Fostering Alice Blog
Monday.
I always learned that patience was a virtue. I know that teaching this to kids is incredible difficult and teaching it to our foster daughter has been almost impossible. It seems there’s just no fun in waiting. With the weather heating up again this weekend and bank holiday Monday following the weekend, the girls have asked to have the paddling pool in the garden. What a great idea. I close my eyes and imaging sitting in the garden drinking a latte (or something stronger!!) while my feet are dangling in the pool keeping cool – the reality of what will happen will be very very far away from this image!!
Having mentioned the paddling pool all of five minutes ago, Alice cannot understand why the pool is not already up and why she can’t get into it straight away. A few things need to happen before the pool can be put up – firstly Charlie needs to mow the lawn – something he has been putting off for a couple of weeks now. First cut of the year is always harder and the fact that he has let it go so long will mean it will take even longer. While Charlie makes a start, I try and locate the pool – now I know I put it somewhere in the garage… and then there’s the foot pump.
The girls remember they took it to their youth weekend away and forgot to bring it back!! Fortunately, I remember we have an electric one that plugs into the car. I have to admit it did look a bit of a sight – when I took the paddling pool out to our drive and pumped it up by the car, I had a few funny comments from neighbours. In the end it took less than a couple of minutes to sort and I was actually glad not to have had to use the foot pump which would have taken much longer.
Alice was itching to get in to the pool. She did not understand that it would probably now take over half and hour to fill with water. And then there is the small matter of the temperature. I spent the next half an hour filling kettles of boiling water to add to the pool. Although this may sound likee absolute madness – there is some method in it. Alice has very poor circulation and she find its very hard to regulate her temperature. So the hot water mixed will hopefully take the cold water somewhere above freezing and give her a few more precious moments in the pool before she goes blue!!
After a quick catheter change, we soon get her into her swimming costume and finally into the pool. After about twenty minutes I could see her shivering and she was beginning to turn blue. I let Charlie take a turn at being bad cop telling her it was time to get out of the pool. She made some attempt at protest, but couldn’t argue her case to stay in as she was shivering too much! After getting dried and dressed we took her through to the front room, out of sight of the paddling pool and put on a DVD. We will leave the pool out for a couple of days and hopefully we will get more use out of it.
Although she was in it for a relatively short amount of time she did have a huge amount of fun, for her it is memory making – and that it worth all the effort.
A Less Ordinary Fostering Family Blog.
