Success

I'd love to open with some quip about my trip to Minnesota the first week of December, and link you to my other blog where I'd have a hilarious account of those events.

I'd love to, but I can't.

I decided to write this blog first while the events are somewhat fresh in my head. So many other things happened, that I have too much fodder for my other site that I may not get to the Minnesota trip until later in the year, if at all.

Suffice to say that I went to Minnesota as a buisness trip to meet my new boss and new team, and while I was away, Lillian was left with Justice, who had transformed into the Uber-Demon from the Lower Levels of Hell. We can fling blame and logical discourse on Justice's behavior until the quadrapeds come home, but the facts are that Justice is hard to handle with two of us around. When our numbers are divided, Justice, like any good psychological warrior, goes in for the kill. So, while in Minnesota, I received a call each night from Lillian, frustrated, upset and at her wits end about how to deal with Justice.

I suggested a burlap sack, a couple of cement weights and a deserted pier, but with housing prices the way they are, all three items are in short supply.

By the time I flew back to town, we had decided we would drop Justice off at her father's a little early, about a week, and thus save the County and taxpayers of Riverside time, effort and funding prosecuting us on any number of charges.

We got up early, even for us, and hit the road. This strategy had two attractive elements. First, traffic would be relatively light, and second, Justice was likely to sleep. Both paid out in spades. Traffic was reasonably light, even for Southern California, and Justice slept the entire ride up. This was a vast change from our other trips with her, wherein she would whine, scream, cry, cajole, whimper, simper, and otherwise attempt to make the trip utterly miserable.

So, almost completely without mishap, we drove up to Goshen, California, in the Fresno Valley, and dropped out little bundle of joy off at her father's house. Leaving her there was akin to a drowning victim suddenly realizing that if they cut the two ton weights from their legs, the chances of survival go up by an order of magnitude to say the least.

Lillian did a backflip.

I kid you not.

Ok, I kid you a little, but that's what it felt like. The sudden lack of a ten year-old, and the responsibility of a foster child became immediately and readily apparent. We went and watched a movie, one we didn't have to worry about the content for young eyes. We ate dinner, again, without having to worry if there would be something for Justice to eat. We bought snacks, without a thought toward if we would have to share or say no, and how to deal with either. There were no social workers, no family resource investigators, no police arresting me for kidnapping, no lawyers, advocates, judges or Grim Reapers standing over us and watching every move we make, every decision we take, every time-out Justice has to sit through.

On the other side, Justice's visit was more than a success. The only phone call, as heartwrenching as it might seem, from her was the day before we picked her up. She asked if she could stay longer. If it had been in our power, we would have let her, but we'd already paid for the hotel, and with family schedules leaving and coming to our house, along with school and work, it was just impossible.

But the titular success mentioned is that Justice was so thrilled at having brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and grandparents and parents all within a one mile radius, and all heaping love and affection on her in gross-tonage amounts, that she is more than ready and willing to transition to her "real family" as she put it.

Yeah, there's a little knife twist there for Lillian and I. Something Justice may never come to understand.

On the other hand, watching my wife do backflips assuages some of that pain.