Alice’s Foster Care Blog
After weeks of experiencing the longest heatwave in my loving memory, we head into what must be the wettest day of the year so far – to put up a tent and begin a week of camping. What on earth were we thinking? This is typical!! We arrive in good time and fortunately our friends have arrived ahead of us meaning I can stay in the car with Alice while, Charlie, Lauren, and Annie get our to put up the tent. I’m not sure who is taking one for the team in this instance – Charlie and the girls get soaked putting up the tent and emptying out the car of all our gear, meanwhile I am in the car for over an hour with Alice who is having a pretty big meltdown.
Entertaining Alice was pretty tough, we had exhausted the music, stories, DVD’s and games that we had brought for the journey – everything else was buried deep in the back of the boot. There was no where to escape to until the tent was up. She really was trying my patience and in the confines of the small space of the car I was finding it hard to find my “happy place”. I appreciate being shut in a car seat was not much fun either, she wanted to get out and “help” like the big girls – she doesn’t understand her limitations of being in a wheelchair.
She usually gets to “help” by holding tent pegs or unpacking sleeping bags, and she was currently being kept prisoner in the car. She certainly didn’t appreciate how difficult it is to get things dry when they get wet while you are camping, all I was thinking of was how on earth were we going to keep dry if this weather continues. At home we can wash and dry everything pretty quickly, but when camping there is nothing we can do.
I had to dig deep in order not to lose my temper and snap at her. I put the radio on – a little too loud and sat back and tried as best I could to block out the sound of Alice repeating over and over how awful I was not to let her out of the car. Just as Charlie and the girls had finished putting up the tent we got out and started nesting in out tent. Alice was relieved to leave the confines of the car to go to the confines of her sleeping pod in the tend. She sorted out her toys and teddies and helped to blow up her Ready Bed. She was happy again – for now.
And just when I was beginning to lose hope for a nice week camping there in the distance was a break in clouds – and a very feint glimpse of blue sky could be seen – just enough to give us new hope for the week!
A Less Ordinary Fostering Family Blog
