Internal musings of a me.

I have been a little thin on the blog the last few weeks (unfortunately not thin on the hips!) and that would be because I have been too busy! I hate the word busy. But it's plain and simple truth!

In the house at the moment we have miss 8, mr 11, mr 12, miss 13 and miss 15. Things settled really well after the departure of Mr 7, and of course it wasn't long before the call came in for Mr 11.

Mr 11 is about the toughest kid we have had so far. He is a gangbanger, his uncle is president of said gang. But there is one thing plain and simple in my mind : he is an 11 year old boy who has been in foster care for five years... And he needs love. He has, unfortunately, found that feeling of acceptance in the wrong places. I don't know if he will be back tonight. He has an illegal plan in place for the day. I just hope like crazy that when I said 'if you don't, you can come home with me again tonight'. He liked it with us. He admitted it. I think despite his staunch nature he really does want to come home tonight. What he doesn't know is I peeked in on him at 9pm... He was sound asleep, he was just a (not so) little kid. No bandanas. No slouched shoulders. No clenched fists. Just peace.

Miss 15 is still experiencing some culture shock. Our environment is so much further developed than hers. We had an electricity problem the other night. I came home to no power... As soon as the garage door wouldn't open and I could see the neighbours lights on... My heart sunk as I knew there was something wrong. I called for help (when husband is out of town for 4 weeks... And doesn't answer his phone ... You get a good list of support people!) I was advised to turn everything off then try resetting the fuses. (Still no luck... Turned out, long story short, miss 13 had spilt water from her fish tank in the multi box and the rcd switch had blown in order to prevent us all being electrocuted!) Miss 15 was on doing laundry that day. When I asked her to do the laundry it didn't occur to me that I had only taught her how to turn the machine on when it was already switched on at the wall. Turns out when someone isn't used to electricity they don't know to turn it on!

Mr 12 and Miss 8 became briefly unsettled earlier in the week when they were told it would be at least 6 months before they would get to go back to mum.  They have settled again now though and I have assured them that they are welcome here and that they aren't going to have to move again.

Miss 13 is getting pretty excited about our court date.  It's only a couple of weeks ago.  She has really come around to the fact that this is actually happening.  Her mum has been surprisingly helpful in reducing some of her anxiety around it and has told her "you are just going to have two mums, and two homes now....most people only get one.  These people can give to you what I can't manage".  So full credit to her.

I have still been dealing with the internal dilemma of what to do next year.  Part time work, full time work, teaching, not teaching, same school, different school.  And although this isn't a school blog, it's a fostering blog - I am going to share a brief update because I did make the post about wondering whether or not to give up work to foster full time.  The short response to any questions at the moment is "I don't know".  And my general comment is - don't ask.  I am extremely torn between a couple of options at the moment, and asking me isn't wise!  I have spoken a lot with my extremely supportive and inspirational principal.  And I have also spoken with a friend who is a principal - because I need to work out exactly what it is I want and need before making a final decision.  I am humbled to have so many options available to me.  But I am also sort of wishing I didn't have so many options!



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