ALERT TO THE POSITIVES

 So, this happened, one night a couple of days ago.

In fostering one's sleeping is determined not a little by what sort of a household one has at any given time.

We had a teenager for a whole summer once, a lovely lad, who simply couldn't sleep at night. He was perfectly at ease with staying awake down in our living room. He was ultra considerate, never woke us, tidied the room up as dawn began to break, and slept through the daytime when he could. At weekends he'd take the train to his home patch and see friends after sleeping through the day. On weekdays he'd catch some shuteye around his college commitments, which he honoured pretty much 100%.

We never identified his fear of nightime, it may have been something dark.

But even though he was good as gold, and quiet as a church mouse, I don't think I managed to drift off into the deepest sleep possible, the type of sleep we think does us the most good.

I was always ever-so-slightly alert. 

Then there was the 8 year old who I told on his first night with us that if he awoke in the night and was frightened to knock on our bedroom door and I'd come out and help him. I left his bedroom door slightly open and the landing light on, and on reflection I maybe shouldn't have prompted him. Sure enough at 2.00am came the knock our door. I pulled on my dressing gown and escorted him downstairs where we watched cartoons (what did we do before 24-hour kids TV?) until dawn.

Another one; the child whose night terrors were a proper challenge. For the first couple of weeks I kipped on cushions and pillows outside their bedroom, gently talking as the child slowly tired and finally dropped off. 

So, as I started to say; this happened one night.

I'd had a long day and a succession of long nights. It was getting late, my partner had gone "up the stairs to Bedfordshire" as he annoyingly calls it. Youngest child was long asleep, eldest had retreated to their room to surf (responsibly) their iPad/phone. BTW we're looking into this new WiFi thing whereby you can log off your home's WiFi at say 8.00pm; brilliant.

Middle foster child was downstairs in the little back room off the kitchen which tends to be the childrens' domain. It has a TV, a sofa, and a dog bed because inexplicably the dog loves hanging loose wiv da kids.

I must have nodded off. When I awoke, suddenly, and for some reason guilt-ridden, my first clue that I'd been dozing for a good hour was that the TV was still on and a late-night current affairs discussion was going on. Late night current affairs is Horlicks  to me (Horlicks: a milky bedtime drink which kind of claims to be a soporific, for the info of readers abroad). 

So I went to get up to take stock of the household and, assuming all was well, hit the hay.

Slight panic; I couldn't move my legs.

You know that strange state you are in when you've only been awake for ten seconds?

I went into that state.

Briefly. Because it dawned on me that the reason my legs wouldn't work was that they were  swathed in a blanket. One of the blankets we throw over our careworn living room sofas, both of which have seen better days, but who cares about sofas when there's fostering to be done.

So. I laid back and wondered how come I'd been tucked up after nodding off.

Slowly but surely a model answer emerged and stuck.

Middle foster child had finished chilling in the back room, and turned everything off. The child settled the dog in the kitchen, then on their way up noticed the TV was on in the living room.

Then saw their foster mum akip.

And went and got the blanket off the other sofa and swaddled me, careful not to wake me up.

So; anyone who hears this little episode and doesn't foster won't know why I was doing cartwheels. One of the big things we do in fostering is try to repair the humanity in the poor dear children who come our way, because they've all had suffering of one type or another and need to be ushered back into empathy for others.

And there it was, right there..