Fostering With the Lights Out

Two hours after the foster child arrived at our house in the middle of a nor’easter last Friday, the power failed. Unfazed while playing on his tablet, his first question after the lights went out: “What happened to the internet?”

Steve and I were doing respite care for a 9-year-old last weekend for his foster parents. (Foster parents can get respite when they’re going out of town or something. I’m assuming they can’t just leave the kids with anyone so they need people approved by an adoption agency to watch.) So of course, for the first time in our lives, we have a child staying in our home and the whole area is crippled by a storm and the electricity goes out. I mean, when else would a power failure hit? It didn’t come on again until Monday morning.

The kid was a trooper and didn’t complain about the disrupted plans. We did sleep at home Friday because we thought the power might come back soon and didn’t yet see a need to take our show on the road. I checked on him later Friday and he was asleep under a mound of blankets, so I figured we wouldn't disturb him. It was chilly in the house but there was lingering heat so it wasn’t that bad yet.

We had to do something the next day because I believe the bylaws of fostering (and I guess parenting in general) say you must provide light and heat for children. We were going to make dinner and stuff, but that was out. So we went out to breakfast and later checked into a hotel. Our caseworker told us we couldn’t cross state lines with him, so we couldn’t stay with our families.

We had also wanted to do something “homey” with him and a hotel was not ideal. But the minute we said “hotel,” he lit up, especially when he found out there was an indoor pool. We checked in, went to the pool, went out to dinner and watched TV and stuff in the room. The next day, we went to the Delaware Children’s Museum and had fun there.

So it wasn’t the weekend we planned but we managed the crisis, nor’easter and Delmarva Power be damned.