Please say amen

So where's this post gone? Let's just say I'm aware that when it comes to fosties, one must be very aware of "confidentiality" and such. Having just signed a Caregivers' Contract assuring our agency that all information relating to our fosties is handled discreetly, there's been a severe edit here. Kinda like WWII Britain and those letters home with all the holes cut into them.

Thank you to all those people who said "Amen". Things didn't go as we might have liked but I do believe something positive will happen as a result. Although, that doesn't necessarily mean I understand it

Matchmaking for beginners

I think I have a talent for producing great kids and if it weren’t for my advanced age and the fact that childbirth feels like a 32” TV set is being pulled out of your butt, I’d probably keep reproducing. Some of my friends have gotten around this by becoming grandparents. I know I don’t look old enough but I am sort of a nana - by marriage - because Beloved has a couple of extremely cute grandies. But my own kids have yet to advance me to the rank of family matriarch and grandkid spoiler. Somehow my gorgeous girls have reached 19 and 22 years of age without any boyfriends.

My son, M, is a great looking kid with a brain to match. He captains the Chess club, represents the school in Mathex, plays Lawn Bowls and is one of the “tech boys” at school assemblies. Sadly it seems that he’ll never move beyond Pokemon and Playstation.  My youngest daughter is 6 so it looks like the responsibility rests entirely at her feet (or uterus). In the meantime I miss having a baby in the house. I think I’ll make a clause in my will that the first of my children to marry and produce an heir (of heiress) can inherit my entire collection of dress up clothes and super hero costumes.

But at last there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. M invited a GIRL around to our house during the holidays! I’m serious! She was an actual GIRL with one head, two arms and two legs. She wasn’t even imaginary! Naturally I checked her out on the school record system (one of the perks of working at my kid’s school).  Her Facebook profile looks promising - no naughty words, intelligent and she does ballet in her spare time. She’s pretty and normal and NICE.  Great potential for the possible future mother of my possible future grandchildren!  In preparation for the visit I blew the budget at the supermarket to procure hip, adolescent snacks (not popcorn because I’d noted that she has braces). The plan was to win her heart on M’s behalf by plying her with biccies and coke.  I even went so far as to dress my little one in a renaissance costume, complete with headpiece, and thrust her into the room with firm instructions to be cute. Teenage girls love cute kids and I’m sure they find boys with adorable little sisters irresistible. I also instructed my littlie to quote the balcony scene from “Romeo and Juliet”, which she did rather well considering she’s only six: “Oh Rolleo, Rolleo with four art toes...”

Come to think of it, the teens didn’t appear too happy to have constant disruptions to their Pokemon Trading and I haven’t seen M’s friend since.  Ummm...do you suppose I overegged the pudding? 

There’s always Plan B. When Nay, my eldest, was visiting from Christchurch I saw her talking at length to a nice young man at church. He looks like good son-in-law material so we had him around to lunch. I’ve checked his Facebook page - and the profiles of anybody he may have commented on. Funny though, he seems to have ignored my Friend Request...

There's a mystery afoot

I’m not sure what one of the fosties has been up to but if I look at the 5 standard question starters, I have the “Who”, the “Where” and the “What”.  I just need the “When” and the “Why”.  Beloved was the first to notice that something had gone down and alerted me to the situation.  Not that I was alert. I was facebooking on the laptop with my eye mask hooked around my neck, ready for a good night’s kip, and I wasn’t eager to get out of a comfy bed.

Here's the scene: The downstairs kitchen window (normally locked) - open; ornament on windowsill - broken; benchtop and floor - covered in muddy footprints.  Was it a break in? Had we been robbed? I checked my Tom Jones CD collection while Beloved examined the scene to determine if it was an inside job.  The evidence was mostly circumstantial, but Nick* was our prime suspect.  However his denial was almost convincing.  This kid needs to go to drama school.  As Beloved was preparing his speech about bunking off school to break in while we were all out, I donned my Sherlock Holmes hat and went into CSI mode, searching for forensic clues. I think the photo says it all:

Note the tread of the shoe compared with the mud print - we have a match!

Suspect - size 6

Shoe - size 6

Here’s the interesting thing - mufty shoes. Since Nick is only spotted in school shoes during the week, the misdemeanour had been committed outside school hours. We haven't been able to pinpoint a time because...ummm...I haven't actually cleaned the downstairs kitchen for quite some time...or...ever...

The good news - he didn’t wag school (as backed up by further snooping with my contacts in the trenches).

The bad news - he didn’t confess.

The good news - he gave up denying it.

The really good news - he knows that we know pretty much everything he gets up to and he can’t get away with anything. Poor sod.

Meanwhile, his brother Tee* is obsessed with his hair. He’s had me put highlights in and keeps doing that  dreadful head-flick thing.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t dislocate it. How do you explain a dislocated head to the Social Worker?

I blame Justin Bieber. Don’t we all?