Countdown

7 days to go
6 passports located (3 expired ones and 3 current ones)
5 days' worth of Disney passes printed off and ready to be claimed
4 plane tickets sitting with the passports
3 sets of hold baggage beginning to be sorted
2 matching sunhats neatly folded
1 tired mother still nowhere near sorted!

I found the missing passport, this is good. On the other hand, so far, I have not organised any dollars, I have not arranged to pick up Mog's nappies, and I keep forgetting to buy a slow release fish food stick thing. I tried to collect our letters of medical necessity today (to allow us to take drugs, ventilator, food pump, etc., onto the plane), and despite the receptionist being able to see them in the system she could not find them in the office. So I need to go back and do that tomorrow. Hopefully coinciding it with a nappy collection time.

I have lost Mog's swimming costume. She has been borrowing Little Fish's swimming costume, but unfortunately tomorrow they both need costumes at the same time. For some reason I appear to have an ancient Barbie costume which may fit one of them; hideous but better than nudity in the school pool.

The van has been fixed and is now running beautifully. 12 month's tax, MOT, service and a new clutch. It would probably be a good time to sell it. But it's definitely not a good time to buy a replacement.

And I, I have found the best ever recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I'm not sure yet whether this is a good or a bad thing, so I'll just say, it tastes just as good uncooked as cooked, and beats anything else I've tried in the "vanilla cookie with chocolate chips in it" line hands down.

On which note, it is late, I've been swimming with the Guides, so I am going to grab a cookie and head to bed. Night!
Tia

Morning all.

see more crazy cat pics

Urgh. Clocks went forwards this morning. Mog decided to celebrate by waking up at 5 new time, 4 old time. Little Fish found it necessary to check my presence every hour throughout the night.

Mog slept beautifully through church to recover, not really an action I felt able to imitate. Query: how is it that she can sleep through ampilified music, a room full of 5-11 year olds singing and shouting and PRAISING GOD and raising the roof, and yet be awoken by the sound of me turning off my bedside light?

Oh, and to all those who asked - yes, I do have plenty of alcohol gel* and yes, I have some nice smelling handcream**.
Tia
*for hand cleansing purposes
**which unfortunately leaves me itchy, so I also have some special stuff which does the job nicely but smells eeeeeeevil.

Tia

Happy Birthday Little Fish

And see what Little Fish's favourite present was.

Something every little girl should have.
A Thomas the Tank Engine Lego set! "Play, Mummy, play!". Thank you Grannie and Grandad. She has gone to bed one very happy little girl, full of plans for tomorrow which include more "play put that that there" and lots of cooking too apparently.

No pictures of the cake as it just doesn't look the same when it has had chunks cut out of it. But a very cool car cake with giant chocolate button wheels, and frogs and nodding dogs as passengers. Thanks again Grannie!

We are sorry we missed our get together, but Little Fish has still had a generally excellent day. Mog seems to have enjoyed herself too.

Tia

Have you washed your hands?

Get up, go to the loo, wash hands (1).
Mix meds, wash hands (2).
Start tube feed, administer meds, wash hands (3).
Change pad, wash hands (4).
Clean stoma, wash hands (5).
More meds, wash hands (6).
Change 2nd child, wash hands (7).
Make breakfast, wash hands (8).
Make coffee. Drink coffee.
Wipe faces, wipe tables, wash up, wash hands (9).
Loo again, wash hands (10).
Get dressed, dress child 1, change pad again, wash hands (11).
Dress child 2, sit child on potty, wash hands (12).
Clean child 1's eyes, wash hands (13).
Clean child 2's eyes, wash hands (14).
Empty nappy bin, wash hands (15).
Take all rubbish bags out for the bin men, wash hands (16).
Come back into house, discover child who was sitting on potty has crawled off potty and halfway across bathroom floor, spreading poo as she goes. Clean up the mess, wash hands (17).
Put a load of washing in the machine, remember the 2nd bin, bag up the rubbish and take it outside, wash hands (18).
Administer painkillers, wash hands (19).
Discover child 2 has now found child 1's special feeds and has emptied one carton on the floor. Clean up sticky mess, wash hands (20).

And it's not 10AM yet!
Tia

Goodbye, Fostercare?

"One Wednesday morning in November 2002, I had a phone call from my social worker, telling me about a little girl. Five months old and brain-damaged; parents at the end of their tether. Would I be interested in taking her for a few days? Nothing was definite at that point, Imogen was in hospital and her parents might still decide to take her home themselves."

Click the quote to get the rest of the story - my story starts about halfway down the page.

The following day, Mog moved in. I fostered Mog as a few days became a few months, and a few months became forever. Today we wrote the last chapter in her life as a fosterchild. Today we went to court, and I became Imogen's Special Guardian. Five years later, the legal arrangements are finally complete, and I am now legally a part of her parenting team.

As we walked out of court, I gained a daughter.

I also lost something. I was approved as a fostercarer in September 1999. My first fosterchild moved in the day after I was approved. Since that time, the longest I have ever been without a fosterchild has been ten days. Whilst I still have children, whilst I now have children who can be considered legally my own (although I have a problem with the idea that anyone can claim to own a child, people are not property), I am no longer a fostercarer. I do not foster any more. My occupation now is simply "parent". I'm delighted to be that parent, but it is still a little strange to me.

I seriously doubt that I will never foster again. This is a hiatus, not the end of an era. There will come a time when my skills are needed, and the phone will ring. But until then, for now, I am not a fostercarer.

This is a happy day. Mog wore her smart green dress, she looked beautiful, and she enjoyed all the attention whilst waiting for our moment in court. The judge thanked us for bringing joy into his day, a day otherwise filled with difficult and negative child and family law stuff. Mog sat up late tonight (until she couldn't hold the seizures off any more), we had a nice meal, Little Fish gave her lots of cuddles, and we enjoyed being a family. We've been working towards this day ever since we knew that Mog would not be able to return home to her birth family. I hope today is a happy day for them too - the knowledge that Mog's status in their lives is unchanged; she remains legally as well as emotionally and physically a part of their family whilst gaining legal status as a member of our household too.

It's also a sad day. For four and a half of these five years, Goldy was there to hold Mog, to laugh at her and to tell her stories. Goldy loved parties, and would have loved to have been able to be a part of this one. Always, when Mog was younger, I pictured Goldy being with us in court for this day. I can picture her now, clearing her throat loudly and stealing some of the limelight, finding a way to somehow stain whatever smart clothing I would have put her in, and demanding pizza as a celebration afterwards. We have a bottle of champagne, and my mind is drawn back to a different family celebration - in my memory, Mog is lying under the table, having been worn out by a morning of having people pay attention to her. Goldy is pulling on my arm as we toast the guest of honour. I hold a glass of champagne to her lips, she sticks her tongue into it, and, as the rest of us raise our glasses "To Harry", Goldy raises her voice and loudly demands "BEER". She would have enjoyed today, she would have loved the rain and the wind and arrived in court as high as a kite, fizzing on the weather and the emotion all around her.

We included her memory. Mog wears Goldy's "teddy bear skin" blanket, my smart court clothes are the ones I bought for Goldy's funeral, Little Fish has the capacity to be just as loud although in a very different way. Goldy will be forever on my mind and in my heart; I would have liked it if she could have been here in our lives still too for today.

She isn't. My two girls are though, and are both sleeping sweetly after an exciting day. Tomorrow Little Fish is the birthday girl, and a slew of presents and cards dropped through the letterbox this morning for her. Today was a happy day, tomorrow will be a happy day, and I will be heading for bed myself shortly. It's ok I think to take a few minutes in the meantime to be sad for what is not, as well as thankful for what is.

Good night.
Tia

Holidays are (nearly) here again

Three passports all in date, two in sight and one currently missing. Little Fish has posted it somewhere.

One set of travel insurance obtained, all documentation currently missing.

One set of medical letters being prepared, one bottle of powdered antibiotic being prescribed, one new set of prescriptions being obtained.

One growing sense of panic at the inability to find any kind of confirmation of our hotel booking.

One sense of disbelief at the amount of extra carry-on baggage we are going to need - two able bodied adults, each carrying one disabled child, plus the four bags with in flight necessities, plus feed pump, suction, nebulizer, ventilator, battery for the vent, and positioning equipment. I suspect we'll compromise with the positioning stuff.

And a dawning realisation that, once I've sorted all the logistics of packing and getting permissions etc., I am still going to be trapped in an aeroplane for too many hours with a very busy and active toddler. On balance I think that might just turn out to be the biggest challenge of all!

Tia

Chaos reigns

Is it possible to be pathologically disorganised? Can I blame some kind of path, rather than my own failings as an individual?

I should be at housegroup tonight. Our housegroup is organising a conference, elsewhere in the country, on Work and Faith. I missed out the early planning stages of this, due to Mog's op and other problems at the start of this academic year. I'm not attending the conference itself (childcare stuff plus general fear), but should be helping out with the planning. It doesn't help that I have no real idea what we're talking about, what I should be doing, what shape this should take. Give me a group of girls and I'll get them playing silly games. Give me a hypothetical room full of businessmen and clergy, and ask me to find something about Work and Faith, and I'm running scared. Grown ups. Eek. Can't I do something unobtrusive like go and change nappies or bake biscuits? Thought I might have been on a winner with the biscuits, but sadly the conference centre is catered.

So instead I've been given a small pile of information to sift through, to look at things which should go on the promotional material. I've had it a long time. I don't know what to do with it. I am an intelligent woman, but give me this paperwork and the meaning slides through my fingertips as I read it.

Be that as it may, I managed to scribble a couple of things together ready for the meeting tonight. I also had some articles to print out to take with me. Already running late, I hit the printer button and managed to print about half of them before the ink ran out. Grabbing a pen I wrote down the URL before grabbing my coat and heading out of the door. Returning seconds later to turn the house upside down in search of my keys. Mog, still awake, laughing at me. Sitter picking up on the fraughtness of it all and sifting through the many items on the bathroom windowsill.

Eventually discovering the keys under the kettle (why? why under it? and how?), I headed out, a mere 30 minutes late. Arrived at the house to find all the curtains open, all the lights on, and a suspicious lack of extra cars around. Knocked at the door and was answered by the son of the household. Extremely polite, but no, his parents weren't hosting housegroup that night, and no, he didn't know where they were instead. Marvellous. I have no idea where they are meeting, and by the time I return home to check emails and find out, I will be over an hour late, which for a two hour meeting is just silly.

So, I head to Tesco's instead. Except I don't; I find myself heading towards the other end of town, carried away on the one way system I had inadvertently entered at the wrong junction. Thank goodness for roundabouts. Back on track, I walk through a deserted Tescos. Empty aisles, empty shelves, vast crates of crushed cardboard boxes where customer services are usually to be found. And no Ecover washing up liquid.

It's not been a great day; Little Fish's power chair got trapped in the sunroom, and has ripped holes in my new lino. I was told Bob would be coming and he hasn't. And I have a difficult situation with a neighbour; something I've been expecting for a while, but which is now going to cause some complications. I feel at least five paces behind everything I am supposed to be doing. Not fantastic.

Tia