But take a look here at some of the other children in the country waiting for new families. You don't need to be married (I'm not), you don't need to own your own home (I didn't back when my first children came), you don't need to be employed or earning vast sums of money (financial support can be made available if you are adopting a "harder to place" child). Do you have the time, space, or energy to find a /Little Prince or Princess of your own? My life is immeasurably deeper for it.

Tia

A different kind of normal

Nikki over at Blogs for a Cause is trying to raise money for Sarah's Covenant Homes. She interviewed me a few days ago, and here's her post, take a look. We can't all do what Sarah does, but if lots of people helped a little, what difference would that make?

Excuse my lack of wordiness here; I haven't left the house since Tuesday (Mog's been a little unwell), and apparently, when I don't leave the house, I lose all desire to communicate with the outside world.
Tia

Another year, another letterbox

Out into the void I send this year's newsletter. A few short pages to summarise a year in the life of one small child. A letter to people who created this my youngest child, people I catch a glimpse of in her features and expressions, yet people I have never met.

I write this blog, and the majority of you who read it are people who have never met me. So why does this feel different? I suppose because I have come to know some of you through comments here, others through your own blogs; those of you who read and yet don't comment are equally welcome. This is however my story, my blog, a glimpse into my life. You see my girls through my eyes, and I edit life to avoid telling other people's stories.

In theory, I write a letter to strangers every time I hit "publish". But it is so very different to writing a letter to these most intimate of strangers. Are they reading this as well as my annual "here we all are again" note? Should I just send a note telling them this exists, and inviting them to follow our adventure here, where they'd have far more frequent updates?

Do they want these letters? Am I getting them right, are they long enough, informative enough, photographic enough, honest enough? Do they include the full picture, or do I withhold information which might concern them? Do they wish to know this, do they collect them from the letterbox drop or are they sitting in a file somewhere? Do these letters open fresh heartbreak each year or ease the loss?

And I wonder at what point I ought to include this little person in the writing of them. She can write her own name now, ought I to have included her signature or a picture she has drawn? She's still fairly convinced I'm talking nonsense when I tell her she didn't grow inside me, would including her in this project help her to make sense of it, or would she expect a reply and would it unsettle her?

Should I have asked the questions I have for them? Ought I to share my hopes and dreams or stick to describing past events?

I don't know. But, it's done, for this year at least. And can be shelved for another twelve months.
I"m tired.
Tia

Nature or Nurture?

Tell people that you plan to adopt, and you'll get a huge variety of opinion, whether you want it or not. Some really helpful pieces of advice from people who actually know, and some slightly less welcome information about how adopted children will ruin your life and turn out just like their "real" parents and never be grateful (I'm not asking for their gratitude). And some well-meaning but whittery praisey phrases about how all they need is love and aren't you wonderful for doing it.*

It's the old nature/nurture debate. Either these hypothetical adopted children will take after their birth parents (who must, in the eyes of many people who have never met them, be strangely evil monsters if they aren't parenting all the children born to them), or else they'll instantly manage to switch off their past and become the child you the parent shape.

And there's just enough truth in each cliche to keep them both alive. And of course adopted children and adoptive parents will grow to resemble each other, taking on family expressions and habits and of course all children will bring their own personal quirks into the family, some shaped from early experiences and some from genetics and some from just being individuals.

But, today, I discovered that the Nature side of things has had far more effect in Little Fish than I had ever previously realised. I know quite a bit about her life before she came to me; it's fairly intimately chronicled, and not my story to tell on here. But she's been surrounded by loving arms from very early on, and although we keep in contact with her foster carers, she does not appear to remember living with them at all.

Tonight though, something happened which brought it home to me that she is not and never will be my genetic offspring. Tonight, I gave her her tea. And she ate nearly everything on her plate. And then she handed me the pieces of Toblerone I'd put on the side, and politely asked me if she could have an orange instead.

I'm not sure I'll ever recover.
Tia

*Question, if the only thing any adopted child needs in order to turn out to be a well-rounded human being is love, why don't more people - who have infinite capacity for love - adopt?

Internal Memo

When you check your diary for the week, and it says the respiratory nurse is doing a home visit on Monday morning, do not go back to bed after dropping your daughter at school on Monday morning. If you do go back to bed, when the doorbell rings unexpectedly, do not throw everything into Little Fish's bedroom on your way to answer it. True; this will indeed give the impression of a marginally tidier house than might otherwise be the case. However, when the respiratory nurse has come to fit a humidity circuit thingy* to Little Fish's Nippy, she will in fact need to enter the bedroom. Stepping over the clothes, tent poles, physio mats., etc. is possible, but a tidier room (and emptier bed) would've made a better impression.

The humidifying thingy is very impressive though - lots of blue hose and dangly circuitry, water which mysteriously fills itself, and a new three tone alarmy blip. It didn't impress Little Fish; although the only bit visibly different for her was the switch from grey hose to blue, she was adamantly against it until she actually tried it. At which point she decided it was quite nice actually, and snuggled in to fall deeply asleep before I had switched the light off. And it doesn't run off a battery, so we could do with no power cuts forever more now please.

If anyone other than myself has read this far, please spare a thought for my friend here. Selina needs to come home to be with her family; she's spent far too long already in this institution.

Tia

*technical term

Hello, Mumsnetters!

I see there are a lot of you visiting after the Pick-Me-Up article discussion. (Non Mumsnetters, there was an article in the magazine about Mog's Mother, and therefore about Mog and myself). My apologies for bringing this discussion here rather than joining in the debate at Mumsnet; I try to avoid reading Mumsnet aside from threads I'm linked to. I'm sure it can be fantastically supportive, I know it can be hugely addictive, but I'm afraid it's a bit too robust for me. Still, it's an open forum which anyone can read, so I hope you don't mind me sticking my oar in.

My first post, from the original fuss, can be found here.

There's a lot of talk about the book , and about the Daily Mail article which extracted carefully edited highlights from it (and altered some chronology) along with a few photographs.

To the people talking about the hidden meaning in the photographs, are you not aware that they were posed by a photographer?

I'm not aware that Julia has ever considered herself to be brave for leaving Mog at hospital. I think the fact that she is, once again, at the centre of a storm of bile and vilification, proof enough that she is brave for speaking up about her decision. Why don't you hear from other parents i similar situations? Because they're scared of facing the same reaction. They know people will turn on them, condemn them, say unthinkably awful things to and about them. I know from a number of other families that Julia's ability to speak up about this has helped them to talk about their own situations. It's a story which needs to be told; families need to know they aren't alone in this.

I apologise in advance here as I know I'm going to upset some regular readers, and I don't want them to stop reading or commenting. But, unless you have been in the position of actually choosing not to take your child home from hospital, or of actively seeking an out-of-home placement for your child, you have NOT been in the same situation. Yes, you have shared experiences, you have carried on coping (even if just barely at times, even when it has been unbearably difficult), you have children as disabled or more disabled or less disabled than Mog; you love your child and it has not been easy. But you've not taken that decision to stop. So, respectfully, you haven't been in the same situation. Julia is open about the fact that Mog was at risk if she took her home. Instead of hiding that, she took every step necessary to keep Mog safe. I'd say that's love, wouldn't you?

There have been people querying whether Mog was really that different to any other difficult, colicky, baby. Being the one who got handed the little scrap, I'd have to say most emphatically, yes. She was very different. Her little body was stiff, always. She didn't snuggle in for cuddles but stayed awkwardly boardlike. Her eyes saw nothing, her cry was pitiful and desperate, but not as fluid as most baby cries are. She was uncomfortable, and un-comfort-able. Forget gentle rocking; she needed whole body swinging for the movement to reach her. Hard for ten minutes, exhausting for hours on end. She couldn't sit in a baby swing or rocker, she couldn't sit in a buggy, and when lying down her body twisted and crumpled. She only slept when sedated with chloral hydrate. She couldn't suck a dummy. Feeding took forever, and most of the time she'd vomit it right back up again. And she was having seizures, muscle spasms, and reflux. Not your average difficult baby

That isn't to say she was the most difficult baby ever, it isn't to say that other parents would have been as worn down as hers were. But caring for her, even without all the emotional baggage, was exhausting. I managed, because she wasn't with me all the time. She used to go home overnight once a week, sometimes twice and she'd go home for the day or for a few hours several times each week for the first few months. So I didn't have to do the neverending bits. And, as a fostercarer, I knew I could pick up the phone to social services and ask for more help at any time - and that it would be given. I'm sure that varies across the country, but that wasn't the case for Mog's parents. And of course, I wasn't mourning the baby I had hoped for - I was just simply, overwhelmingly, in love with the precious baby I had. When I looked at her, all I saw was her.

To people talking finances; I'm not prepared to go into detail about our financial arrangements. I certainly don't now and did not as a foster carer get £2K a month to care for Mog. That said, I do receive allowances and they do amount to more than income support. We have enough money to meet all our needs, and most of our wants. That's good enough for me; I don't have to worry before I spend, so financial matters don't give me extra stress (unless it's letters from the tax man). You have no idea where the money from the book and the articles goes, and I've no idea where the idea that Mog's parents are rich comes from.

There seems to be some interest over Mog's legal status and how that came about. Mog is mine through Special Guardianship; this gives me the legal rights of any other parent (except that without a court order or permission of the other parents I can't consent to her marrying under 18, can't take her out of the country for more than 3 months, and can't change her name. None of which are things I'm planning to do). It makes us all Mog's parents, it makes us a partnership. I'm the one who is here day by day, so I make most of the decisions. But I have other people who know and love Mog who can help with those decisions. It means Mog isn't losing anything but gains our family in addition to her birth family. I'm not sure why losing legal ties to the rest of her family through adoption is something so many people seem to think would be good for her? She has three sets of grandparents, a huge circle of uncles and aunts and cousins spread across the world. She has people from her birth family and from our family who drop in to see her and take an interest in her welfare. I fail to see how this is a bad thing.

Mog lives with me, her other parents live a few miles away. Our contact arrangements are flexible - she spends days with them quite often, we sometimes entertain the troops here (our ballpool is always popular), and sometimes we do things together. She goes with them to family events just as she comes with us to our family things. They help me out regularly by taking her from Helen House so that I don't have to be there for eleven in the morning, or by having her for the afternoon so I can get to a party with Little Fish. I'm sure they would have offered to have her for some time this last week whilst I've been ill - except that the 'flu has been in their house too. We did have plans with some of her other family members for this week, but again, 'flu stopped play.

Of course not every child needs an arrangement like ours. But the arrangement we have really and truly is the very best arrangement for Mog. And that's what this is about really - one small child growing up knowing she is loved, appreciated, and cared for.

I hope I haven't upset anyone. Reading the comments (and I'll step away from the Mumsnet thread now) and seeing how harshly my daughter's other mother is judged, is upsetting. Reading people's assumptions about myself is just strange and a little amusing. Thanks for all the compliments! I'm pleased this blog reflects our lives and gives you and insight into the life Mog lives these days. I don't tend to talk very often on it about her family visits; I try to stick to our lives rather than telling other people's stories. But I did think this was important.

Happy reading,
Tia

A day which starts at 3 AM

Is never going to be good.

And a day which starts at 3 AM when your oldest child calls out in protest at what the cats have done under her bed is definitely not going to be great.

But, a day which starts with a small child in a cot beside your bed giggling, a child who looks you in the eye and squeaks a greeting just for you, whole face beaming with joy that you have finally gotten out of bed and come to say hello, that kind of day is probably going to be a pretty good one after all.

So, I'm declaring 3AM officially the end of yesterday.

Some sadness in saying goodbye to a certain small child - Little Fish waved the car off shouting "see you tomorrow" and had a very wobbly lip when she finally understood we wouldn't be meeting again for a fair bit longer than that.

But lunch in the garden with the extended family, more family persuaded to pay a flying visit next weekend, promised treats galore at Helen House next week, two very affectionate kittens (can't possibly have had anything to do with the plate of roast chicken can it?), cousins playing together in the gentle September sun, and now a peaceful house and a bedroom to myself again. Simple pleasures, small memories, Happy days.

And an empty bedroom - I'm off to enjoy the luxury of being able to lie in bed with the light on. And I wonder how long that cot will be empty and who its next occupant will be?

Tia

Child Collecting

Today someone called me a child collector. They hadn't met me before, they were introducing me to someone I have met before but not seen for a few years, and explained the fact that I had a different child with me by telling them I was a child collector.

I have to say, I was quite insulted by this. Child-collector; it goes with along with baby-farmer as an insult aimed at people who not only make their living out of caring for children but do so at the expense of the children. Think Mrs Hannigan and you're not far wrong.

I was also quite surprised - I only have 2 children with a very occasional part time extra; it's not much of a collection is it? It's less than the 2.4 children the average family in this country is supposed to have.

And then I started thinking about people with far larger families. And I wondered what the woman calling me a child-collector would make of Cindy's 39, or Christine's crew, or Mom to 14's 14? And I thought that if these are the women I'm being linked to, then I'm proud to be a child-collector. I don't see myself as collecting children; I see myself as growing a family. I just happen to do it through fostering and adoption. I can't see myself ending up with 20 children or even half as many; a 3 bedroom flat does limit family size somewhat. I don't think any of these women are child-collectors either; I think they're mothers who saw the need, felt the call, and responded.

So then I started thinking about another woman who could almost certainly be called a child collector in the most technical sense of the phrase. She has collected 44 children, rounded them up from government orphanages and is busy settling them into smaller (still large by western standards but with conditions so much improved) places, fixing what can be fixed through surgeries they said the children couldn't have, educating children who were deemed ineducable, loving children who weren't deemed worthy of love. Is she done collecting? I very much doubt it! But if she is going to add to her collection of rescued children then she needs more support from those of us who aren't already supporting 44 profoundly disabled children. What Sarah is doing is incredible; in the midst of so much need she is finding those most vulnerable, those least likely to be helped by any other kind of funding, and she is changing the lives of her children forever. Sarah has posted all her children's profiles here, along with details of how much it costs to care for those children. And she's asking for help. Help with sponsoring a child, or sponsoring a surgery for a particular child. Help towards the costs of vaccinating the children and getting them proper medical attention. Help towards meeting the day to day running costs of the homes these children are now living in. And of course help towards the costs of rescuing more children. Take a look at some of the "then and now" pictures she's posted. These are children who in some cases were close to dying, neglected, maltreated, starving. Who are now loved and sheltered.

Sarah has more children she knows about who she would desperately like to bring under her care, but she can't do that without financial help either. I know I sometimes look at child profiles here in this country, and it hurts to know that I'm not in a position to offer a home to a particular child with a disability. However, I have the reassurance that whilst that child may be having to live without the security of a permanent forever family, that child will be being fed, medicated, clothed, loved, educated. If it's hard for me, how much harder is it for Sarah, knowing that to turn down a child may mean that child dying before they ever realise how much they are loved? I know she'd be grateful for any help anyone might be in a position to offer.

Which is kind of off the point, but still worth saying I think. The point is, if I am a child collecter (albeit with a very small collection), then, well, I consider myself to be in some truly excellent company.

Tia

Monday again?

Only one rogue poo this morning which has to be an improvement. And a small child awake early enough to do her homework before going in to school, and three children all fed and medded and clean and dressed and inserted into wheelchairs all enjoying the sunshine waiting outside for Mog's bus.

Mog's bus wasn't early - never mind; I had time to wash up before leaving.

Mog's bus wasn't on time - never mind; time to empty the litter trays again and clear the worst of the clutter from the sitting room.

Mog's bus wasn't 5 minutes late - annoying; I had to phone LF's school to warn them we'd be late. But hey, time to brush my teeth and feed the cats.

Mog's bus wasn't 10 minutes late. Muttering somewhat by this point, I did start to mind.

Mog's bus finally turned up ten minutes after it should have been at school, and we were able to race off to LF's school. Well, we would have been able to race off to LF's school, except that the TA Kid's buggy has broken, and the brake reset itself every 2 minutes as we walked along. This was unhelpful.

Into school, where staff sicknesses are causing more than average chaos .

Come home, late, and race around clearing the rest of the house, muttering again against the cleaner who has decided that "I need you to choose one day and stick to it" means "I'll tell you I'm coming on Monday then on Monday morning I'll text you to say I'm coming on Tuesday". Which is not fine when there's a social worker visit booked for Tuesday morning. Cleaner turns up, I point out to her that I really really do need her to agree one set day, and ask her to start with the sitting room as I have a meeting. Cleaner says it's not a problem because she never listens in on our meetings and fails to grasp the points that a) I prefer the house to be clean before the meetings happen which is sort of the point of knowing when the cleaner is coming, and b) it doesn't matter whether she listens or not, I still don't want other people around when I'm having a meeting.

Phone an Office every 30 minutes trying to track down our officer. Get bounced from her phoneline around the office and am told, variously, "she is in", "she isn't in yet", "she will be in today", and "we may have been mislead as to her whereabouts".

Meanwhile LF's school phone home, asking me to send in her communication book and the workbook she completed this morning. I tell them I did, they say I didn't, I suggest they look in the second pocket of her school bag, and they call back rather sheepishly to explain they didn't know the bag had another pocket. This would be potentially understandable, except that every child in the school has the identical bag - whilst it does explain some of our communication issues, I can't help wondering how many other families have had the same problem...

And this post was interrupted by the SW, who I thought was ringing to say running late. But nope - "just coming through town; do I take road a or road b?"
"Road a"
"oh poo. I'll be a bit late."

There are so very many different forms of poo in this life.
Tia

It must be Monday

Small child awake and bouncy at 4, fast asleep again by the time I needed to start the day.

By 7 AM one child awake, changed, dressed, and ready for feed and meds.
6.50AM I empty one litter tray from overnight poo
7AM I empty the next.
7.02AM a nameless kitten soils the clean litter tray. I empty this.
A smell of poo still clinging to the air, I search until I locate a furtive turd hiding under the settee, cunningly buried under an appointments letter. I extract the phone number from the letter, and scrape and scrub and remove the evidence.
7.08AM, a different nameless kitten soils the clean litter tray. I empty again.
7.15AM an older cat comes back inside and makes use of the nice clean litter tray.
7.30AM, the child who is dressed and changed, and by now fed and medded decides to produce another fragrant offering. I clean this.
7.45AM, the delicate scent of cat poo still hangs around the house, but sees to be everywhere, no longer concentrated in one spot. I attempt to coral the kittens in the sunroom in order to open windows and doors to air the place out. This whilst simultaneously waking, dressing, feeding and supervising forgotten homework for another child, and very thankful for the carer who is doing the same (minus the homework) for the 3rd.

Herding kittens is about as easy as catching jelly in a sieve. One cat in my arms, the other invisible. One cat in the sunroom I locate the second. Open door to insert second cat, the first flows through the three inch gap and disappears.

Giving up on this, I retreat to the bathroom so sort myself out for the day. And notice a brown smear under my chin, which, once wiped off, proves to have been the source of the all-pervasive arôme du chat. Cos life's just that good to me.

Finally we catch a break, and Mog's bus is a nice five minutes early, giving me time to round up the other two children and saunter down to school where, in a very sweet moment, I get to witness Little Fish finding her friends - or rather, I get to see Little Fish's friends finding her - a small queue of boys crowd around her, waiting their turn to rub her arm, kiss her cheek, envelop her in cuddles as she preens herself.

And then the school teacher comes out and informs me that LF's 1:1 classroom assistant is off sick, as is the SENCo, and many of the potential replacement staff. They have people who can feed her and cath her but no one to be in the classroom with her, do I want to leave her anyway or will I take her home? Deciding that she's school's responsibility really, and recalling that the SENCo did promise I'd never be asked to take her away simply because the staff aren't present, I opt to leave her, at which point the problem of getting her home at the end of the day arises. No 1:1 means no one to walk her back, which means I'll have to pick her up early anyway.

So now the TA kid and myself are watching the kittens chase a straw around the sitting room floor, waiting for a phonecall from school about some unexpected disaster. Only on a Monday...

Tia

Outnumbered

Three children, three cats, just one pair of hands...

I spent half an hour just now searching for an elusive cat poo, before realising that the aroma was arising from our temporary addition and not from some hidden corner of the room. New child, new smells.

I can't say much about this temporary addition really. Very temporary, very happy (except when ignored), and fitting in very nicely. Definitely cheeky, Little Fish is very pleased to have the company, and Mog is pleased to have someone else to share LF's attentions.

That cats are becoming less and less litter trained as the days go on. Newest attraction for them is the vast pool of medical supplies under Mog's bed. Farewell 25 pink sticks; so much for weaning Mog off suction anytime soon. Thankfully they've not been so interested in the other stuff, but I think we need to find a catproof door (or 12) sometime in the not too distant future.

Tia

Anticipation

waiting...
Tia

More Little Fish Language

"Die NOW!" she squeaks as I turn the engine on. I know I'm not the best driver, but it strikes me as a little previous, until I realise she actually means "Drive now, please kind Mama."

"I want Mamma Mia". I fetch Mamma Mia. "No no not that Mamma Mia, Banana Mamma Mia". Ah, Balamory.

Today we sat at a table in a cafe. At the next table, by sheer coincidence, was a child who used to be Little Fish's sibling. Neither had any idea who the other was, and to keep it simple, we didn't introduce them to each other. It made me wonder about how differently their lives might have turned out if we had made different decisions. Only with adoption do you get to decide that you want to parent, not just any child, but that specific child. Of course, that doesn't mean you get to know exactly how the child will turn out, it doesn't give you any kind of happy ever after guarantee, but it does change lives, forever, with a permanency which is not there with fostering.

Watching this other child, I had several different visions of how our lives could be so different. I imagined the two of them, growing together as siblings in someone else's care. The two of them, growing together, under my care - unlikely that one; I can't imagine I would ever have been approved for the two of them. Or perhaps a swap, my Little Fish belonging elsewhere, and this child, so strange and yet so familiar, belonging to me. Would LF be who she is now if she'd lived elsewhere this past two years? Would she be herself? Would this other child have the quirks and foibles there displayed (nothing negative incidentally; I am simply avoiding specifics as this other life is not my story to tell) if I had been the parent? What if someone entirely different had been chosen? Would Little Fish be Little Fish at all?

And now I'm being called away by the girl herself, "Mummy, I'd like a dodgy biscuit please?" Oh, digestive biscuit? "Yes, and some cake, and a piece of bread and some ham. Is that a good idea, Mummy? Let's do that shall we?"

I'm definitely not interested in doing a swap.
Tia

Easy like Wednesday mornings...

so today was the day we though we might just make it over to Shepton Mallet for the rest of New Wine '09. Wasn't to be. More pox yesterday, a disturbed night, and then Little Fish slept until 12noon, only waking extremely reluctantly after I had given her a feed and meds. Mog and Courtney made the most of a quiet morning too.

This afternoon we went to an extremely exciting and very special drive-thru, after which three of us sat in the carpark outside pc world having an extremely unusual in-the-car chip picnic whilst the remainder of us (i.e. me) took a fried laptop in and argued with the tech guys. Spot which family may have been actually watching a tiny bit too much Charlie and Lola.

I'm doing an assessment at the moment, part of my fostercare practice development stuff. I had to stop as too annoyed with the answers the thing was trying to get me to say. So quick poll for you - do you think it is necessary to make more choices on behalf of your disabled child than it would be if your child were not disabled?

Tia

...

Three parcels in the post this morning, hurrah. Except that the first was medical supplies for the Wahooligan, delivered to the wrong address. The second was a reprint of the photo books I made for Great Grannie's Birthday, with the same errors repeated on them. And the third was an iPod to replace the one which got wet, only it isn't the same model and won't work without headphones, so isn't any use to Mog.

A lovely day with friends. Peaceful, despite at one point having nine children with just two adults. Cake and conversation; good times. Lots of coffee, and only after the 3rd or 4th cup did it register as uncaffeinated; no, it doesn't affect the taste but it certainly affects my energy levels. Another cup, and another, and the waking up just wasn't happening.

I blame the strange friends who manage to function adequately without the caffeine - including picking uncaffeinated diet coke for lunch - for what happened next. A short drive home through the rain, calling in at Homebase for socket covers, for tomorrow I have a fostering-related health and safety inspection, and all my sockets should be protected from prying little fingers. Found the socket covers eventually (ok - I didn't; but the helpful chap in uniform did. I think he worked there. I do hope so - but thinking back I'm sure their uniform was green last time I was there, and this chap was wearing navy. Oh well), queued, watched them scan, then realised I'd left my purse in the van. Oops. Mad dash through the rain back to the van, grabbed the money, requeued, finally managed to pay and exit.

Back home and one very tired Little Fish informed me that her friend P's Mummy had told her she needed a shower tonight. Thanks, friend! Ham sandwich and a biscuit for tea which makes three meals in a row.

Opening the door I was greeted by the cheerful piercing chip chip cheep of a smoke alarm with dying batteries. This would ordinarily be fine, except the fire service replaced my battery operated smoke alarms last year with ones with integral batteries. This is now glued to the ceiling and cannot be opened or removed. Good thinking, chaps. Every 37 seconds we get a new chirp from it. I've tried prying it from the ceiling, I've tried hitting it with a broom, I've tried muffling it with a towel. It is of course the smoke alarm by the bedrooms, not the one in the playroom...

I'm shelving the problem for now; I have a babsitter tonight and she's due in 15 minutes. I'll hand her the broom and tell her to get poking - it's possible to reset it for about 20 minutes at a time but only by manually setting it to alarm properly. It'll be her choice which she prefers. Meeting old school friends tonight which should be fun; provided I can stay awake with my caffeine levels at dangerously low levels. Perhaps I should order an espresso aperitif.

Tia

Ten

Ten years ago this week, I had a phonecall from a social worker, a call I never thought I would hear. "We've found a house, are you still interested in fostering?"

Rewind a little.

Fourteen years ago I hit the magic age when I was finally old enough to adopt and foster. And shortly after that, I hit an immoveable wall of "you're too young/too inexperienced/too naive/too single/too recently ill/too unlike our ideas of what a foster or adoptive parent should be". Several years of talking to agencies, sometimes getting past the first stages, starting to talk about specific children, only to be faced with another "sorry but" door slamming firmly shut. And then, back in November 1998, I had had enough. This time it had been closer. We'd been talking about an actual real child, a baby with a rapidly progressive condition and a very short life expectancy, who needed to leave hospital and experience home life before dying. And we started on the world's fastest fostering approval process. And then it happened; a more experienced (and already approved) fostercarer became available, the child went to that carer, and the urgency faded and all the problems which had been "I'm sure we can sort this out" became "oo I'm not sure what we'll do about that" again. And I told the social worker that was it, I couldn't do it any more, and the only way she would ever have me as a fostercarer was if she somehow solved the biggest stumbling block and found me a suitable house.

I went back to work, applied for a promotion, started a distance learning course, cancelled subscriptions to my adoption magazine, shelved fostering as a dream.

And then, out of the blue, the phone call. Was I still interested? Would I come and look at this house, and how quickly could we get the fostering application sorted out?

The story behind the house varies a little according to who is telling it, but this is the version as I understood it, ten years ago. The house belongs to a housing association - formerly Christ's Hospital but since sold on. The previous tenant had died. An elderly woman, the house had been partially adapted with a through-floor lift giving her limited access to parts of the upstairs. She had lived the past ten years in two rooms - the sitting room downstairs and her bedroom upstairs.

On her death, the housing association had hunted for other tenants waiting for an adapted house. And had found none - the house not being suitable for an independent disabled person, and not being popular with families with active children due to its location. So, they were in the process of arranging for the lift to be taken out and the various holes in the floor to be repaired. They made a phone call to adult social services, to see if anyone would be interested in a secondhand lift. My social worker happened to overhear, or perhaps the person they spoke to knew she was looking for an adapted house, or perhaps the messages she had left with different people did finally get through in the nick of time. However it happened, she became aware of the fact this house was empty and adapted, and remembered me.

She called the housing association and asked them to hold off on removing the lift. She called me to check I was still interested. Together, we went to see the house, to assess its suitability. And I signed a lease, conditional on my approval as a fostercarer.

We spent the next few months completing the form F (homestudy). As I plodded through work, which was going through some major changes and adjustments, she raced around visiting my referees, filling out the necessary paperwork, sizing up potential fosterchildren. And then the forms were filled in and submitted to panel, there was no panel in August, and so we waited for the beginning of September.

I was approved on the 3rd of September 1999, and my first foster child moved in the following day. Respite care; I was then working my notice up in Cambridgeshire, so I spent weekends fostering, then dropped the child off at one end of the county before driving in the opposite direction back to work. Days off inbetween spent driving home to paint and decorate and rid the house of the smell of incontinent old lady - an impossible task as it turned out, eventually the housing association removed the offensive floorboards and replaced them with ones which were not saturated in stale urine.

Eventually my notice period ended and I settled down. My first fosterchild was most disappointed when our new cooker arrived; he had assumed I was cooking on a Trangia through choice. Friends, family, and social workers combined to help furnish the house, and then a grant came through to complete the adaptations and make the place more suitable for physically dependent children. It felt as though that process took forever, but considering we moved in properly in September it can't have been that long, as in May 2000, nine years ago, my approval changed from respite and short term care to long term fostering, and my Goldie moved in, a small, thin eleven year old with wild, wild hair and a wicked grin.

She was my first girl; in the six months before her arrival I'd had four very different boys. The computer genius, the potato masher lover, the kite runner, and the physio king.

Ten years since the door to fostering finally opened. And ten children fostered in those ten years. It's not a huge number; I've fostering friends who have taken forty or more children in that same time period. But it it's enough for me. For now at least...

Tia

Doors

Does anyone know this man? He turned up on the doorstep on Tuesday morning, and told me he had come to paint our front door. I said I didn't know anything about that, and he informed me it was on his works sheet, so it needed to be done. I pointed out that we don't rent our house, and he pointed to my house number on his little sheet of paper, and insisted it was in my contract. I was reasonably certain doors were specifically excluded from my contract; he asked me to close the door, so, thinking that he was going off to check, I did so and sat back down again.

Ten minutes later, the door was opened, he painted the sills, and told me to leave the door wedged open "for an hour or so" to let the paint dry. As our carer left at eight o'clock, she tested the paint and laughingly offered to come back in the morning armed with a razor blade and a battering ram to open the door. As I went to bed at eleven I pulled the still tacky door to, and hoped for the best.

It rained yesterday, the door held up to this fairly well, and most of the newly mown grass which had blown onto the sticky paint washed off again.

I took this photo at half past eight this morning. I just happened to be walking down the hallway when I realised our random painter was back. Ten minutes later he pushed the door open, painted the sill again, and walked away. Warned by the many dischuffed visitors on Tuesday, I put a sign up this time. It's nine o'clock now and the paint is still wet.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not unhappy that someone has painted my door. I expect I'll get a bill from it somewhere, when the people at the housing association realise that the house isn't rented, or possibly when they realise their painter visited the wrong street. But it's a job which is about two years overdue, so it has at least saved me the effort of finding someone to do it. I am however a little annoyed that he went ahead and did it even after I told him not to, and that for the two finest days this week we've been trapped inside the house watching paint dry.

We didn't make it to church on Sunday; the extra care needed for Little Fish made us late. And it was nice, very nice, to sit around at home and enjoy just being home, just us, without our previous week's audience. We enjoyed our garden on Monday rather than going elsewhere. Tied to the house unexpectedly today and Tuesday, and a wet wet day yesterday means that we've not actually left the house properly since we got home last Saturday. Tomorrow I plan to escape with both girls first thing in the morning before anyone can phone and arrange to see us.

It's been a very phone-centric day today. Appointments to be arranged and rearranged, medicines to sort out, and a phonecall from the health visitor wanting to know how I was coping. She caught me at a bad moment - third person in a row to ring as I was trying to feed a child. Apparently it is now policy for the health visitors to phone the house every time they get a letter from hospital about a child on their books. It doesn't matter whether the parents want the HV to phone or not, "this is a service we offer so that someone is there for you". It doesn't apparently matter if the parent has 23 other professionals plus a raft of friends who can be "there for you"; this is now the role of the health visitor. I did request that this stopped - we can average three hospital visits a week; I do not need a kind caring stranger asking me how I'm coping after each one. I hope she takes my stroppiness with her call as a sign that I am coping just fine thanks, and not as a sign that I need even more concerned caring phonecalls.

And then a phonecall in the middle of the girls' bedtime confirming that the Wahooligan will not be coming back to us. I'm very pleased that he is where he is; I am absolutely convinced that it is the very best place for him to be. We'll miss him though. And more importantly than my own feelings, the fact that he won't be returning has made a liar of me to my child. Little Fish waved goodbye to him two weeks ago as she went into preschool, and he had gone when she came home. I told her he would be back. If I'd known this was a possibility, I'd have made sure she she was here when he had left, and I'd not have told her that. She's not too fussed at the moment; she knows where he is and she sees his things still by his bed. But I'm not so sure she'll be as happy when the rest of his stuff goes, and she will remember that I told her he'd be home again.

That's how it goes with fostering, I suppose. Here one day and gone the next. Or here one day and stay forever, and the forever bit was never an option for the Wahooligan. I hope he's not the last fosling we have though; it was never my intention to stop fostering forever, so maybe there will be someone else in that cot one day? I know we'd all enjoy that.

Tia

Tea at three

We had a tea party at Helen House this afternoon. No scones with
clotted cream, sadly, but we just about made do with the piles of
other cakes and biscuits. Gentle music playing, happy conversation,
and children in powered wheelchairs playing croquet on the lawn. Oh,
and the photographer from the Oxford Mail.

Tea at three is one of this year's Helen House fundraisers. Throw a
tea party, invite friends, charge them. Simple enough - everyone gets
cake and a drink, and Helen House get a bit more money towards the
cost of our care.

Hospice care is not funded by the NHS or by Social Services; Nor do
the patients' families pay. Every penny comes from donations. We're
staying here now to give Little Fish a break from being in hospital,
and so that I can recharge my own batteries before jumping back into
our daily life with LFs additional needs. Mog has been here for a
week; this hospice is the only place where I can feel confident enough
to leave her overnight, knowing that the staff recognize and can cope
with all her special needs.

That's this stay. Helen House have taken care of my girls so I can do
things by myself at times. They have taken one child so I can focus on
the other. When Goldie died they took us all for a couple of days, a
pause before taking up the reins again, a chance to breathe with chaos
all around us. And if and when the time comes, I know they will
support us through the death of one of my remaining girls.

Helen House do more than just care. As I left the house this evening
to come over to my flat, I paused to watch a child have a late night
spa. Yesterday one child had a private movie screening whilst another
couple enjoyed their favourite meals. Croquet today; another day
aromatherapy and music therapy fill the corridors with a gently
relaxing multisensory feast.

For myself, this is a chance to enjoy just being Mummy, not having to
be nurse and carer and therapist. Medicines and feeds are brought in
and administered, treatments are carried out, and I can be elsewhere
entirely if I wish, or present but off duty. Tonight Mog is hooked up
to a sleep study; if this had taken place in hospital I would have had
to spend the night by her side. As it is, I have said goodnight to
her, and l have crossed over the road to my flat. I can reach the
girls in seconds if necessary, but I can be confident that they are in
safe hands, cared for and loved whilst I sleep.

One more quiet day tomorrow and then time to step back into reality. I
love this life we have together, but there's no denying it can be
difficult at times. Knowing that we can book ourselves another break
here in a few months' time makes it that much easier to pick up those
extra roles again.

Tia