Uncertainty

We've come to realise that foster carers are at the bottom of the list to be kept in the loop with what's happening with a particular child's case. It doesn't seem to matter that we're the ones caring for the child 24/7. We know nothing about what's happening with Jack-Jack's case at the moment, and regardless of this we decided to book him a place on a series of weekly classes starting in September. We know he'd get a lot out of them, the classes are very popular and we wouldn't want him to miss out on a place, but it's strange to think that he might not be here when September rolls round and we might have to cancel.

Booking things ahead is a bit like that as foster carers - full of uncertainty as the situation can change at a moment's notice. A couple of months ago Jack-Jack was obsessed with the TV program "In the Night Garden"(he hasn't watched it for a while as we changed his bedtime routine when the clocks changed, but he still recognised the characters in a book we got out of the library!) so we booked tickets to the live show in July as a summer treat. This felt like it was ages away when we booked it, and we weren't sure how long Jack-Jack would be staying so there was a chance we'd be going on our own, but it's already June now so it's not far off! We always have to consider when we make future plans with family and friends that the child/ren we're looking after may change in the mean time (and plans made with a baby in mind might be completely unsuitable with a school-aged child!) and we may have to rearrange at short notice to accommodate the child/ren's contact schedule.

Jack-Jack's social worker is coming to visit us this week so hopefully we'll be updated and have a bit more of an idea about Jack-Jack's future. Children's social workers are supposed to visit a looked-after child every six weeks, but for one reason or another we haven't seen Jack-Jack's since February so she'll hardly recognise him. He's a real toddler now and still growing at a rate of knots - we had his feet measured the other day and he had grown an entire size in just 6 weeks! Thankfully he's not wearing proper shoes yet as he's not walking - we had a bit of a shock when we saw how much infant shoes are in Clarks. How can they be so expensive when they're so tiny?!