Sharing a positive respite experience
My husband and I were approved in January as respite carers. We are a pretty involved aunt and uncle to my sister's kids, but have never had a child in our house for more than one night, until now.
A few weeks ago we looked after a 5yo girl for a night. She is the coolest and we love hanging out with her, though we were absolutely shattered after 24 hours and were basically comatose after we dropped her home!
We had planned to look after her again this coming weekend, but got a call on Monday saying that her carer was having a family emergency and would we be able to look after her all week. She was so excited to spend "six sleeps!" with us, "because I know you already", which was tender since we have really only met her once (plus a coffee date with her carer during which we were roundly ignored, haha).
She's a happy kid - playful, cheeky, funny, creative, affectionate, and a great negotiator who is very cool with a compromise. Our house looks like a bomb hit it and last night I ate half a frozen pizza for dinner instead of cooking and none of my systems are system-ing and my order is not orderly, but she is clean, fed, watered and dressed and honestly, I love having her here and so does my husband.
The agency has been great - she lives nearly an hour from us and they've been able to organise all the school pick ups and drop offs.
We have respite lined up for another child in a month's time and I'm aware that she'll be completely different, but I had anxiety that I'd go through all of that training only to meet one kid and think "what have I done?" and it's a huge relief that this feels so right.