An Open Letter to the Huntingdon County Judicial System

Dear Huntingdon County,


      We have had the displeasure of dealing with you for a number of years now.  We have watched you drop the ball on numerous occasions.  The first time being during our emergency custody order.  You would think when a mother admits to driving drunk with children in the car that it deserves more than a thought.  Rather than address the mothers drinking habits, which to any normal person is obvious she has a drinking problem when she is secretly drinking several airline bottles of Vodka.  By secretly we mean while her child is at a sports practice she sneaks off to the liquor store, purchases the bottles, drinks them straight from the bottle, and then throws the bottles away at the local Sheetz.  No one is none the wiser.  That is until an hour later when she picks up her teenage daughter from practice.  According to her daughter she was unable to keep the vehicle on the road.  All of this was said during hours upon hours of testimony.   Not only by the mother but also by the live in boyfriend and the CYS case worker. Instead you were more concerned with the mothers claims of the father skipping weekend visits with the father.  Which may we add the mother claimed all these missed visits were documented on a yearly calender that she never provided to the court.

     The second time you dropped the ball was when you were in charge of deciding what was in the best interest of the children.  Based only on the work schedule of the mother, you decided she was the better parent due to the fact that she was able to get them on and off the bus along with having a seasonal job that she was laid off from during fall and winter.  So while the kids were in school she was home and while the kids were home for the summer she was at work.  Seems to me that that is not the most convenient schedule when raising children.  You did not take in to account the numerous times she had moved from her boyfriends home to sleep on a friends couch with both kids in tow.  You ignored the fact that she at one point in the recent past was thinking of leaving her current boyfriend for a known heroin addict.  She was willing to subject both children to that lifestyle.  Thankfully that man went to jail or she may have just went thru with that plan.

     The third time you have dropped the ball happened just this week.  We presented you with proof that the mother had moved just 15 miles from our home.  She not only moved there but had taken a job there and enrolled the children into a new school.  She left her boyfriend of seven years.  The only thing we were told as to why was that "Things had been bad for awhile".  This was more than a lovers spat.  This was a major event in not only her life but also her children's.  It took us five weeks to get in front of you to tell you why we thought it would be a great idea to share custody.  Twelve hours before court the mother moved back in to her boyfriends home and said that all is well they have reconciled.  Again any normal person can see that this was an obvious calculated move.  She sucked up her pride and crawled back to the man that things were so BAD with that she moved out and started a new life for no other reason than to WIN!  Because of this you dismissed anything we wrote in our petition.  All of what happened over the previous five weeks became null and void.  I still am not sure how you came to this conclusion.  If anything it should show even more how unstable she is.  Both her and her boyfriend testified that this was not the first time that she moved out for a number of weeks.  Not to mention the weekends spent on couches at friends and relatives houses.  She was and is clearly unstable.  Yet procedurally,  the word you used several times, there is nothing you can do.  Unless we have five grand to dish out to some psychologist that is.

     Children's lives are not a money maker.  That is exactly how we feel at this point.  We either have to keep dumping money into this or wait until she wrecks and kills one of the children in a drunk driving crash or wait for her to get a new boyfriend who lives closer to us. None of those options seem fair to any of the parties involved and sadly the ones who will suffer the most is the children.

     This is our last ditch effort to get some closure on this entire ordeal.  Please open your eyes and see that this mother is playing not only you but the rest of the world.  She will go off the deep end maybe not today and maybe not next week but someday.  Ask yourself this...When one of these children get hurt because of your lack of intervention can you still sleep soundly at night?  If your answer is no then step up and intervene before its to late.


Sincerely,

ONE PISSED OFF FAMILY

Back to my normal life

I have not written a post in months. I was so consumed by the custody battle that I couldn't bring myself to sit and type. Besides you would have gotten sick of reading the F word over and over again. The battle is not over but at least life has a sense or normalcy again. I am back to enjoying my day to day with my kids.

I wanted to write this story down so that when my kids are older we can read it and laugh about it all over again....

Last Friday my seven year old daughter performed in her first ever lip sync concert at her school. We had many weeks to prep for this. She chose the song Make it Shine by Victoria Justice. Such a perfect song for my little super star. She had the dance down all that was lacking was her lip sync skills. Sometimes she would barely even move her lips. The night before the big show I had her watch a portion of Rupauls Drag Race. Perfect way to learn to lip sync. Plus Mommy loves Drag Queens.

Friday after school was spent doing hair and makeup. We bought an new outfit and cleaned up what used to be her white shoes. Time could not go fast enough for her. She was so excited and we were so excited for her.

We were one of the first families to arrive at the school. This was because my children were insistent we go ridiculously early so that we could get a front row seat. I must say I am kinda glad that we did because that place was packed. Another benefit of getting there so early is that all my kids got to volunteer to pass out the programs to people as they entered the building. My step son was a door holder and my daughter passed out the programs. My four year old son was not about to stand around and watch everyone else help. My oldest took him under her wing and made sure he was a pro at it. I walked down to check on him to see how it was going. He was so happy to be helping and interacting with so many people. I suggested that he say Welcome to the lip sync, when he handed out the programs. He quickly responded and said " No Mom I say Enjoy yourself" Only his version of the word enjoy was slightly different than mine or yours would be. His little boy speech impediment was to cute for words. I was definitely a proud Mama that night. Cameryn did great. She has not a single nervous bone in her body. She ended her song with two round offs and a big smile. The crowd cheered and in that moment she was truly a super star.

Emergency Custody

One month ago a series of events unfolded that opened our eyes to the truth of a situation we had always questioned. My fiances ex wife picked their children up after practice. She barely kept her car on the road we later learned. Soon after returning to their house a physical fight broke out between Mother and Daughter. Closed fist and pulling hair, they had to be separated by a grown man. It was after all of this that we got a call from both daughter and Moms boyfriend. Both told of many instances of impaired driving, fights and moving out. Six years this had been going on. Yet we were never made aware of the full extent of their home life. Sworn to secrecy with the threat of foster homes out of state no one said a word. I am not sure which drop of water filled the cup. All I know is that the information flowed like a river from the mouths of all involved. Cys was brought in to question each person. Mom admitted to driving while under the influence of alcohol. You would think that would be enough to remove the children. Well it wasn't. The system failed us in a number of ways. Most of which stemming from the State Trooper who responded to original call. He not only refused to administer a breathalyzer he also refused to take any note of any injuries to the teenager. Injuries that were inflicted on her by her own Mother. We were never told to call the 800# for CPS. Instead we were told that since it was late and a holiday we had to wait til morning to call. This prolonged the process and gave the Mother plenty of time to smooth things over with the children. The only saving grace we have had so far is the fact that the Judge in this case removed them pending a hearing.
The hearing is tomorrow and I am so nervous I could throw up. Every time I think of it my heart sinks past my stomach. I don't want to imagine what would happen if they had to go home to live with her. She is treating this change in custody as a clerical error. Its no big deal is her famous words. There is so much more to this whole story. Manipulation, substance abuse, and child endangerment are just a few. I just hope and pray that we can put all of this across in a manner that makes sense and follows a time line of progression. There is no telling how far this would have gone had we not stepped in. You just never know until you do it. So tomorrow we will walk into that court room and hold faith in the system.

Baggage

I know that everyone comes with a past. Most of those pasts include baggage. I long for the day that we can leave it all at baggage claim. Maybe someone will come along and love it more than we ever did. Maybe if we are lucky enough that baggage will get thrown into an incinerator never to be seen or heard from again. It sounds terrible I know but there are days where that just seems like the only solution. We are stuck dealing with the decisions we made long before we should have been allowed to make any decisions.

Ex's are like the plague I swear. Although, sometimes I would rather bleed from my eyes than to actually have to interact with them. I have a happy care free life. We have no relationship issues what so ever. This is not an exaggeration by any means. We have never had a drop down blow up fight nor have either of us opted to sleep on the couch. For some reason though each of our ex's seem to constantly throw wrenches in the everyday routine. If his ex is not calling and asking for more money mine is calling to say he still has no money. In theory our ex's are perfect for each other. They both are users and manipulators. They sponge off of others until there is nothing left to be had. It is then that they turn on the hand that fed them for years. Living in their own world of delusions where THEY are center of the universe. Neither has ever done anything wrong and will most definately never admit fault in any situation. Both of them are good at playing the victim role at every turn. Since neither one actually is wealthy and have nothing to be used for they would not last long enough for any of us to get pleasure out of it. A girl can dream though right?

Just so sick of bull shit and predictability of the conversations that go on. It did not work so please please move on, grow up, and stop LYIN! You no longer have to impress the other. Focus on your own life and short comings and leave us alone. That is all.

Surprise

I suppose I should fill you in on the events of Labor Day weekend! I didn't want to mention it for fear my mother would hear about my plans and ruin the surprise. To bad that didn't go as planned. She ruined the surprise anyways by showing up early to her own surprise birthday party. She turned 50 on Sept 1st. I invited all of her friends. Which really consisted mostly of my own friends. Its not my fault she doesn't have any friends! Thankfully my sister and I have birthed a small army. They were all hidden in the tree line around my house when she pulled up. Thanks to my brother calling me to tell me she was mere feet from my house. All the kids jumped out of the woods and yelled Happy Birthday as she stepped out of the car. I imagine that is what would have happened in Munchkin Land had it been Dorthys birthday that fateful day she dropped her house on my sister I mean the wicked witch of the East. Just kidding Kel you know your my favorite sister. Even with the surprise slightly ruined and less effective than I planned it was still a good day. I decorated the house with every over the hill sign sold in the county. As if that wasn't enough I made a few of my own along with name tags for everyone to wear. They always say the first thing to go is your memory. We all stayed up way past our bedtime and laughed til one of us peed our pants. I am not sure who that one person was but I would take a wild guess and say maybe my Mom. I am looking forward to her 100th birthday party. That one will most definitely involve a stripper!

Life as I know it

I am completely settled into my new house. Minus the finished basement. We have yet to do anything in the 1100 square feet of open space. So far I have my bedroom set up in the giant expanse that is the downstairs. Its kinda nice though its like my own house away from the madness that is six kids crammed into the other 1100 square feet. We even added a puppy play mate for my other dog. Things are great and I could not imagine my life any other way.

Fall means cheer and football in this house. Something that was never possible when I worked full time. Now a days I am a full time taxi driver to my kids. Between practice and games I feel like the next two months will be spent in my vehicle. Speaking of which I may want to clean it out LOL. Living out of my car with all these kids tends to get messy. The floor of my car is layered with McDonalds Happy Meal boxes and empty water bottles. Throw on top of that cheer bags, diaper bags, and blankets. I am content with the whole thing though.

This weekend is Labor Day weekend and I am so looking forward to a whole day with my man and the kids. He works so much it is rare he ever has an entire day to spend with us. I will update you on the events of the weekend later. Can't let the cat out of the bag just yet.

Lonely feelings

We are pretty much settled in our new house. I love it out here it is so peaceful and quiet. The neighbors are all friendly and have made it a point to walk over and introduce themselves. So why is it that I feel so alone out here. I mean I have my children here all the time to keep me busy yet I still feel bored. My fiance works long days so I rarely see him. I am left to sit in this big home without another adult to speak to. I do get the occasional visitor, a friend or family member who wants to see the house or borrow something. The new has warn off and that leaves just me. Maybe all this means is I need a hobby or maybe I just need more friends! Perhaps I am just stuck in a rut and need to shake it off and get over it? None the less a friend would be nice once in awhile.