LOOKING AFTER NUMBER ONE

 The most important person in your home?

It should be you.

What I mean is that if you aren't on top of your game you can't give your all to the others.

Can't meet your foster child's need as best you should.

It can be darn hard putting yourself first in certain situations, sometimes you just have to.

Take last weekend.

Eldest foster child had been invited to a gathering. It was at the home of a friend from college.

Eldest is growing in independence and we're all out to support the guy.

So I answered yes when asked if I'd be taxi for the night and drop off about 7.00pm, a journey of about 10 miles. And I answered yes when asked if I'd collect.

At "About 11.00…or maybe…dunno…is midnight too late?"

I stuck up for myself:

"I think 11.00 is late enough. We won't get in until 11.30 and that's plenty late."

So I dropped off and came home.

And stuck to drinking tea for 4 hours, where normally on a Saturday evening a glass of red hits the spot.

A text message pinged around 10.00pm:

"Can u make it 12.00? Big pls?"

I folded; "Ok but be waiting outside."

I've had enough experience of waiting in the car outside to pick up from gatherings, under firm instructions not to come to the front door.

An hour later my phone pinged again;

"It's ok. I'm gonna stay and kip on their sofa, their mum is cool."

Luckily I've met the mum, she picked up from ours a while ago. She is indeed cool, as in I can trust.

Me to child:

"9.00am tomorrow then?"

I got the fat thumb emoji.

Hauled myself up the apples and drifted off.

Phone pinged and woke me up.

"Can't sleep. Can you come now?"

I looked at the time. 

4.55am.

The correct response, finally, is no. 

A deal is a deal. Children and young people sometimes have to learn the hard way.

If I'd got dressed, snuck out and got in the car to pick him up at his whim I'd have been flying in the face of everything I knew about parenting, fostering and life in general.

I was reminding myself of this as I overtook a milk float five minutes later, heading for guess where.

Spent the following day yawning theatrically; partly for effect, partly because I was cream crackered.

Kept wondering if I should have put myself first.

Finally I managed to escape feelings of being weak and downtrodden by reminding myself I did it because I wanted to.

I enjoyed every minute of the drive over, loved seeing him sitting on the wall outside the house.

Lapped up every ounce of indifference I got in response to my questions such as;

Question; "Good party?…Sorry, I mean good gathering?"

Reply; "Dunno."

Question; "Are you planning to go to bed when we get back?"

Reply; "Dunno."

Lapped it all up, every micro-second of it.

Chatted with my Blue Sky SW about it;

Her Question; "Why didn't you just say 'No'?"

My Reply; "Dunno" 

By "Dunno" what I meant was this: I couldn't put my finger on exactly why I went the extra mile, it was a feeling rather than a scientific decision.

But it's happened loads of times especially in fostering, and it'll happen plenty more times.

It was what I wanted to do.

I put myself first.