NEW CHILD

Long story short we have a spare bedroom, so we've put ourselves forward to take short-term placements. By 'placement' - if you're new to fostering - I mean 'foster children being placed in your home'.

We've stipulated short term for a bunch of reasons. One; we might need the bedroom back for family reasons (I said long story short…) but we'd get enough notice of that. Two; our unusual family is clicking at the moment and it would be silly to rock the boat.

But, yeah, we've got a new face in the house. I can't say the name, but it's a quaint one..think; "Horace".

The first clue you get about a child is their name. It tells you stuff about the parents. Homes where there's chaos often have children with extravagant names. Don't ask me why.

Horace is ten, very well behaved. One of the boons about short-term is that the honeymoon doesn't get a chance to wear off, so your placements stay good as gold until time for goodbye.

Horace is, however 'picky'. None of his food must be allowed to touch other food on his plate. He insists that meals are served at exact times, and he likes to show up on the dot. He inspects his laundry for any marks that have defied the washing machine. I guess it's about getting some control. I can deal with it, but it makes food preparation challenging.

He won't touch anything green. Tomatoes and mushrooms are out. Of the cereals only rice crispies. The smell of cheese makes him gag. And so on…

I don't consider it a problem, he'll either grow out of it or accommodate it.

Or like some apparently sane and normal adults, make it cause for celebration!

See, sometimes I shop in Waitrose (it's the nearest supermarket to me, the staff are great but some of the customers drive me to the edge - the ones who take some pride in shopping in what they think is a 'posh' shop and want to make sure everyone knows they're there. They do this by barking swanky remarks about how picky they are as if they're gourmets. Some things I've overheard;

Husband: "Shall we have some new potatoes?"

Wife: (very loudly): "Only if they have fresh dill. One can't have new potatoes without fresh dill."

or:

To a staff member: "Why do you only sell quail's eggs in boxes of six? One should be able to buy two."

One woman bought a pound of whitebait at the fish counter and instructed the person serving to: "Clean each of them, and carefully please." Yep, she wanted her her hundred whitebait gutted…

This at the ham counter;

Wife (to husband): "There is no point getting ham off the bone because I'm serving them as closed sandwiches so nobody will know. If we buy ham off the bone I'll have to make open sandwiches and they need napkins. So no to your suggestion, packet ham will be fine."

I often wonder what sort of children they were. 

And frankly I worry more about them and their pickyness more than Horace.