Bitter Grapes

This weekend, Justice sat down to write her father a letter.

At this point, unless you want to wait three years, I wouldn't suggest commissioning her to write any marketing or blog copy for you. It's not that it was bad, it's just that her typing skills amount to the hunting and pecking of a blind and beakless woodpecker who is also dead.

She wrote a grand total of fifteen lines and it took her the better part of three hours. Worse, I thought kids today were all internet-computer-VCR-DVD-TiVo-savvy giants who kicked copies of Unix in my generation's face every time we go to the beach. Justice wanted to move the body of the text down, and so she kept deleting it and then hitting enter and re-typing.

The upside of this process was that it took her three hours to type it, which left Lil and I in the enviable position of watching Thank You for Smoking (a cunning movie that you should run right out now and see). The downside was that she kept yelling frustrastions at us:

"Where's the shift . . . oh, nevermind!"
"I can't find the key with the two dots on it!"
"How do I put the date in?"
"How do you spell "abandoned"?"

Good times, let me assure you.

We did not, of course, leave her to suffer in misery and defeat through these frustrations. Lil's computer cost quite a bit, and a ten year-old can do significant damage, even if they don't know what they're doing. Instead, we helped her out, talked about the "home row" for which she became eternally and utterly lost, and then told her to just type out the words she had written down and we would fix it later.

But as I read through her letter, which ammounted to Justice's resume to date:

I have brown eyes. I have big hands and big feet. I'm in the fourth grade.

I was struck my her salutation: Dead Daddy.

I have often expressed how children do not understand the sweeping effort that goes into their creation, delivery and upbringing. The clear amount of frustration and self-sacrifice that every child (should) takes for granted. The mind of the child is not geared toward this kind of understanding that will later, if the parental-unit is fortunate, occur to them when they go to college or move out for the first time.

While not joyous, it is understandable.

A child's mind is geared toward playing, eating and playing.

They don't consider bills, mortgages, private schools, tutors, after school programs, etc.

And yet, I have to say, that there are times when the parents' grievances are supremely legitimate, righteous and wholly correct. The term "daddy" applied to a man that Justice, for all intents and purposes has never met, truly did strike me right to the core like a Brunnhilde's spear. But Aesop's bitter grapes only lingered for a moment. There have been many, many wonderful moments of having Justice as a part of our house and our lives. Tears, frustrations, anger a-plenty, sure. But seeing her grow up, and learn and experience has been worthwhile as well.

So while Justice's preconception of her father, her daddy, is probably all light and happiness, the reality will likely deminish that greatly. Still, having met the man, I can tell that he, like me, knows what it is to be a father, to be a daddy. He just gets the title.

Heinous, Heinous, Heinous

Naively, yesterday, in addition to dressing in my finest black suit, tan shirt, and tan and red tie, I also took along blue jeans and my favorite sneakers. Lillian looked at me with the same look she reserves for the insane and those who kick small puppies on their way to work:

“What are you doing?”

“If we get done early, maybe we can go to Disneyland.”

She laughed. It’s a laugh that has caused grown trolls to breakdown in sobs and admit that they miss their mothers loving embrace.

Cave-trolls.

Not those sissy Mountain-trolls.

Thus began, at 7:30 am a day that would not end until roughly 7:30 pm when we would wearily wend our way back to the homestead, exhausted beyond most mortal’s capacity.

I understand that our court systems are overloaded beyond almost any conceivable measure. By most reports, even after Jesus the Christ has made his triumphant Second Coming, and sent his flocks to Heaven and the evil-doers to Hell, the courts will still be running at full capacity for an additional fifteen years.

What I don’t understand is why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why we have to be present and accounted for beginning at 8:00 am if we aren’t even going to be called into the court room for its five minutes of quiet explanation until 4:30 pm when even the bailiffs are looking at us with a, “You fools, why are you still here?” look.

It might also be the “Kick Me, I’m Irish” signs that I put on one bailiff’s back.

Well, she was Irish.

Note to the Wise: Bailiffs do not enjoy high school-level pranks and are armed with authority to shoot out your kneecaps.

Around 3:00, Justice’s attorney came out and saw us. She was apparently called to assist with three young lads who had taken to riding the elevators and singing “Ring-Around the Rosies” with some of the court officials and a couple of convicts.

Hey, they were minor felons and no one was permanently injured in the ensuing shoot out. Mostly flesh wounds.

When the attorney saw us, she told us to wait (yeah, I thought that was funny too) and when she had finished, she took us into a cubby with semi-privacy and then proceeded to drop a bomb on us:

“His (the biological father’s) attorney is offering a settlement.”

No, seriously, that’s what she said. My first thought was, we get money out of this? That’s odd. How much?

“They’re offering legal guardianship where the father will retain rights.”

What’s this?

As you know, Lillian and I were only prepared for two realistic outcomes: custody is given immediately to Justice’s father or custody is transitioned in a few months to Justice’s father. We hadn’t considered that there would be a third option.

Then the attorney dropped another bomb:

“Or, I can keep fighting for adoption, which is what I want, and what I think we should do.”

What what what what what what?

It boiled down to this: the attorney did not know where bio-dad (as she calls him) has been, where he is now, what he’s doing or who he’s doing it with. As far as she was concerned, almost everyone involved in these kinds of cases from a biological side are playing an angle and rotten to the core. She’s a child advocate, and I’m certain she sees more retched hives of scum and villainy than Luke and Obi-wan did at Mos Eisley space port. So she advocates in the best interest of the child.

What a country!

But this did take us by storm. Shock and awe were mostly what we felt. We now know what most of China felt when Genghis Khan started shopping for "a summer cottage near the coast, something with a view” . . . of the rest of China.

So, the options were we can pursue adoption, we can settle, or we can fold, take our ball and go home.

I voted take our ball, because if you don’t, then someone is going to pick it up and ignore all the writing that stipulates your name, defunct previous address and an old phone number you thought would never change but did.

But in the matter of Justice, we decided this is an all or nothing kind of deal. Justice needs stability and everyone, everyone, everyone needs closure. No half-measures. We’ve seen what that did for Iraq.

The attorney was in agreement, and so we proceeded and lost. We didn’t think we would win, but there it is. A visit was granted to the father with a trial (yes an honest to God trial) set for December 4th. Paternity was established for the father, which was never much in doubt. You look at his eyes and you can see Justice staring back.

Immediately afterward, though, Justice’s attorney asked us if we wanted to talk to the father and his fiancée. We, of course, wanted to, as this would give a HUGE clue why he’s doing what he’s doing. Let me just say, without many details, that it was probably the most positive thing to come out this hearing. Even Justice’s attorney, as we were walking away, said, “Ok, I feel better about him.”

So did we.

Photo Finish

We received a note from Justice's teacher yesterday as part of her academic reporting for the first part of this year. Apparently she's not failing reading or reading comprehension but rather social studies.

Social studies?

Yeah, social studies.

The written reason was that Justice is not paying attention to directions. No big shock there. Once she thinks she doesn't like you, or what you're saying, she has an amazing capacity to shut down all conscious functions completely.

Lil has a parent-teacher conference with Mrs. Ann-Miller for Thursday. That should prove interesting.

In other news, the next court hearing is tomorrow. I will be in attendance. We don't know yet if Lil will be attending as well. The news reporters should have our interviews up on all the major networks and papers, but in case you don't get them, stay tuned and I'll report out on Thursday.

Or Not . . . Again

Justice had a church acitivity for the young girls.

She loves these activities because she gets to play with friends from church and one of her best friends (BFF according to her) Genna. Given the previous issues regarding her reading and schoolwork, we, as responsible type adults hold to the maxim that we work before we play.

You might recall that fable of the grasshopper and the ant. The grasshopper takes his leisure all summer long, mocking the ant for working. When winter comes the stupid ant dies of exhaustion and the grasshopper moves in and steals all the ant's hard work storing food and building a cottage with indoor plumbing and a La-Z-Boy recliner.

But the grasshopper had to have the common sense to know that the ant was going to die.

That's the lesson here.

Similarly, I'm rather Lazy by nature. Being so B-personality inclined, I tend to like to have all my work done so that I can sit around, surfing the net, and catching up with old friends via email. It works rather nicely.

The fundamental here, just as it was with the grasshopper, is that I had to be prepared so that I could be lazy.

Justice doesn't seem to grasp this concept. Yesterday, she refused to do her homework (not a new concept) but when she was confronted about it at the daycare (where we've taken special pains to get her into the tutoring program) she pulled one of her talk-back-attitude moments with the tutor. The tutor promptly called Lillian, and Lilliand promptly cancelled the activity for Justice.

Tears erupted and then Justice went immediately into the Kubler-Ross model, which means that she equates the loss of her activity with the loss of a loved one.

Children are fascinating, aren't they?

Justice like to linger in the Anger Stage for as long as possible, which generally means she digs herself in deeper. We've learned, for the most part, to just ignore her rants and raves until she's calmed down and entered the Acceptance Stage. It's just easier all around to let he go wild for a bit, and then place her in time out for her tantrums.

So that was what happened yesterday.

Being a parent is so much fun.

. . . Or Not

Imagine my surprise . . . no, that's not just a clever turn of phrase, I actually want you to imagine it . . . as I drive up to my house last night from the train station to see my wife standing on the front porch.

I quickly did a self-assessment, found that I had not recently done anything that would have put me in the proverbial or literal dog-house, and so I sauntered up to the steps.

"Hi," I said, cheerfully.

"Ok, so Justice . . . " and that's how the story began.

Justice does not like to read. I mean, the girl really, really, with a cherry on top, does not like to read. She'll go into caterwauls the likes of which most animals find too high pitched to stand, lasting far, far longer than it would have actually taken for her to read the book, assess the character flaws, and devise a potential solution.

Yeah, something like that.

But, to our credit, I like to think, she came a long way last school year, and went from Basic, essentially a C-average for you old-skoolers, to . . . whatever is just above that. She certainly wasn't Advanced, but that's ok. She loves math, and so I'm alright with her not being steller in all subjects.

I was horrible at math.

Still, it is necessary, in this world, to be able to read at least on a 4th grade level.

Which is what grade Justice is in.

So there I was, reading over Justice's progress report, and seeing that she was getting a Below Basic in reading. Not quite a failing grade, but on the ranks of a D.

Justice claimed that she missed three questions out of ten on some test, but further discovery showed that the progress report was dated 10/3, as in October 3rd, so we know that she has no clue what she's babbling about in this case. The note scrawled on the bottom of the page like some dying man's last attempt to point out clues toward his murderer read:

Justice appears distracted like her mind is on something else.

To which my first, literal response was, "Duh."

So now Lil and I need to get in touch with the teacher, find out what we can do, and try to implement something.

In the meantime, October 18th, the latest court date, hangs over our heads and casts a shadow on everything we do. We have no idea if we need to prepare for the short term outcome (Justice is taken away) or the mid-term outcome (Justice is taken away, but in a couple of months) or a longer term (Justice stays through the school year). It's hard to want to do something long-term, when at any moment the sword is gonna fall.

Cry Me a River

Justice is upset this week.

She's been upset since Monday, or thereabouts.

September 27th is our (Lil and I) wedding anniversary, but due to mitigating circumstances, and number of prescheduled and promised events, and some whatnot thrown in for spice, we opted out of celebrating it. We did exchange gifts.

I got a wok.

Lil got Pride and Prejudice (with Colin Firth, that she loves) Dirty Dancing (with Patrick Swayze, that she doesn't love).

Remember, nobody puts Baby in a corner!

Anyways, we opted out of actually doing anything until this weekend, when we head out of town, and Justice can't come.

She's quite put out by this, and stated, unequivocally, that we never take her anywhere.

Nevermind that fact that when she's not at school she must be watched by one of us or an approved Lifescanned individual. We can't even leave the state with her without a court order.

I'm not making that up.

Last week, alone, we went up to Oak Glen where they are famous for their apples, apple cider, apple dumplings, apple wars, and the dreaded Apple Monster of Doom.

That part I'm making up.

Anyhow, what's great about this latest fit of hers is that it has taken the form of minor pouting, but with general acceptance and very little in behavior issues.

Perhaps she's growing up too!