The Five Little Ducks Blog

I still have cause to wake in the night, tossing and turning, overheated, my pulse racing, unable to switch off my thoughts. My inner voice jostles with itself.

Go to sleep. You will regret this later.

-I know, I was reading till midnight. I can’t afford to lose sleep.

Then go to sleep.

-I’m trying, but I can’t turn off my brain- it’s just-

You need to let go Hannah. You already let go.

-I know I let go… but I don’t like what I see. I still feel involved. It keeps coming back.

Then do it again.

It was a bad dream that had woken me. Miss A was here, visiting. Her face had merged with those awful Facebook Messenger filters that Miss L saved to my screenshots during a recent video chat. Sullen facial expressions, inflated lips, and heavy eye shadow, casting an eerie, pallid shadow across her face. She wore short, tight clothes and heels. And she was screaming at me, in one of her shrill, dysregulated rages. I DON’T WANT TO COME TO THIS STUPID HOUSE!

I know what caused the dream. Last night Miss A’s carer had been messaging me to ask me something, then disregarded everything I said. Her tone seemed boastful as she casually gloated that Miss A doesn’t have tantrums there, even though in previous messages she has admitted how stubborn Miss A is, that it is hard to motivate and communicate with her. By her own admission, “I don’t challenge her.”

So it was my fault. I couldn’t resist the challenge.

The grumbling of garbage trucks on our street, their incessant groan — stop— tip— groan— stop— tip— made it impossible for me to go back to sleep. Garbage trucks inevitably make me feel guilty. Here we come in the dead of the night to secrete away your waste. Sure, whinge about the noise. We give up our sleep to deal with your trash. The bags of baby spinach that rotted and turned to yellow liquid. So much packaging. And all that recycling… tsk, tsk. Never mind that you washed out the cans, pulled the sticky tape off the wrapping paper. You know it doesn’t really get recycled, does it? Even if it weren’t a scam, the fact that your neighbours don’t recycle properly (and you know it, because you see all their McDonalds waste stuffed into the top of the yellow bin) means that your own rubbish has been contaminated. It is all destined for land fill. Even as the trucks rumble away, I can still hear the whoosh-wheeze of their speeding up and quickly halting. I can feel the great dinosaurs reverberating through the mattress.

The guilt is like liquid resin, it changes shape and fills the space of whatever mould it is poured into. And then it sets. Some people don’t seem to feel guilty easily. They shift the blame and refuse to take responsibility for their part in a turn of events. Or they naturally have strong boundaries, saying ‘no’ comes easily to them. Or they rarely say sorry and don’t seem phased by it. Guilt is my natural reflex. If you bump into me, I say sorry to you. I go into friendships and relationships assuming I will somehow be an inconvenience. Here I am- are you underwhelmed? Not pretty enough, not coordinated enough, not smart enough, not organised enough, not fun enough. Sorry, sorry, sorry.  Stop saying sorry, Hannah! – in my grandmother’s voice. To the photos in my house of Miss A: sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m sorry that I failed you. Sorry that I had to choose between you and them.

Sorry, lorry, garbage truck, slurry, McFlurry, McDonalds, road trip, rest room, long drive, vomiting, scrubbing, toilet, floor, waste, mess, heartache, regret, sorry.

The warbling morning chorus outside announces the new day. Pale blue light creeps in through the bedroom curtains. From across the hallway, the light stretches. The girls’ bedroom has the best morning sun. Yellow and warm. I definitely won’t be going back to sleep now. I sit up and with a flick of my tongue rehearsed thousands of times, remove the mouthguard that I wear overnight to stop me from grinding my teeth. I take a swig from my water bottle, but the dry feeling remains. My laptop is in my “study”; an Ikea desk in the landing area between our laundry and the back door. My husband set it up for me this year to help me with my university degree. I had another dream recently where the landing area was really a long sunroom that ran the entire length of the house. Your problems are solved, I had exclaimed to myself, how had I missed the fact that we already have a fourth bedroom? My desk actually takes up the whole space between the laundry door and the wall, the room wouldn’t really fit a bed. On the way to my desk I pick up my phone from the kitchen table. Not even 6 AM. Damn.

Time to write it out.

…..

Sigh.

…..

This is the part I didn’t want to tell you about.

Letting go of Miss A and Miss L didn’t feel so wrong when I knew that I was sending them to loving grandparents. Things didn’t go as well for them as carers as we had hoped. Within 5 months of the girls going there, they were moved “temporarily” to stay with other carers. That was over three months ago. I am praying daily that the grandparents will be able to regain care, at least of Miss L as they have such a tightknit relationship with her. For the past two months, Miss L has been staying with us as she wasn’t happy in the other placement. She has been happier here, but it hasn’t been easy. While she gets along with my children incredibly well as cousins, forcing them back into a sibling dynamic after six months apart has been challenging. Sharing a room again, sharing toys and devices, sharing a house, sharing parents. Acclimatising to our routines and rules. Taking back up the foster parent mantle.

I had so enjoyed being free from that title. The perks that came with it- the assumed status that I was somehow a super-human (and was that a perk given how much I resented it?), and the financial allowance- were nothing compared to the freedom I felt just being a normal person. For the first time in five years, I felt like I was ME again. I didn’t have to take the calls of caseworkers, or “try” different parenting strategies constantly, or put on any kind of act with my children. I could simply be.

Even now, I am learning new things about how to be a better foster parent.

Mr Bill Rogers, teaching legend, has released several videos on YouTube about classroom behaviour management (and it is incredibly applicable to raising kids). He says that when a student is misbehaving, focus on the primary misbehaviour. Don’t get side tracked by their secondary behaviours- the sass, sulking, eye rolling, pouting, grimacing. Once you get caught up into the “I asked you to pick up your shoes and NOW you are walking away from me and NOW you are speaking rudely to me and now you are pulling faces at me and Now I Am Getting Upset! and look at what you made me do because you didn’t pick up your shoes!!!!!” routine, you lose all control of the situation and your temper. Now I understand that it is better to focus on the issue at hand- pick up your shoes please, we don’t leave our shoes on the loungeroom floor- and prevent a situation from escalating. If necessary, talk about the oppositional behaviours later when you are calm. I wish I had known this information years ago as it has been helpful and practical; I am amazed that it never came up in a single parenting course.

And look at me go. I’m writing a fostering blog again.

There is a part of me that can acknowledge that I am good at this fostering thing, but I honestly do not feel “called” to it.

I vowed to Miss L that I would always be there for her. I hoped that that would be as a respite carer, an Aunty, a listening ear on the phone. I want the relationship without the responsibility. I feel like I owe this to my children, especially Mr E and Miss R who have struggled the most with sharing their home with their cousins all these years.

Yesterday, the same day that Miss R told me that she no longer feels safe at home, Miss L told me she now feels like an outsider here.

Life is so messy, isn’t it?

Oh gosh, here comes the guilt!

Sorry, sorry, sorry.