Until tomorrow

These people have literally kidnapped my children without any rhyme or reason (oh, they have what “they” are saying, which they have had mis-information from the beginning), lied to me about the entire process, and then given me limited access to my own children. While in the meantime, they take them to dr’s appointments, look them over for signs of abuse or strange behaviors and keep notes on the entire process to try to use against me. Now they may have already begun in-home psychological services and are wary of my persistence to have the girls see a private psychologist outside of their collaborative force team. Tomorrow I am going to have to meet with them and decide on a plan of services they are going to push on me to help my family.

Marilyn is emotionally distraught and from the beginning has alternated within our phone conversations from overwhelmingly sad, depressed, angry, violent, to giggly and sing-songy. More often than not, she is not happy and begs to come home. Only once has she willingly hung up the phone with me. We talk for forty-five minutes to an hour and a half (more recently, up to two hours). I call her two times a day. She has told me things that are worrisome and although she is being taken care of, she despises the situation she is in. Some days are better than others. Today, the first time I spoke with her she cried herself to sleep and told me that “Nobody loves her” and that she didn’t love anybody. She cried for Daddy and told me that she didn’t love me. This is at least the second time she has fallen asleep crying on the phone recently. On our second phone call she talked very nicely with me but as soon as we were alone, she closed the bedroom door and shut her and Mallory in the room and then she started crying and told me how she wanted to come home. She got upset when I started to cry then. The rest of the conversation went okay although I had to let her go when she accidentally hung up the phone. We had already been talking for an hour anyhow. She does not want to let me get off of the phone and when I can I will talk to her for as long as possible. That is not always possible however.

I usually do not get to talk with Mallory. Marilyn is unwilling to pass over the phone. I usually hear Mallory in the background near whatever Marilyn is doing. (Mostly watching television). Mallory is going through her normal emotions and sometimes she talks or sings or I hear her cry. Marilyn tells me when Mallory is kicking her. Sometimes I hear them playing or interacting. I still laugh when I hear them fight. Mallory does not seem as upset, she is still very little. But when I see her, I see the effect. Mallory is internalizing all of this stress and she has no one to express herself or the feelings of separation that she is having. Let me preface my point with this; Mallory is very passionate. She’s very laid-back and happy, but she’s very passionate when she asserts her opinions. She is at the peak age for temper tantrums to begin and I believe if children are handled appropriately and taught positive methods and shown lots of love and guidance when they are young while these behaviors develop, that they will not progress into problematic behavioral issues later on. I am very worried about the impact this separation anxiety and isolation from family will have on her. At my visitation with the girls, Mallory was happy. When I left the room to take Marilyn to the bathroom and left her with Holly, she became highly upset and Holly brought her to the bathroom. (The caseworker at this point stood in the hall and played with her cell phone some more.) During the visit whenever she got upset she would erupt into screaming would internalize all of her anger. She didn’t want to be held or consoled. She literally got so upset she was almost biting the frame of the swing within the visitation room at one point. (Anyone who has ever had a melt down should know that angry-clenching feeling you get sometimes. That was what Mallory was exhibiting). She did not want to be held and she just cried into the carpet and screamed in frustration. She never did that before. She’s kind of tough, but she never ever expressed her anger and frustration in such an angry manner. She’s never had so much anger and frustration within her before to let out. I’m really worried about these temper tantrums and separation anxiety. I’m confident she will bounce back with time because the bonds of love are strong and Mallory has never lacked for love or attention before. She will get it ten-fold when she comes back. But I know this is going to take some work and patience when they come back.

We are very close with our girls and they have never been away from us for more than a night. We cosleep with our children (in a very specific and appropriate layout- Mark gets the edge [or as of more recently the couch, the other bedroom, the end of the bed…] I sleep next to Mark and the girls sleep in-between myself and the wall [Marilyn gets the wall].) We take them to the park and on walks and for adventures. We play with them and interact with them and enjoy spending our time with them. We spend the entire afternoon as a family. They are happy children who are very bright and interesting little creatures. I miss them terribly. I am with my children all of the time, and now they are in the hands of strangers, with people that are completely differently from them. I’m not implying that they aren’t being taken care of, but they are within a completely different culture than the one they are from, being handled and assessed by complete strangers and ripped away from their parents who are excellent parents.

I’m not going to say I’m the best parent. But I have a sneaking suspicion that my children are often being fed junk food when I make an effort to make sure we eat healthily. I don’t think that they are getting as much sugar anymore (I don’t give out that much juice- we are big water drinkers) since I spoke with the foster mother and they are finally on a normal (?acceptable I don’t quite know?) sleeping schedule. That is to say, I don’t know if it is normal or not. I know that they stay up way later than I let them stay up at home. I have them in bed 9-9:30 and we do dinner and a bath before then. They even get a bunch of time to jump on the bed before we read them bedtime stories. I monitor their television and what they watch and I try not to let them watch too much television. They always have opportunity to play with whatever they want and they do (and they are quite messy). Many a time have I walked into the bathroom to find them giving their ponies (or rubber duckies) a “bath” in the sink (while having used up a majority of the handsoap). Both girls will be playing in the sink. I’m not a negligent parent, but this is my children’s home as well and they definitely live here and use it. (Plus it is only a 1,000 sq. ft. apartment with 4* rooms. (*Kitchen-living room has an open doorway so that is “technically” one big room). We are also within a one-block street of up and down duplex apartments and once you open your windows you hear EVERYTHING. (The woman next door gets very loud and foul-mouthed when talking with her husband, or on the phone quite frequently during the summer. Her husband knew all about the Great-Soap-In-The-Eye Incident of 2009 before we even told anyone. I hear what the people outside are talking about as they walk past my house- and down the street).

In any case, I may not be perfect but I am an excellent parent. Mark is a good father to these girls and he loves them and takes care of them more than a lot of other dads do. This is causing so much pain to my children and to myself and to Mark. And this is hurting everyone else who loves and cares about these girls as well. This is such a horrible and appalling situation that I never even knew could happen. I don’t dream often but I recall a long time ago I had a dream that I can’t recall, but when I woke up I remember telling Mark that I would kill him if he ever did anything less-than-pure to our children and he was horrified me even suggesting it; I remember telling him that and being so angry about it. Maybe this is a part of my bigger picture of things? I don’t want to quite say destiny, but there’s always a reason for things, I believe. We may not understand it while in the middle of it, but I believe that in the long run things work out as they should and you begin to understand the big picture a bit more. There are so many things in my life that have been a result of chance and hard work and determination. I have become such a strong person already, what is coming that I have to be so strong so soon? I’m only 23.

I pray that tomorrow will work out. I have a lot of research to do. The legal world is a beast of it’s own. I have to know how this all works or else they are only going to manipulate me even further. I am holding out completely for Thursday and everything is building up to it. I’m confident that this will all work out in the end. I just wish it wasn’t going to take so long. But all good things come in time. I guess it is a good thing that I haven’t found a full-time job just yet, I’ve been able to actually pick up work more than I usually do and still deal with all of this nonsense. I’m actually substituting tomorrow evening for a math class. Yeah, me teaching MATH. (I’m not going to say I’m not a little excited about my 2 semesters of stats coming up soon, or my microeconomics and finances courses I’m about to sign up for- basic intro not-hard ones that is).

Until tomorrow I just keep praying.