Six years old

Peter is nearly six! Here are six things we love about you, Peter.

1) You truly follow your own interests without an awareness of the outside influences of "gender" or "age". Your favourite colour is pink, and you count butterflies and Tinkerbell amongst your favourite things, alongside cars and trains. Many of your toys have an age guide of 12-36 months on the box, but they make you happy and you couldn't care less.

2) How much you love books. "Read together?" you say, and when I agree, you skip off gleefully and return with a handful. "Five stories mama! This one first!" I have no doubt that the hundreds of stories we've read together (including several hundred repetitions of the same ones!) combined with your incredible memory have contributed to your awesome word recognition. You're starting to read before you can speak fluently - that's skill!

3) You still love to sing and can now hold a tune which is so lovely to hear (although maybe not at 5am at the top of your voice...)

4) You have no understanding yet of winning or losing, you can still just enjoy the race.

5) You find the world a confusing and frightening place much of the time, but you're happy to go to new places and try new things as long as we're with you. We're so proud of you!

6) You have no idea how significant every one of your achievements is when we think about the dismal prognosis you were given when you first came into care, and you continue to amaze us daily. We were asked in a meeting recently whether we understood what your limits would be in terms of what you could achieve and what your adult life will look like. For a moment we didn't understand the question as to us you have no limits whatsoever! We hope you will see yourself the same way as you grow up and will never allow another person to tell you what you cannot do because of your disability.

It's a privilege being your mummy and mama, and we couldn't ask for a better foster son. We look forward to the next year with you!

New baby

We have a second placement! An eight month old baby girl - Belle, for the purposes of this blog - moved in five days ago (it's taken this long to get over "baby brain" and get ourselves organised again to post on the blog!) She is absolutely adorable but has some feeding issues and is severely underweight, so we've been trained in NG tubes to supplement her nutrition.

Peter is coping really well with the intrusion of his home and having to share us, (although a couple of days in he did say emphatically "Bye bye baby Belle! Baby Belle go back home!") we've made sure he's had extra nurturing and special time with us so that he doesn't feel jealous. There have been a few sweet moments between them - this morning he let her hold his finger whilst he watched television, and he puts up with her wanting to grab his nose and pull his hair. He keeps a keen eye on what we're doing, although he pretends to ignore Belle most of the time, he's very quick to notice when there are cuddles or feeding going on and pipes up with "Peter's turn!"

We don't know how long Belle will be staying or what the plan for her will be yet, but we're really enjoying our time with her and are looking forward to seeing her grow and progress.

Sibling contact

Peter's having a fantastic Summer holiday! He relaxed into the swing of things about one week in, and we've had some really lovely days out as a family. We even went camping together near the seaside, and Peter enjoyed the whole tent experience, paddling in the sea and watching the boats.

We had Peter's first sibling contact this week at a local soft play centre. Peter has several siblings - some in other foster placements, and some placed with relatives. The children were removed from their parents getting on for 18 months ago, they haven't seen each other for around a year, and it was fascinating to see them all instantly drop back into the roles they had when they were at home. The oldest child became "the parent", the youngest child became "the baby", and they all treated Peter as though he'd made no progress at all since they last saw him although they clearly adore him and have missed him. Two sets of their grandparents had also travelled to be there, and it was a strange and wonderful experience chatting to all the people present, and realising that they are now all part of our extended family because Peter is part of our family. Sibling contact will be arranged at least four times a year, and it will be lovely to watch the other children grow up and see them progress, just as it will be lovely for them to know Peter as he gets older.

One bizarre consequence of having a large, loving, extended family who don't communicate or see each other regularly seems to be duplicate presents! It's no secret that looked-after children tend to have a lot of "stuff" (although we've tried to stem the tide a bit by saving towards more expensive items that meet a sensory need rather than endless toys), but as an example Peter has received no less than three remote control cars from various members of his family for his birthday! Not that he is complaining at all, although he hasn't got the coordination to work them yet so they've been put away for now.

We've noticed that Peter seems to go through phases of rapid progression and then plateaus for a while to process everything before starting again. He's in a rapid progression phase at the moment, especially with his speech and understanding, which has been fantastic as it's reduced his overall frustration and anxiety. He's putting several concepts together now to ask questions and tell us what he wants in more detail - still no grammar, just lists of words such as "come on come on watering can paddling pool Peter blue slide tummy" to tell me I'm not filling up the watering can with the paddling pool water fast enough, he wants to slide down the blue slide on his tummy whilst I spray him!

He also now understands how a calendar works, and accepts if we tell him something fun is happening "on Friday", rather than having a meltdown because he didn't understand that the fun thing would ever happen if it wasn't happening now. We use a visual calendar with symbols for activities we're doing during the week, and he regularly checks it to remind himself what's going on. It will be a very different child going back to school in September!

Five years old

Peter's turning five very soon. Five feels like such a massive milestone - it's the end of being a toddler and the start of being a fully-fledged child, and as a parent/carer you find yourself thinking scary thoughts like "only five more years and we'll be looking round secondary schools". One minute you look at your four year old and they seem so so tiny, and the next you wonder how you never noticed how tall they were getting. You start comparing photos from the start of the school year and see all the little changes in how confident and grown-up they are.

So Peter, on the cusp of turning five, here are five things I love about you:

- Your singing! You sing when you're happy, which is 99% of the time. You sing at the top of your voice, and you sing in whispers when we've asked you to be quiet. Even though you haven't worked out the concept of a tune you sing as though your life depends on it and some of my favourite moments are singing duets with you. At the moment you seem to like folk music and show tunes - a killer combination.

- Your independence! Nine months ago I never thought I'd miss you taking my hand and needing me by your side, asking to be carried 100 times per day, gluing yourself to my lap every time I sat down, wanting me to stay by your bedside until you fell asleep… but I do. I'm so proud of you and what you're achieving every day, but I selfishly wish that we'd had more of your baby days to treasure.

- Your communication! You're trying so hard to overcome your communication difficulties. You're working out new ways of letting us know who you are, what you need and how you feel, and when we get it wrong you tirelessly try again and again to get us to understand.

- Your determination! Everyday tasks are more difficult for you to learn, but you don't give up. It took you four frustrating tries this morning to put your hoody on but you got there! You're keen to learn and are patient with us as we work out ways of breaking down tasks for you and giving you the necessary 'muscle memory' to do it for yourself.

- Your memory! You've memorised hundreds of songs and rhymes, entire episodes of Peppa Pig and In the Night Garden, about 20 different Thomas the Tank Engine books plus loads of sections of Disney films, adverts, you name it. You can recall these at a moment's notice with frightening relevance to the topic at hand, whether we thought you were listening to our conversation, or not!

You are going to be a force to be reckoned with as you grow up, and I'm so looking forward to going on that journey with you.

Moving house

Just as we'd made the decision to stay in our current rented home for a few more years to save up a decent mortgage deposit, our landlords dropped the bombshell that they wanted to sell the house. Ah. It was certainly a shock, but has actually worked out really well as we've found a house to rent on the other side of town which has a better layout and more space. We were thrilled to find it and it's perfect for us, but it meant that we were faced with raising the topic of moving with a four year old to whom moving home has been something frightening and traumatic. Peter has moved home twice in the past year: once from his parents' home to his previous foster carers, and then again when he moved to us. Permanency in foster care is supposed to offer the child long-term stability, but of course we can't second-guess when landlords might serve notice!

We've got a couple of weeks to go now, so we've started drip-feeding information to try and prepare Peter for the transition so that he feels as safe and secure as possible. Peter's school have offered their support, so we've taken photos of the new house and sent them into school for them to use when discussing the move with him. We're speaking little and often about the things we're looking forward to doing in the new house, and how we'll be doing them together as a family. We'll involve him in packing items up and unpacking them at the other end, and we'll make sure he sees that it's not just his belongings that are moving this time. One thing we're very excited about is that we're going to cut the number of stairgates down from seven to two when we move (just Peter's bedroom and the top of the stairs in case of nighttime wandering) as Peter's becoming far more trustworthy around the house. We're really proud of him and are amazed at how quickly he's progressing!

Hopefully the message will get through, but even if it doesn't straight away, it might be an unsettling time but Peter will see that we're all still together in the new house and will start to understand that Esmeralda and I are his permanent home, whichever house we're living in.

Another placement

Now that Peter's been with us three months and has made such fantastic progress, we're starting to seriously talk about and consider when might be a good time to add a second foster child to our family - how old that child should be, how Peter will cope initially, which additional needs we think we could handle etc.

I don't think either of us are ready for the emotional upheaval of another pre-adoptive placement, nor do we think that having a child join our family as a short-term placement would be good for Peter, so at the moment we're looking at another, probably younger, child on long-term/permanency. There's no hurry, as we want to make sure that Peter is well settled both at school and at home before we go ahead, but the matching process can be lengthy and is even more important with a child already in placement, so there's no harm in starting our search for the right child early.

Back to school

Peter starts his new school on Tuesday and whilst we're excited about the new opportunities and experiences he'll have, we both feel a bit sad that the holidays are over as we've had such a lovely time together.

Esmeralda took the whole school holiday off work, and 2.5 weeks of having two adults completely focussed on him have been fantastic for Peter. We did a count up recently - since he moved in with us 11 weeks ago he's gone from using about 10 single words to 200 words and phrases, and 50 of these have been during the Christmas holidays! His language and communication are really blossoming, it's amazing to see. He's confidently eating several crunchy foods now, and we're sure that this has helped his speech as his muscles are getting a better workout.

His behaviour is completely different now, you'd barely know he was the same child. He had a period of regression after a contact session recently, and it really served to remind us how far he's come.

Peter has met quite a few friends and members of our extended family over Christmas which has been really good for him to develop his social skills and coping strategies. He's walking for longer periods outside holding hands without needing to use the buggy (today was for almost an hour) and we're working on his awareness of danger and road safety. He even managed a family meal out in a restaurant on Boxing Day! We'd had it booked for months, and even though we pre-booked our food and phoned ahead of time to make the waiting staff aware, we thought he'd last about 10 minutes and we'd then take it in turns to walk around outside with him. He surprised us all by sitting beautifully in a dining chair playing on the iPad after he finished his food, and we stayed for the whole three course meal!

We couldn't be more proud of Peter and his progress, and are looking forward to the Easter holidays already!

Happy Christmas!

So it turns out we were right, and although we only put two presents under the tree for Peter to open this morning, he did get overwhelmed within an hour or two of getting up! He did really well though considering the changes to his routine, and how much sensory input he was getting from the new toys, different words (people saying Happy Christmas etc.) and music, and new smells and tastes that Christmas brings. We decided to have our big Christmas Dinner in the evening after he'd gone to bed, so Peter had familiar meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but he really surprised us by asking to try several new foods today including warmed mince pie and soy cream, pâté, a parmesan and garlic twist, and soy ice cream (you can see the sort of day we were having…)

Peter has many more presents to open, but we're going to spread them out over the next few days to help him to cope. He's a delightful person to give gifts to - he tears the wrapping paper carefully and examines each item inside including any packaging, instructions or booklets. Today he got genuinely excited opening a new blanket! Esmeralda's mum is here visiting for a few days and is completely smitten by him. He's definitely part of the family already!

How little we know

Every time we've passed a certain fast food chain since Peter arrived with us he's pointed at the big yellow logo and looked excited, so on Sunday we decided to round off an excellent weekend by having a meal out. As we approached, Peter got more and more excited, and as we went through the doors he looked like he couldn't believe his luck. Peter's diet is quite limited due to some sensory issues around food so we didn't think fries or nuggets would go down too well, but he does enjoy nesquick, so I confidently ordered him a fish finger kids' meal to see if he'd try it, and a chocolate milkshake.

We sat down and started getting our food out of the paper bags, Peter looking on expectantly. He hasn't really got to grips with straws yet, but Esmeralda started him off on his milkshake, he took a few sips and everything seemed to be going well. That was until all the food was on the table and we started to eat.

Peter watched me as a I raised a chip to my mouth and made an indignant noise. I offered it to him, he batted it away. I picked up a nugget whilst he stared at it intently, I offered it to him, he glared at me and threw it on the floor. Esmeralda unwrapped the toy that came with the meal and hopped it across the table, and Peter didn't deign to look at it (I don't blame him, it was quite a disappointing toy). He picked up the paper bag that the food had come in and shuffled through the rubbish inside. We realised at this point that we had no idea what Peter's mum and dad used to order for him, so we didn't know what he was expecting and he couldn't tell us. We felt awful.

Esmeralda suddenly realised that we'd forgotten to pick up any sauces, so went over to the counter and brought back some BBQ and ketchup pots. I opened a pot of BBQ and dipped in a chip, and Peter suddenly looked hopeful and pointed at it, so I handed it to him. He licked off the sauce, made a face and dropped the chip as though it was poison. He reached over to the table, picked up the fish fingers that had come with his meal and poked them. Esmeralda wondered whether he wanted to try them, and dipped one in some ketchup. Peter's face lit up, he licked the ketchup off the fish finger and handed it back for Esmeralda to dip again. He finished the whole pot of ketchup and then sat back in his buggy and was happy to move on.

Trial and error is a big part of fostering, especially when you consider how little we know about children's lives before they arrive with us and the fact that many are developmentally unable to tell us things that really matter to them. I'm glad we got it right this time, although I don't think we'll be going out for lunch and ordering Peter just ketchup very often!

O Christmas Tree

Christmas can be a very difficult time for foster families. There are so many traditions wrapped up in the festivities, and each one can be a trigger to foster children that reminds them of past Christmases at home with their parents. These could be good memories, as every family has their good times together, or they could be bad memories. What may be a harmless glass of wine with dinner on Christmas Eve could be a reminder of a Christmas Day spent without food or presents whilst their parents slept off the alcohol from the night before. Watching a foster sibling open a much longed for present could be a reminder that at home presents were given as bribes or rewards for abuse. A fleeting comment about burnt turkey or lumpy gravy could be a reminder of an argument that turned into domestic violence.

Even if there are no bad memories, adverts are constantly telling us that Christmas is a time for families, and children may be aware that other children are allowed to spend the holiday season with their parents and they are not. Contact around Christmas can be very painful and confusing for both parents and children, as they exchange gifts and try to have their celebration in the strange environment of the contact centre.

(This is for children with autism, but I suspect that one for fostered children would look quite similar)

This is our first Christmas with a child in placement. We don't know anything about Peter's past Christmases, and due to both this and his additional needs we weren't quite sure how to approach Christmas this year. Should we put up a tree and decorations? Should we do the big pile of presents under the tree? What about Christmas dinner? Would he enjoy visiting Father Christmas? How will he cope with other people opening presents in front of him?

In the end we've decided to go quite low key. We put up the tree yesterday (which Peter loved), but have put it at the back of the living room rather than the front, to avoid moving Peter's toys and so that he can choose to go near it or not. Peter has food anxieties so we're going to have our main meal and open our own presents in the evening on Christmas Day after he's gone to bed, and we're going to gradually spread out his presents over a few days (and leave some unwrapped) and see how it goes rather than having a big overwhelming pile of gifts. Esmeralda's mum is coming to stay over Christmas week and is being very understanding of the fact that it's going to be a bit different this year.

Peter's making so much progress that next year will probably be completely different, and he may well cope with a bigger build up with talk of Father Christmas and presents under the tree. Of course, as foster carers we don't know exactly what our family will look like next year - we may have one or two more children with us (and a labradoodle if Esmeralda has anything to do with it!) so will need to consider their needs too. Whilst we'll incorporate our family traditions, Christmas will more than likely be different every year!

The right thing to say

We were doing some shopping in Sainsburys this afternoon, and were just at the till packing up, when Esmeralda noticed an older gentleman tutting behind her. She apologised and moved to the side as she thought maybe she was in his way.
"Oh it's not you that's bothering me, it's whoever that belongs to," he said, gesturing to the side and sneering.
"That" was Peter, sitting beautifully, strapped into one of the trollies made for older children, staring into space and tapping his foot gently on a sign.
"Oh, he's mine," said Esmeralda, completely shocked.
"Oh it's a boy is it?" the man replied.
The man then leaned down to Peter and stared into his face. "Smile!" the man said. Peter ignored him.
"It's not even going to smile then," the man said to me, sneered again and walked off. I wanted to run after him and punch him or have him arrested for just being a horrible person, but in the moment I had no words.

It was one of those situations where you can think of a hundred things to say after the event that would have been appropriately cutting and witty and showed the man up for who he was... but the moment passed, the man walked off and we'd said nothing.

I still don't know what the right thing to say would have been - something to set a good example, that would have shown Peter that it's unacceptable to treat people like that, and that we will always be there to stand up for him. Hopefully he doesn't remember it, and hopefully these moments and ignorant people will be few and far between.

Age appropriate behaviours

Peter has been living with us nearly five weeks now, and we're really proud of how much progress he's making. He's very delayed in most areas but it can be difficult to judge some things, as even some "normal" four year old behaviours can have very different meanings when taken in the context of Peter's past experiences, additional needs and high stress/anxiety levels when he arrived. We're now starting to see:

Pushing boundaries - he's testing Esmeralda and I to make sure that we always react the same way to his behaviour, so that he feels safe and secure. Unpredictability, inconsistency, anger etc. from adults are all very frightening, so he needs to know we're going to be calm, consistent and in control.

Refusing main meals in favour of pudding - this is actually a massive breakthrough for Peter (although can be annoying for us!) and means that he now trusts us enough that we will continue to provide him with food.  In common with many children in care, food has been one of his big anxieties and he's taking a risk refusing a meal, but he feels secure enough in our daily routine that the next meal will appear as usual.

Running off in the park… and returning! - this is another huge breakthrough and is still nerve wracking each time we test it by continuing to walk and pretending that we're not looking to see where he is. He's getting to know that we are "his" safe adults and wants to return to us.

Independent play when out of the house - this has only really started in the last week. He now no longer needs to always keep us by his side or in sight, and will go off and play by himself for short bursts at soft play. When he wants company or help, he will come and fetch us (usually both of us) and lead us by the hand. He likes to walk with each of us holding one of his hands, it's very sweet!

Imaginative play - this is a big thing for Peter specifically, as his diagnosis of severe autism means this sort of play would usually be unlikely. We've seen him pretending to cook and taste his concoctions on a toy kitchen, he pushes cars and trains around, flies helicopters, planes and rockets in the air and gallops toy horses across the floor.

And the big one… tantrums! Progress is being made here too as he settles. We're noticing a shift to less "meltdown" type tantrums, and more "goal oriented" tantrums, which are completely age appropriate. I never thought I'd get excited about a child shouting and screaming before, but when it's about something he wants but can't have or something he's not allowed to do, he responds to the behaviour being ignored, calms relatively quickly without assistance and accepts a natural consequence (i.e. the TV stays off until all the toys you've just tipped out are tidied up), then we consider it a success!

Life with our 4 year old

Just as I was starting to write this post, I thought I'd check something in my "Fostering" folder on the computer. This is where we save all our meeting reports, training certificates, finances, diaries etc. relating to fostering. Cue a massive panic - no sign of the folder and we have a meeting tomorrow that I need to prepare for. Five minutes later I discover that Peter has somehow renamed the folder "bvbv" and moved it to the other side of the desktop. Panic over, time to password-lock the computer!

We had a great half term together building trust and making memories. Peter is a funny, creative, independent, playful, determined little guy with a cheeky sense of humour! He is sensory-seeking, which for him means that he likes very loud sounds, licks random things, chews his fingers/cuffs/zip pulls, and loves for us to stroke his skin. We're getting to know his likes, dislikes and triggers, and he's learning our few house rules. He really wants to communicate and his speech is coming on in leaps and bounds with words getting clearer all the time and new words being added to his vocabulary every day, it's so exciting to watch. We've felt privileged to be part of all our foster children's lives, but with Peter even more so as we hope that he'll be with us long term, and we'll be able to see him grow and progress into the adult he's meant to be.

I know it's cheesy to say, but this really is one of the most rewarding jobs on the planet.

Becoming the family of a child with special needs

Peter has been living with us for nearly a week now, and we've been spending the time getting to know each other and starting to build trust. We're trying to keep food and routines as similar as possible to the ones he was used to at his previous carers, and will make gradual changes over time as he settles in. Considering how big a change the move has been for him, he's doing fantastically well.

The hardest thing for us so far (apart from the fact that a 4 year old has lots of energy and doesn't nap!) has been nothing to do with Peter at all, it's been the reactions of others. Peter is developmentally delayed at the moment - he still uses a buggy whenever we leave the house, wears nappies, only says a few words, and using a dummy has been one of his coping mechanisms when he feels tired or overwhelmed. We're not concerned about any of this, and know that he will progress in time at his own pace, but it has been a bit of a shock to see so many people staring and giving us judgemental looks when they see us pushing a 4 year old in a buggy with a dummy in his mouth. We've even had some ignorant and outrageous comments from professionals who should really know better.

Thankfully there have also been a few lovely people, such as the lady at the soft play cafe who took time out of her day to try and connect with Peter, or the train driver who leaned out of his window to talk to us, and then honked the horn especially for Peter as the train left the station!

It's definitely a steep learning curve for us, and Peter is being very patient whilst we learn!

Surprise

We have our first placement!

We were called about 5pm about a 7 month old baby boy (Jack-Jack for the purposes of this blog), who needed to be placed asap. They had practically no information about him, so we didn't know his nappy size, formula brand etc. and we had another call at about 6.15pm saying that he was on the way with his social workers and would arrive in 40 minutes with nothing but the babygro he was wearing! We had a mad dash out to Sainsbury's for formula cartons, baby jars (we didn't know if he was weaning), nappies etc. and arrived back just as the social workers drove up. Thankfully we'd already prepared by buying some clothes in every size in our age range, and have bath bits, bedding etc.

He is absolutely lovely, the social workers are obviously smitten with him, and they said a couple of times that we couldn't have asked for a better first placement. We don't know how the night is going to go, but at the moment he's very contented to play on the floor with a plastic hanger and a remote control (right next to the baby toys!)

Beginning

My wife and I are a same sex couple who have recently gone through the assessment process to become foster carers, and we thought we would start a blog to document the ups and downs of our journey. This will be an anonymous blog to protect our and our foster children's privacy, so we will be using Disney names (I will be Jessie, and my wife will be Esmeralda.) I know there will be friends and family reading this, so please remember not to use our real names if you do know them.

We first called our local council to enquire about fostering (after much discussion over several years) on May 14th 2012, and we went to panel on December 4th, where we were recommended for approval. It has been a very emotional and at times tough 7 months, but we learned a lot, and we know that our journey as a foster family is just beginning!