sharing the child

I do not have a problem sharing the child's time with the other grandmother and her family. They enjoy having her there and she likes to go, especially if her mother is there. She seems quite happy to visit with her mother lately. I will be interested in seeing how she reacts when this weekend is over. It is special in two ways. It is Easter, so there will be festivities that way and it is her other paw paw's birthday, so something will be going on that way too. When she is there, she has her half sister who is one +. amd wants to do everything she does, there is her uncle who is her mother's brother. He is 11 or so. He is an athelete. Playing baseball and football. There is her grandmother and grandfather. There may be great grandmothers and even a great great grandmother if she feels like coming. There are great aunts too. So there can be lots of people around. And there is her mother. She seems to not be nervous now around her mother or when her mother calls. She doesn't refuse to talk or get shy on the phone. She hasn't mentioned punching the glass in a while. So we will see what she says and what she does after we get her tomorrow evening. One thing though, she won't get to see her half brother. I don't know when she saw him last. His grandmother doesn't allow him to visit the other grandparents at this time whether his mother is there or not. I think they will have to petition the court for visitation.

Palm Sunday Weekend

I spent part of the Saturday of Palm Sunday Weekend waiting and I do mean waiting for 3 and 1/2 hours to visit with my son for 20 minutes at his incarceration point. There were several problems there on Saturday which pushed visitation to the limit. There being no communication between the guard and the waiting visitors, there is no way to no what is going on. There should be a 20 minute visit for 5 residents, a change out of visitors and residents and another set go in for 30 minutes. B ut it was not happening that way this day. Good Grief. When I finally got my turn, my son said they had problems all day including a mix up where someone thought they were getting to see their mom, got to the visitation area, then was told he had lost his privilege to visit, which caused an uproar that ending in a tazing. That of course took time and guards away from the visiting routine and helped get things behind. He also said there were two fights that broke out since visiting started. What a way to live day by day.
He says he is ready to be out and to do good. I hope to God he has it in him to do it. That is his only hope. He can not do it on his own. He thinks he will be sentenced to drug court this coming week. His dad is to call the judge again on Monday to see what he may have decided. He has been there 4 weeks. It is a small and quite over crowded area. There is a new warden since there is a new sheriff. I don't know if the changes she has made are good or not. My son doesn't think so. Things are more restricted, which adds to the stress. He has come through this better than I thought. He says he doesn't want to go back. Perhaps he can remember what it is like and make decisions that will keep him clean and straight and away from there. He knows we will not tolerate the other behavior and he has no place to go but home and we feel we must help him if the judge sentences him to drug court. Other wise he will have no way to participate and will fail right off the bat. It may be codependent but he needs the chance to succeed or fail.

Palm Sunday was spent with mostly church related activity. My granddaughter who is four and a half sang with the other kids in church "Ride on King Jesus, No one can a hinder me" She did pretty well. Of course I had to process with her carrying her baby doll and stand with her down front so she would stay, but who cares. I want her to learn to be comfortable doing things in the church. She is more used to the contemporary service in the fellowship hall than the Sanctuary. Her mother was there with her (half) sister to watch her sing. Then we went to the after church picnic and egg hunt at Buhlow rec area. My Granddaughter had a grand time, swinging, playing in gravel, playing with people's dogs, doing the egg hunt, seeing the Easter Bunny and being with her mother. She got the most eggs in her group, Her huge basket was briming over and there were still plenty of eggs to find. Her little sister even picked some up and seemed to have fun doing it. We had to cut out early because it was major nap time by then. After that we went to the other grandmothers house for a good while, then she and I had to leave the group first. That did not make her happy at all. She was able to get over it and stop crying by the time we were well on our way to the grocery store to pick up some essentials. She did tell me she was ok but she was still sad and mad. By the time we got home she was ok. She rode her bike and visited a little with some kids down the block, ate a good supper and finally went to sleep.

Her pawpaw has come back to the land of the living after suffering through a terrible stomach virus that grabbed him Friday evening just before sundown with aches and chills and then the trots. If he had not improved by today I was going to take him in, but he has made enough recovery to be able to each some chicken soup and is walking around some. Thank God. I need him up and around and well. THis sick business is for the birds. He missed the Neville Brothers for gosh sakes. He will not be going to work tomorrow. He needs a least another day to get his legs back under him.

Pressure all around

Yesterday the girl spent part of the day with her mother at other grandmothers house. They seemed to have an ok time. This morning she told me that she had a dream that she put her arm through a glass window. That is something she saw her mother do on Halloween. She told me not to worry, that it was just a story dream, like the story box in Pinky Dinky Doo. That she couldn't be hurt by it. I told her mother and her grandmother so that they would be aware. She went back to other Maw Maw's today to play with her cousins from Austin. Her mom was there too for a few hours. When her mom came by to give us the car seat I told her I thought she was pressurred or rushed. She said that she felt that she was under constant pressure because she has so much to do all the time. I asked her to ask her counselor what will happen when she gets out and has free time and is tempted to use. She seems to be doing ok, but again every moment is full.

a visit from mama

I had trepidation about how the weekend would go. It went fine. Thank God. The girl did fine. Her baby sister however was jealous of her being around and competeing for attention and consistently threw fits and even bonked her on the head once. They all went to the zoo including the other mawmaw. The girl enjoyed it especially the alligators and the alligator snapping turtles. Her mother did tell me that the girl did have two wetting accidents, one where she wet the bed. I tried to explain that she is under stress and is conflicted, probably dreaming some things too and that we would be working on them as soon as possible. SHe spent Friday and Saturday nights at other mawmaw's. Sunday moring after church she was ready for me to come get her. We were taking the trampoline down from the old house and taking it to our house so after we got it loaded into the truck I went over. We had a good visit. Her mama seemed ok. Not so nervous or high strung. The mawmaw said that she did much better this time. Didn't get hyper and was in bed by 8:15!. Chasing 2 kids and going to the zoo had to take it's toll. It is hard for me to not go to sleep when I lay down with the girl. The plan is for her to come to our house next Saturday for part of the day. I think that is a good idea. She can interact with her while I get some work done around here.

A visit to son

Hubby had to go out of town to a workshop. Granddaughter was visiting her mother at other mawmaw's. I was able to go to the visiting time for our son. I was at the parking area when I realized I had to go back for the back of sweats I had left at the house. Thank goodness I was no later that I was. I was the 3rd to last person to register for a morning visit and I was there about 8:30. I got in at 10. I passed the time by reading a John Grisham novel. There are all types of people there in the crowded waiting area. Mostly women. Mostly black. Lots of people were turned away today, told to come back for the noon visiting time. When I finally got in, he was looking ill. Had a cough, sounded congested and sinusy. He had been to medic call and was taking something for sinus but you evidently have to be pretty ill to actually go to the doctor. I suggested he ask for medic call again. He thanked me for the sweats. They keep t pretty cold in there all the time. He is easily chilled & doesn't like it cold. So I know he doesn't feel well. It causes me quite a bit of anxiety to think that he will need care that he is not going to get, especially regarding his mental health. He says people have been waiting 4 months to go to the doctor. Yes, I know that if he had been compliant with his regimen he might not be in this mess but that is a moot point. He wanted to know if we knew anything about how long he might be in or anything about drug court yet. I told him that the judge told his dad he would tell us something within a week, so we should know something soon. He was despondent about not knowing what would happen next and about how bad things were in there. He said there were a bunch of bad gansters in there who were jumping on people for little reason. One person had been cut up recently. He doesn't think he can stay out of trouble until April. He wishes he could just get his sentence if he's not going to get drug court. I told him the Judge talked more about drug court than anything else and that he talked about rolling all the charges into one court date. There is no bible study going on, just a lot of hating. THere are not many white people at all, which is not something he has said much before. Someone he knows pretty well has just come in so maybe that will help. He is very depressed, looked like he would cry. Looked desperate. I hated seeing him like that. It caused me quite a bit of anxiety and sadness and worry. I tried to tell him only he could change his life to stay out of the situation in the future and only he could change how it was affecting him now. He said he new it but that it didn't look good right now that it was hard. I can only imagine.