Friday’s Fostering Blog
It has been one of those weeks that seems to have gone on for ever. Nothing has been good enough for Alice. She seems to have woken up in a bad mood every morning. She has taken offence at every little thing, been argumentative and downright grumpy. I have wondered whether she is coming down with something – and checked her temperature and checked her urine to ensure she is not brewing a urine infection. No temperature and no infection. So I don’t think there is a physical reason for her bad mood.
Pretty much every day there has been a battle about something, whether it is getting dressed, eating food, getting out the door on time for school, doing homework etc. It has been truly exhausting. I would like to say we have all kept our cool but there is only so much you can take. One or other of us will find ourselves engaging in conversation, trying to negotiate or reason with her. This always ends in disaster. Having been reeled in to the drama, you end up feeling very frustrated with need for “lunge time” in the kitchen. “Lunge time” is the phrase we use to one another to signal a white flag – and it literally means what you think it means – going into another room and doing some lunge exercises to keep calm!. Or course it also means that we need help, we need a “get out of jail” card – we just need to be anywhere other than being sucked in to whatever drama has just occurred!
So after such a week you can imagine my delight when I received a phone call yesterday from Alice’s class teacher to tell me the good news that Alice had received “Star of the Week”. It felt like this could not have been given on a worse week. So Charlie and I had to go into assembly this morning and celebrate her achievement of getting the award for her excellent work this week. Reading between the lines I think “excellent work” meant she actually wrote two sentences without making a huge fuss. I shouldn’t be so cynical.
It was also unfortunate that it appeared to be “special needs” week. Two of the other “stars” had additional needs – downs syndrome and autism. Call me suspicious but I couldn’t help think that they wanted to get the “special” kids out of the way – all in one hit. I am sure it was completely coincidental and the staff would be mortified at me thinking such a thing. This has at least provided a little amusement after what has been a tricky week.
A Less Ordinary Family Foster Carer Blog
