Ridiculousness and birthday party update

Thanks for your feedback on the birthday party issue! I decided to bite the bullet and do Chuck E. Cheese--Sabrina would be happy, I could invite her family, etc.

Then I went to court.

Dad's ICPC petition was denied. So dad isn't getting custody.

But Sabrina can stay with him for the rest of the summer.

So I'm off the hook for planning a birthday party at all.

Sabrina will get some therapy to prepare her for coming back to me when school starts, so it isn't a horrible shock for her (though it will still be horrible for her!), and dad is considering moving into our jurisdiction so he can get custody, and the agency will look at dad's sister as a possible placement.

And mom is just crazy.*


*The GAL's assessment, not mine!

Birthday party ideas?

HELP! Sabrina's birthday is in about a month, and all this time I've been assuming that she would be with her dad for her birthday. Ever since November she has been insistent that she is having her birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. Oy. Madame Naivete that I am, I never thought Sabrina was still going to be with me, then there was this whole summer thing, and so I also never tried to talk her down from that idea.

I don't believe in planning a party that requires us to drive 40 minutes or more to get to when we live in a city with all sorts of fun things to do.

Am I being selfish? Should I "give in" and scope out Chuck E. Cheese (where I haven't been since a birthday party when I was 6)? What are non-Chuck E. Cheese similar ideas?

Public Service Announcement

I went to the Children's Place outlet yesterday, and in 15 minutes for $100, I bought a full (that should read "full") two weeks worth of clothes for Sabrina. Shirts, pants, shorts, and a spring jacket. All $4.99 or less. I assume they are having the same discounts at all of their outlets. But I also assume that supply will dwindle. (Ooh, anyone get the West Wing reference?)

Plans

Sabrina's dad didn't call me back, but I talked to Wilma and am not stressing too much. She'll talk to dad during the week and then I'll call him to make plans to pick Sabrina up and bring her back to my house for the rest of the summer. I've enrolled her in camp (holy smokes the JCC is expensive, thank goodness for a friend who reminded me about the city's recreation department for a sixth the cost) for the last four weeks of the summer and only have to worry about one week of finding supervision and activity for her.

Court is Friday (did I say it was on Thursday yesterday? I put it on my calendar wrong, oops) and who really knows what the judge will do. Wilma doesn't know what the basis is for the report she gave me that it "doesn't look good" for placement with dad. That is what she was told by the ICPC folks in the agency, but she hasn't seen a written report with justification.

Since I won't be seeing Sabrina this Sunday, I have another week to clean up the disaster area that my apartment has become in the last three weeks--really, it is worse than it was before even though I was supposed to be using this time to make it better--make some dentist appointments, make a back-to-school physical appointment, buy play clothes, figure out what to send with her for lunches to camp (if I need to; since it is through the city, the summer nutrition--that is, summer carryover of the free lunch program--program might provide lunches at camp), and do about a gazillion other things.

After court, I'll register her for school.

No clue if anyone else in Sabrina's family will be available as an alternative placement. All I know is that Wilma reports that mom has been asked for other options, and she hasn't given any (at least, not any who she has already asked if they would be willing).

So we'll see what happens, and we'll see what becomes of the weekend visits with dad.

And in the meantime, I am going to spend this evening reading in front of the air conditioner.

Shabbat shalom!

Update

Sabrina has been staying with her dad since school ended (actually since the Friday before school ended, because she was home sick that Monday so her dad just took her to school for the last day and then picked her up). She needs to spend an unspecified number of nights with me every thirty days so that her being with dad isn't a "placement." So I called dad on Monday and made arrangements to pick her up on Sunday. Today I called to firm up details and he said "oh, this Sunday? We have plans this weekend."

Court is next Thursday.

Wilma (social worker) emailed me today to say that she doesn't have the written report, but that the oral report is not good for dad getting custody. I emailed her back asking what that means about visits. There's also a ton of other family. If this means that we'll be indefinitely and semi-permanently in a state of 4-nights-with-me-3-nights-with-dad I am going to have to have some serious words with someone. Because that just isn't working out for me. (As in, it's not good for Sabrina, even though it is good for her to see her family.)

Wilma's email also implied that I should be figuring out what to do with Sabrina during the day for the rest of the summer. Because of course all sorts of good camps have openings still halfway through the summer. (And most of what I've found is only for half days. This makes sense, as she is only 4. But I'm not good at simultaneous planning--lining up a babysitter AND camps at the same time.)

So that's where we are. Limbo, as all good foster care placements should be. (Hi, Sarcasm? It's just me calling. How are ya?)

Hatefulness

Wow, I am a hate-filled hater today. I need to get something off my chest and this is the only >140 characters forum in which I am anonymous. (Not that I'm anonymous on Twitter, but I have fewer than 40 followers and my tweets are locked.)

I have a co-worker who does the following things that annoy me:
1. When she answers the phone and it is for me (I am also annoyed by the people who have my desk number but call the main office number anyway), she yells all the way across the office to see if I'm at my desk. It's bad enough when my boss, whose office is right next to mine, calls to me at my desk. But there are acres between my office and this co-worker's. And the air conditioning in my office is LOUD. I can barely hear my boss when she calls to me.

2. When she calls to me from her office for other reasons. I get it, really I do, that if our administrative savior isn't at his desk and this coworker is on the phone and someone comes into the office that I'm the next person in line to help the person who has come in. And I'm happy to. But, I don't know, shoot me a quick email. I'll get it. And I'll go help the person. If you yell all the way across the office, I won't hear you.

3. When I vent about something (this morning it was that my email crashed when I tried searching in it), she tries to solve my problem. No really, I don't need to call tech support because my email crashed repeatedly. Actually, I just need to restart my computer.

4. And did I mention when she yells across the office to me? I did? Oh.


(Side note: Sabrina is allowed to be with her dad for up to 30 days--at 30 days it becomes a "placement"--so she's been with him for a week and a half. I miss her but it has been nice to sleep until 7:45 in the mornings!)

This arrangement is not working for me

You might recall that Sabrina spends every weekend with her dad. We're really just waiting for dad's county to get off their fat bottoms and approve placement with him. The back and forth is pretty draining, not good for consistent discipline and expectations, etc., but good for Sabrina since she gets to spend so much time with her dad.

But today is a good example of why this arrangement is not working for me.

On Monday mornings I drive all the way across the city, park near Sabrina's school, and go to work, so that my car will be in the right place to pick her up. This is what I did this morning. (Yes, school is still in session.)

Tomorrow is the last day of school, so I called dad to confirm that he is picking Sabrina up after school tomorrow. (I was working on arranging a job interview for Wednesday and needed to make sure I didn't need to find a baby-sitter.) Imagine my surprise when Sabrina answered the phone.

She was sick this morning so they kept her home. Fine. But, I don't know, maybe CALL ME so that I know not to pick her up at school?

That's inconvenience number 1. (Not really adding in that now my car is on the other side of the city, I have to pay for parking that is ultimately unnecessary, and on top of it I have to drive home during rush hour. Oh well, water under the bridge.)

But I also had this big plan to make sure to tell Sabrina to say good-bye to her friends to prep her for not going to the same school next year. If she lives with her dad, she'll be going to school by him, and if she still lives with me, she is going to my neighborhood school. And I think she should have some warning about this. But I don't know that she's going to get that since now her aunt is taking her to school AND picking her up tomorrow. (Still just assuming; I left a message on dad's cell phone after getting the number from Sabrina's grandpa.)

And I don't know when I will next see her.

On the plus side, I didn't do her laundry over the weekend, nor did I buy milk or apple juice, so her not coming back to me means that I don't have to face the negative natural consequences of those failures to act.