Court and Kindergarten

Read my magazine today. Who is surprised that nothing happened? I'm personally shocked we accomplished what we did:

Adoptive Families- just for the irony

 I got BioDad to sign the emergency contact and field trip permission form for school. I'm annoyed that I can't sign any of those things because it's an inconvenience for me to get Dad to sign every little thing that comes from the school. I know other workers who let the foster parents sign everything but consent for services, but 4's worker doesn't want my signature on anything. I still have to fill everything out, though, and just have Dad sign at the bottom- which he always does without question.

I have to say that we are fortunate to be working with a parent who is so trusting of us. He's pretty passive which makes me mad on behalf of Baby 4, but also so grateful every time I take 4 for a haircut knowing there will be no fallout.

When we got into court, Mom's lawyer made me furious with some crappy petition asking that the judge not allow her to be accused of severe abuse, but just neglect. She cited a case where a Father took boiling water from the stove and poured it over his child's head and it was not found to be severe abuse. She said that 4's injury was not as severe as that case, so why would this be considered severe abuse. I wanted to scream. Obviously this lawyer has not seen pictures of 4 when he was in the hospital. His injury was not "less severe" than anything. I had to scrub and dress his wounds for months while he cried, and this lawyer has the nerve to call an intentional act that has been punished in criminal court neglect? Using a case where the judge obviously made a bad call and trying to use that as precedence turned out to be futile and our judge didn't buy it. We are continuing to plan on the trial in October.

Dad's lawyer did not show up for court again. I hate this for Dad and for us, because we need to get his side of things moving if anything will ever be done for 4. As mad as I was about the asinine things Mom's lawyer was saying, at least she was attempting to represent her client. Even guilty people deserve proper counsel.

The lawyers confirmed that they all had gotten the copy of Relative Resource's homestudy denial. The county asked that RR's petition for custody be withdrawn and the judge told them they needed to ask that in writing. So we scheduled another date in 2 weeks to do that. RR's lawyer insinuated that Dad would be moving in with RR out of state and they would be pursuing custody together. We couldn't talk about it any further because Dad's lawyer wasn't there.

Baby 4's lawyer stated her support for the severe abuse finding and for denying R's custody petition.

The judge dismissed as RR piped up over the phone and asked to address the court. The judge asked RR's lawyer if he recommended that and he literally shrugged his shoulders. RR proceeded to snarkily tell the judge that she and Dad had no part in the incident that caused 4 to be placed into care. She finds it unjust that they would have to be checked out by the county and approved to parent the child that is their family. She continued to talk about Dad's side of the case and made it look really bad for Dad even though that wasn't her intent. The judge had enough after a minute or so and told RR that they are following the law to ensure 4 is safe and cared for.

Then we left. We'll go back in 2 weeks and do nothing, then hopefully the trial next month will give us a platform to file TPR.

On our way out of court, the caseworker said the petition for TPR has been written for both parents and is being reviewed by the supervisor in Foster Care Management. She also said that new relative resource has been identified for Baby 4 by Dad. They have to look into her. She is Baby 4's Grandma's aunt. She has not made any contact with the county  or with 4 at all in the 19 months he has been in care. I'm really not concerned about her at all, but crazier things have happened, so it's on my radar.

Even though that's a lot of talking, we are still in the exact same position we were in before court.

I'm a terrible blog-Mom and didn't post about 4's first day of Kindergarten. I missed it because I was in the hospital with the baby, but my husband was there and it went great! 4 loves school and has kept his behavior in check. I'm really proud of him.