Week 17 diary

Last time I wrote, I was looking forward with some trepidation to spending the days alone with just Jamie and myself once Tim had gone back to work after his adoption leave. I don't think I had realised the impact it was going to have on me that first week when there I was, just me and him and no-one else.

It was really hard work - both mentally and physically demanding! After spending 22 years of my life going to work every week, to suddenly be at home playing and talking "3-year-old" talk all day was such a culture shock! Jamie was demanding of every minute of every waking hour . All day long he wanted me to play with him, wanted to know where I was, what I was doing and so on. I soon learnt that by explaining to him that I had to peel potatoes or he would have no dinner, or I had to wash his clothes because he wouldn't like wearing dirty creased t-shirts, I started to grasp back bits of time during the day when I could at least keep the necessary household tasks ticking over!

On the Thursday of that week, Jamie's social worker had suggested he had telephone contact with the foster carers. It was our opinion that it was a little too early yet, but she seemed to think it was perfect. Of course, during the call, he was giggling away and laughing and chatting. I thought to myself, this has gone a bit well. I thought too soon! As I had the phone back and was ending the call, Jamie had already started saying he wanted to go to their house. He then started to get really distressed about it.

So there I sat with him, explaining to him that they were our special friends who looked after little boys and girls until they found a forever mummy and daddy for him. Luckily, eventually, he seemed satisfied by the explanation. The whole episode did really upset me at the time, and I had to spend an age on the phone to my Mum, having a sneaky cry to her away from Jamie, before I got myself back together again. Mum soon put me straight, telling me I was doing great and what a fantastic thing we were doing and of course it wouldn't be easy. She was brilliant - that's one of the reasons why I love her to bits.

I have to say that we were really disappointed about the lack of preparation he'd been given for what was happening to him - it was almost as though people thought he was too young to understand, but in our view, he's an intelligent little boy, and it would have been better if he'd have had some really good preparation by his social worker but it just didn't happen.

We haven't had any photos from his foster carers yet, so have nothing to show him whilst we're explaining about who they are, and we haven't got his life story book yet either, so we have nothing to work with. We desperately need the photos and have explained this to his social worker - there's really no better tool you can use with a 3 year old than photographs. He's still a little confused about where "home" is, but we're working on it. When he says that things like the shed or the garden is either Tims or mine, we say, no, they're ours. He's now starting to understand and say "It's Mummy's and Daddys and Jamies".

Of course, I shouldn't dwell on these minor incidents, because on the whole everything is going so well. He is such a wonderful, caring and loving child and is so affectionate. He greets everyone with beaming smiles and giggles and they instantly fall right in love with him. We've not had to hold back on him meeting people because he has just taken to them right away. We've already had some super family days out and we all seem to have settled in to life together really well and much better than we could have ever imagined!

He has had Tim and I in absolute stitches over things he has done! The one day, we were in the car going out to my parents for the day and had to stop for Jamie to go to the toilet. The only place we could find to pull in was a driveway to a farm. Well, Jamie and I got out of the car, and on the other side of the fence were these bleating lambs. Jamie was laughing, I was laughing, and then Jamie did this most enormous wee - I think it must have hit a tree about 3 ft away - of course, then I was hysterical. Tears were rolling down my cheeks, Jamie was laughing, the sheep were bleating. I got back into the car and could hardly breathe from laughing - Jamie just said "Daddy, look Mummy's laughing" and started laughing again. He often tells me that I shouldn't eat chocolate because it's "dangerous" (which it is because of my ever expanding waistline and the close proximity of food now that I'm at home all day!) and says that Cornflakes are "Pornflakes"!

Click here for page two of the diary