Well that’s what I feel like at the moment with hopefully less of the ‘old’. My eldest (number 1) has been back from uni for several months thanks to the pandemic. My nest is therefore jam packed with all eight kids decidedly bored with all this Covid business.
My eldest daughter (number 2) has been doing all her hairdressing practices on my middle daughter (number 3) as she’s not being able to do them at college. Unfortunately, it went a little haywire and we had to resist the temptation of singing ‘Beauty School Drop Out’.
Miss R (number 8) who hasn’t really got the hang of tact yet, asked number 3 why she’d let Jade do ‘that’ to her hair? To be fair, I thought it looked alright but what would I know. I’m only the mother/ cleaner/ cook / chauffeur/ janitor etc.
Miss B (number 6) has conned me into buying rabbits but so has Mr H (number 5) so now I have eight kids, six cats, four rabbits and several fish. Do I need a third extension on the house to fit them all in? Must have said that out loud as husband has gone a shade of green.
Number 7 is finally back at dance class so is treating us to endless ‘shows’ along with foster siblings and a cat who has ended up in a tutu. Good job he’s good natured.
Husband has been writing to cope with the craziness of our lives. Not sure what he’s been writing. Possibly 101 ways to dispose of Mandy if she adds any more kids/ pets/ set of drawers (yes, I have a drawer obsession) to the house.
All of us (minus the two eldest but plus about 20 of my close family) went to Paulton’s Park a couple of weeks ago. After the second roller coaster, I remember that I’m nearing 50 and roller coasters = effect of 2 glasses of wine. Luckily the older teens helped out with the rest of the rides.
Mr R met his nemesis (the guy who dresses up as a dinosaur at Paulton’s Park) and wanted to remind him of last year when he told him how ridiculous he was trying to kid young people into believing that dinosaurs were still alive. Mr R then drowned him in dinosaur facts.
Kids aside, this month has seen the birth of the Dorset foster carers association. An association for our fabulous carers and assisted by carers Kayleigh and myself. The organisation was formed to give carers a voice in Dorset and to provide support for all our in-house carers. We meet once a month with managers and discuss current carer needs and ways to make Dorset foster care stronger.
All Dorset council foster carers are automatically members of the Dorset Foster Carers Association, and welcome to join the group.
I joined hoping for a shiny badge but unfortunately, I haven’t got one yet. I did, however, get the role of recruitment champion (sounds like an Olympic sport) so really excited about this as recruiting the right carers to care for our young people is one thing I’m really passionate about. Not as passionate about as watching David Tennant on the TV, but a close second.
So long til next month and as we reach the end of lockdown, we’ll done to all my fellow carers for surviving and looking forward to seeing you all without teams/Skype etc. It’s going to be odd not having to put a virtual hand up to speak or having to unmute yourself (usually forgetting and leaving colleagues frantically waving and signing ‘turn off the mute’) Bring cake when we meet and lots of it. xx
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