Monday, November 9, 2009

My Visit With My Son--Son Pulls Me In

My son gave another public demonstration of how he needs me and wants to be with his own mother.

Michelle Erickson and the security guard saw it as did everyone in the waiting room. Anyone who continues to ignore my son's needs has something very wrong with THEM and needs to go in for their own psych eval.

It totally makes everything the parenting evaluator wrote look like trash, which it is. The report makes a point to claim my son has lost a bond, or from what she writes, one would think this, and yet, people are getting to see for themselves, what the truth really is.

At the end of the visit, my son was visibly upset and turned and stood there as the door was shut between us. He looked back at me and blew kisses. I blew kisses through the window in the door.

Then he refused to move. Just stood there, looking sad, at me. I usually stay in the room until he's gone, but I burst out and ran over to him, in the middle of the floor where everyone could see, and I gave him a big hug. He hugged and kissed me and wouldn't let go. Michelle pulled him forward and he GRABBED my hands and arms and locked them down around his waist with his arms, like a train, so I had to follow him. And he wouldn't let go and made me follow him all the way to the office.

I made him a bunch of things from food I got from, yeah, food stamps. He really appreciates, more than anything, that I bring anything at all for him. Whatever I bring in to him, in a visit, he insists on taking with him, even if it's just a bottle of water and a bag of popcorn. It doesn't matter, he wants to take things with him that remind him of me. It's really sweet. So today at least, I had a few things for him to take, which were to eat: strawberries and grapes; a basil, tomatoe, mozarella, steak, onion, spinach salad with olive oil and balsamic vinagrette; granola bar; odwalla juice; organic whole milk; popcorn; shrimp;...and a Godiva milk chocolate bar. He usually forgoes chocolate for healthy foods first, but today the first thing he wanted to do was eat the chocolate. And I laughed, because he has great TASTE! he knows a thing or two about chocolate. :) I pointed out it had a lady on a horse. He was only a little bit upset that I broke pieces off when he wanted the entire thing whole. I let him have a little bit and then wanted him to eat something else first.

Then we played airplane and some physical play and then there was a different monitor in and she freaked out when I asked my son how he got a scratch that was on his hand.

This is the thing--the whole "mother is a hypochondriac" thing is WAY out of proportion and whack. If you read some of these visitation notes, you would think all I do is bring up "injuries" or imagined bruises or injuries.

This is it, STATE, a PARENT has the right and SHOULD be asking about marks, in an innocuous way, to make sure their child is okay! A GOOD parent DOES this! I don't suggest things, nor do I bring up "abuse" or suggest it's from this. I simply check my son over and if he has marks which might not be from playing or may be anyway, I ask, "What happened there?" and allow HIM to tell me.

So he had a scratch on his hand which I wasn't worried about. It looked like a little cat scratch. So I asked him about it and he said it was "From the SINK." He kept saying it happened at the sink. No big deal, in my mind.

But the monitor, who wasn't the regular one, asked me to "stop" inquiring. I told her it was my right as a mother to ask about something and HIS right to tell me, as he did freely and without worry. He then asked me if I had any owies and I showed him scars from "old ones that healed" because I didn't have anything new, and he kissed them. There was absolutely nothing wrong with our interaction and these monitors who make a big deal about my checking on my son, need to BACK OFF and respect this and feel secure and HAPPY that a mother actually CARES enough.

Instead of relaxing, this monitor just went off, writing furiously and rapidly and who knows how she put everything. I've no idea.

What I do know is that the last state report claimed most of the visits consisted of my asking my son about "bruises" and that kind of thing. This is why the visitation notes must be cleared up, if anyone is so delusional as to think this is what I seriously discuss with my son for the duration of two hours. Yeah, if I read that, as a Judge, I would think I was mentally disturbed too. Four hours a week of relentless inquisitions about "imagined injuries". Egad. What a nut. Not only that, what a horribly INSENSITIVE and CRUEL mother, to put her own child through that. Imagine.

When really, what happens, is that at each visit I DO check my son in an easy manner so he usually doesn't notice what I'm doing, and if something stands out, I ask about it. I don't point out every single bruise. If there are a whole bunch in fingerprint patterns, yeah, I'll ask. But it depends on what I might find.

He was in really good spirits, or talking easily at least, today. I feel his speech is improving a little bit. He seems very sad to leave me and wants to stay, and delay, but otherwise, his speech seems to be a little better. His nose looks sort of bruised now and then, which bothers me, like some kid socked him and I asked about this bc there was also a red mark on his nose where it looked slightly bruised. But he shrugged it off and I left it alone. He also had a slight bruise type look to his left earlobe, like it was pinched, but I didn't ask him about this. In general, whatever the problems were before, which harmed his nails and impaired his speech, seemed to have been done away with. He seemed to be healthy and acting and speaking normally.

Now, for an example, my entire question about the scratch and his nose, took less than 5 minutes. But if one were to read the visitation notes, I'm sure it takes up at least one third of the report. I know, in the past, the monitor wrote things this way, and if Erickson, the state worker, is claiming in her report that visits MAINLY are about me talking about my son's "injuries" or "abuse", then something is very wrong with most of the notes. So this is why I want to go back and correct them for my son, because HE will know for himself, AND even though the state says it doesn't matter at all, it DOES, because this is what they're using to claim what kind of interactions we have!

So THIS has really got to be corrected. I am not interested in proving a bunch of adults wrong, I am just wanting the truth to be known about my and my son's BOND and how we rightfully need to be together. That's it. I just want this and I don't have anything else to reveal or evidence with medical stuff unless there is a termination of rights, but really, I'm willing to work with whatever, and jump through hoops and just get through this. But I want the truth about my son's bond with me to be known. It's important!

So back to the visit, I was really thinking he seems to be coming back to generally better health and clarity and speech. I was so happy. He was very affectionate, giving kisses and hugs spontaneously. He wanted me to read Toy Story II so I did and then he wanted The Cat In The Hat, and I read it with a lot of gusto, or tried to, deciding to give the Cat a British accent partway through, and then the Two Things had high squeaky voices and the fish of course, was insistent and adament. I was thinking I should come up with a unique voice for the fish and the boy though, next time. He had this little grin on his face, Oliver did, when I read this one, but he was really into Toy Story too. He loves that series, the Toy Story one.

Then he wanted to read this read and rhyme book and for once he seemed able to sort of focus and make sense of things. He just had a better clarity. He was processing things. So we later got a book out that was Winnie-the-Pooh and activities and he helped me do his first crossword puzzle and he did his first very own maze, tracing his way home with a pen by himself. He said it was the first time he ever did one. Then he was able to do dot-to-dot by numbers, creating a shape too.

I guess I don't want to brag, because I feel maybe I invited the "evil eye" when I did long ago, but I wanted to share some good things about him to everyone, and how he's doing because I know a lot of people care about him and I know he loves you all so much too! He truly does love people, ask Lee and Sue and Michelle. He has a sweet heart. I feel I have to be careful becasue sometimes he seems like he wants to appeal to others more than himself, like he'll do things for others before his own needs, to please people, so when he was younger, I told him he didn't always have to share or let another kid take his toy, he could take it back. I think he does more now.

I brought in a waterfountain thing for him to look at. There were two and I brought in one which was lighter in weight. They were the little plug-in waterfall things and I took it in as a kind of show and tell. Oliver noticed the colors of the lights and said, "red, yellow, and blue!" and then it was working at home but didn't work there! So the motor was going but water wasn't flowing to the top and Oliver held onto the frame and then gave it a light but solid tap to the side. I was actually impressed because he jarred it enough that it sounded like it was going to start working for. Then he said we needed "pablo's screwdrivers".

It was a really good visit. I can't remember what else we did but we had fun. I felt this pervasive sadness through the first part which had nothing to do with him and I felt it might be someone else out there or something in the universe but it left when I was almost through the Dr. Suess book.

As for me, I also went to church on Sunday and had a nice time with some people. The sermon was good, about the widow's mite, how some people give a little bit from a lot and others give all that they have, from their poverty. I liked it.

I like the idea that it's not how much you have, no matter what, but what you do with it that really counts.

Thank you everyone who cares about my son and looks out for him, from my family and outside of my family, thank you.

I love you Oliver! I am going to correct some of the errors of those visitation notes ASAP!

Oh, I forgot. I also showed Oliver some photos of family and my trip to Washington D.C. when I was about 20 or 21. It was strange, because now I recognize one of the streets I'm photographed on. I'm standing on a divider on 14th street right at the foot of the bridge before it crosses over to VA, and I am facing the camera with D.C. behind me. It was taken in the 90s but what's funny, is that all the vehicles surrounding in the photo are 1970s cars and vans.

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