Trial Today

Starts @ 9 a.m. We don't know when it ends. With a second day scheduled for trial, if needed, on Friday.

Aunt Jen and Wil spent the night last night and Jen will be watching all the boys at our home. Mara is going to stay at my friend Pam's house. She used to be a foster parent and licensed daycare provider, and has three sons and a daughter with special needs. Her boys will be in school so Mara will enjoy a play day with Makenzie. We met them at our swimming pool last Summer and hit it off right away. I have been promising Pam I will do some bodywork with Makenzie, and now I will owe her a big one! I told her I will give her a massage, too. She really needs some relaxation. She's been through a great deal with her daughter who choked on a goldfish cracker and suffered brain damage while deprived of oxygen. Pam works tirelessly to seek out every treatment known to womankind for her daughter, including physical therapy, OT, myofascial release, rolfing, hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy and something about a "neuro suit" LOL-- they're going to California this Summer for three weeks of some kind of therapy I've never even heard of, so she tries everything. She is a Warrior Mother, fiercely protective of her children, and about as paranoid as I am, so I trust her completely with Mara.

I was thinking last night how Mike and I rarely leave all of the children with anyone, and usually only genetic relatives! And the first time we really left Liam with anyone for any length of time (beyond a golf cart ride or a swim on the premises of Two County Ranch) was for our Birthing From Within classes when we were pregnant with Seamus. We have left them with Nana many times to go out to dinner, but it's rare for us to do anything like this. We've only left Mara with someone else who wasn't family once. A friend who is a foster-adoptive parent through our agency watched her while we went out to dinner with the boys for Mike's birthday. It's time for us to start learning how to trust her in someone else's care so we can go out to dinner and a movie sometime. And I think it's hilarious that I need TWO sitters to do what I do every day, but it's also good to have childcare arrangements that we feel good about so we can focus on the trial and whatever comes of it.

We're not sure if we will be asked to speak today or even called on to testify, but I'm anxious about seeing the whole family and hearing their side of the story again all in one piece. I've heard bits and pieces here and there and it has never added up so I am half expecting today to be a bit discombobulating, and will probably need to de-stress afterwards. I think I will get Chinese chair massage at the mall.

THANK YOU all again for your support on this journey. Apparently, it's nowhere near over yet but it is certainly about to take a clear detour one way or the other. We can only hope it goes our way.

I will post an update here and on Facebook as soon as I get home (within reason) or activate the family phone tree!

I'll turn it over to my Higher Power now.

NAMASTE