sheer madness??

[SquidgyBrain]

I have agreed to do day care (9.30-3) tomorrow and Sunday - so we shall have 2x1 year old 1x2 year old LO's and then our own 3 (4,6 and 8) - busy house huh!!! I must be out my mind!

[NanaNina]

Take care squidgy cus if I recall correctly you have some health problems yourself don't you. Apologies if I have that wrong. FWIW I think you are taking on too much, but I'm sure you will cope, aas foster carers never cease to amaze me with their ability to care for so many children.

[sumum]

Hi Squidgy you will be fine.
I presume your other half will be there with you.

Try and organise your day so it is not endless chaos.
Plan activities, games, outings, snack times etc - inc some quiet times. Pretend you are a little nursery and get your older kids involved too.

It is only two days so forget cleaning/cooking and just be with the kids.

Enjoy!!!!!

[SquidgyBrain]

Nana thanks for your concern,
i do have health issues but nothing that is made any worse by the occasional mad weekend, and this respite weekend will potentially make a huge difference to these 2 wee poppets.

My husband is brilliant so we will do it together :)and it only a few hours - 9.30 till 3

Sumum - our 3 (4, 6 and 8) love having our LO here and were so excited that there were 2 more LO's coming to play tomorrow. If it is a nice day we shall go on mass to the park :)

looking forwards to it :)

[p99gmb]

Make sure you have a nice bar of choccy and a nice long soak after the madness calms down.

You WILL do brilliantly, you will love it and I know your house will be filled with love & laughter.

Go for it babes x x x

[SquidgyBrain]

bit of a sticky start with the 18mth old LO keeping attacking our 13mth old LO - kept throwing toys at him pushing him, and pulling his hair ect. Wasn't comfortable with it - if it had been one of our DC's we wouldn't have been so concerned but with relationships being strained with our LOs parents and the SSD last thing I wanted was having to explain injuries inflicted by a day care child!!

Did phone OOHs and made them aware, they were looking for another carer, thankfully things settled right down, and all 6 kids were playing happily so I did phone back to let them know things had gotten better and to say we would take them tomorrow if there were no other options. Which there simply aren't.

So currently my 3 DC are out with DH, 13mth LO is sleeping, 18mth LO is asleep in my arms and 30mth LO is happily watching TV and enjoying having all my attention and the toys to herself :)

[NanaNina]

I need a lie down just thinking about what you are doing!!

[SquidgyBrain]

Phew annnnd relax.

This morning was dreadful, when I collected the LO's today mum was begging me to keep them overnight telling me she couldn't look after them, that she was dreading the children returning tonight, she was feeling really ill and sobbing. I felt so terribly sorry for this woman.

I told her all I could do was phone the out of hours number and I wasn't able to make a decision about looking after the little ones tonight or not as I was just a carer.

So got home phoned her social worker - she had given me her personal mobile number, it went to answer phone, I left it 30 mins, and then I phoned the fostering team out of hours number for advice, it was the senior social worker that was on call. She was really lovely, and she wasn't happy about the situation, but we did discuss the prospect of if it became the only option we would muddle by for one night and told me to call the out of hour team

Called them, and they went and did an assessment on Mum, and feel that it would be best if the children were removed on a planned removal rather than storming in this weekend. I was however asked to give the kids a bath and give them their dinner and return them at 6.30 so Mum just had to put on their night clothes and pop them into bed

Her own SW will be going in first thing in the morning, and hopefully this Mum can get the help she needs and the kids can get some stability