Visit With Son Wednesday--Oliver Outsmarts Me

I'll go ahead and detail my visit with my son last Wednesday, the one where I started to cry. I started to cry, after my son said to me, in 3 complete sentences, that he didn't want to leave and wanted to stay "here" with "mama".

When he got to the state office, he was tired and acted shy. He does a routine of hiding his face after he gets a huge grin when he sees me. He does this shy thing. It's really cute. Then we start playing.

He was still sick and wheezing. The wheezing was new. The monitor said Holly told her he just had a cold still. So it seemed this way, and he was very, very, thin. He hasn't put on any new weight. He had circles under his eyes.

He was emotionally distanced at first and had some behavior which concerned me because he wanted to revert to being a baby, and then went under a table and sucked his thumb. I told him he could have all my attention and didn't have to be disagreeable to get it (he threw a "play" fit, like he was an upset baby, but part of it was acting because he had a smirk on his face).

He said he hadn't played with any kids except at church.

I playfully tried to pull him from under the table, and he grinned but then kicked a lot. I said to him, "You know what Oliver? Mama loves you no matter what. Mama doesn't believe in spanking either." He had started acting like this after he disobeyed me and put a candy in his mouth that had been on the floor. He said, "It's a gummi bear!" and I told him not to eat it becaue it was dirty and he put it in his mouth anyway, and then spit it out right away into my hand and grinned.

He didn't, technically, "eat it" and I think now, that he knew what he was doing, and thought it was clever. I should have noticed and appreciate the ingenuity in getting away with something, as I also reprimanded, but I just said, "Oliver...Mama asked you not to because it's dirty." He then went under the table like he was trying to get away.

So I wondered if he was worried he was in for a spanking because he thought I was reprimanding him for disobeying, when he TECHNICALLY, in his mind perhaps, he didn't disobey me at all. He was just being a rascal and outsmarting me.

So after I let him know I would never hit him or spank him, and he could feel sure about that, even if he disobeyed, he STARED at me and said, "Mama, Holly gives me spankings." well, this is not new news. CPS already knows this, and so do the police, because I brought this up and I was told, as I was mocked, "Spanking isn't ILLEGAL." I said it should be, when I was the mother and I had not given anyone permission to spank my son.

Not only that, it is HIGHLY, highly insensitive and crude of the CPS workers to tell my aunt it's okay and to allow this. My son was never spanked by me and he not only was traumatized with his removal, but then he's being spanked? Real nice. Take a traumatized kid from a good mom, and then make him think it's all his fault by spanking him regularly for the first time in his life. AND YOU can't see your MOM!

These people know nothing about child development. They are working with some kids who ARE abused and who should REALLY, even more, not be physically spanked or abused and I guess CPS workers are hired for their administrative abilities more than for their expertise on child psychology.

What's hard to see, is how ELATEd and relieved my son is, to hear that someone, his mom, and some adults, would never physically harm him.

What is also concerning, in this practice of spanking my son, how degrading it is to him in particular. Every kid might be slightly different, but Oliver has always, even while with me, been very private in many ways. As a baby, he would find a corner out of sight (or he'd try) when he was doing his thing. He didn't want anyone watching even with his diaper and clothes on. He is really private and doesn't want people, even his mom, to go into the bathroom stall with him while he uses the toilet, and to think someone is spanking my son on the butt, which he's been told is a "cochina" area on top of everything else, is wrong.

So my son crawled out from under the table then, and we looked through another aqua marine magazine--a different one, which he really, really, enjoyed. It had a ton of photos of fish, turtles, eels, and other things. He was impressed with the eels and the barracudas. I told them how barracudas will eat anything and he said, nodding, with a smile but eyes wide, "They would BITE me!" I nodded and said yes. He kept saying, "What's that? what's that?" he wanted to know the official name for everything. I remember when I was three, my constant phrase was "Why?" "Why?" "But WHY?" I remember talking about grass and how it's made the way it is and I had question after question of "Why?" My son, is an assimilator of information, he doesn't care as much about why yet as he wants to know WHAT it is.

After this, he picked out three books: First, Pinnocio. Then one in spanish with babies on it, and I read the spanish and then translated for him into English. Then he wanted to read a Clifford book, about Clifford's Good Deeds. He just loves looking at the dog's antics, and I think, imagining a real dog being that big and doing these things. It was a story about Clifford keeps trying to help out but everything he does goes wrong. At the very end, when no one wants Clifford to help out anymore, a house catches on fire and Clifford saves the kids. So I told Oliver, "Sometimes, even in real life, we try to do the right thing and no one notices how hard we're trying, but if you just keep trying, sometimes, people notice." So Oliver nodded and said, "Yes. I need to save some boys from a fire." And he kept nodding.

It was really cute, but I thought, "Ohhh! He thinks people don't notice HIM and how HE tries to be so good all the time. He thinks he needs to rescue people from a fire!"

So I went back to the book and we read it again at his request and I saw what he was talking about, how Clifford first assists this little boy by helping him out of burning house climbing onto his tall back. And then a little girl, but Oliver thought "boys". I told him, "Do you know what? mama notices all the good things you do. And you may not know it, but a LOT of people think you are very, very, brave. You're brave, you're kind to others, and you have a great sense of humor." He smiled and hugged me. I explained to him that no one expected him to save anyone from a fire, but that he was doing a great job already.

Then he wanted to play Hi-Ho Cherry-O and we played this for some time. He wanted to play the actual game and then also pretend and make up a game with our imaginations where we were eating cherries and protecting them from "the dog" and "the birds". The monitor didn't want him to put any of the cherries in his mouth, and said it was unsafe, but I didn't think it was a big deal. Unless some other kid was around him, he wasn't going to choke. He eats candy and nuts, peanuts, that are the same size, and the risk is no different. He responded to Sue's instruction to not have a couple of cherries in his mouth, by grabbing a whole handful of olives (real olives not plastic playfood), and stuffing these in his mouth instead.

So we goofed off for awhile and we also played with "race cars." I found a truck for him, a large one and he shook his head. "NO, I want one of the RACE cars." I dug through the toy box and produced the cars. I first got out a police car, which he didn't want, and then a race car, which he sort of wanted, and then he selected a "race truck." He said, "What's THAT?" and I said, "I don't know. Maybe it's a race truck?" He said, "A race truck" and wanted this one. He told me to take the police car. We played cars for awhile. Then we took the cars to the dollhouse, where we played hide and seek with the cars, and follow the leader.

He ate off and on throughout. I tried to encourage eating while he was with me and I also eat to demonstrate healthy behaviors to him and help him to feel comfortable sharing in an activity with me. We eat together. We always did, and we still do. I asked him if he wanted the egg-salad sandwich that was packed by Holly and he said, "NO. I don't like that kind." I was so suprised and usually I would never say ANYTHING bad about any kind of food because I don't want him to select something just because of me, being impressionable, but I burst out, "All right! High five honey!" and he gave me high five. I have always HATED egg-salad sandwiches. How gross. It was egg salad and tomato. I added, "I don't like them either." I told him mama disliked only three things: liver, egg salad sandwiches, and meatloaf. It wasn't a big deal but I didn't want this to be an affront to what Holly brought, but I don't think he even thought of that.

When we were playing with the cars, he did something sort of to be disagreeable and I said to him, "Do you know what? I love you no matter what Oliver. I love you when you're bad and I love you when you're good. There is nothing you could ever do, or anyone else could do, to keep me from loving you." I wanted him to be aware of my unconditional love so he doesn't feel the need to act out to get my attention. He just stopped and looked at me very seriously. He said, "Mama, I don't want you to leave. I don't WANT to go. I want to stay right here with YOU. Mama, I want to stay HERE with YOU." At this, I choked up and while every single other time, if I choke up, I manage to keep tears from falling, this time, tears rolled down. He looked at me and looked worried and I said, "Don't be worried or nervous honey, I'm just crying because I feel the very same way. I think about you ALL the time, and if I could, I would be with you all the time. It's not Mama's choice. There is a man who won't LET me see you more, but hopefully in just a little more time. I know you've been waiting a long time."

So, this is an aside, but after hearing my son's wishes repeated out loud AGAIN, and then going up to that courthouse where the AG completely disregarded my son's feelings and her own past logic, that was the last straw. To be railroaded again, to see and KNOW how MY SON is being railroaded, is despicable. There is zero show of "good faith". I made a few legal arguments when I addressed the court, but I also did my best to fight for my son's rights with a heartfelt emotional plea to start thinking less about the politics and begin focusing on my SON and his true best interests. I was not only the best lawyer there that day, I was the only one advocating for my son's rights. The CASA guy got up there and said he wanted to see me medicated and he argued for termination of my parental rights right there and then. He wants both, Rob Force. THAT guy has been paid off. Absolutely. He's a former lawyer who is even more extreme than the AG or state workers. He has NEVER even made a "show" of wanting reuinification. Ever. The guy was hand-picked, clearly, or somehow selected by someone. So here is the guy who is supposed to be a champion of the children as a CASA child's advocate, and my son is saying OVER and OVER that he wants to be with his mother, and this guy is out on a fucking LIMB. My dream about he and I laughing together in a car, the one I hoped could actually come true, will never come true. The man is tied down.

After I explained to my son why I had tears, he understood and repeated, again, that he wanted to be with me. He just looked sad when I told him this man wouldn't allow it still.

It is especially heinous, and I got it on the record, that AG Anne McIntosh said THREE months ago that my son should have increased visitation and NOW she's claiming visits have "improved" (since I started blogging and documenting all the details publicly) but refuses to increase visits even from FOUR hours a week to EIGHT hours. The woman refused. Then I catch her laughing her head off with my own public defender after the hearing and she had the nerve to look me in the eye and smirk at me. No, not paranoia, that is the truth. Anne has done a full turn-about. Why, I don't know. But she doesn't care about Oliver. I had had a measure of respect for Anne, noting she didn't roll her eyes or act immature as some did at these parenting hearings. Anne made it clear to me, that in private, she did possess the same decorum. It could be that she feels "safe" now, with a false psych eval against me. What could she say? Of course...that I'm "paranoid" and "delusional". I was very, very, suprised and shocked. Anne had been the most professional, I had thought, of the whole bunch. I never had one bad thing to say about her because while I disagreed with her most of the time, she wasn't rude or unprofessional. The woman shrugged that all off, with my psych eval clutched firmly in hand. I really could not, still cannot believe it. It's not good for my son. None of this is good.

So, my son and I began picking things up to get ready to leave. He finagled his way into getting me to play another game with him first. So we did, quickly, play a little more with the cars and then we put things away and I made a calendar for him so he knew when he was seeing me next, and he gave me a hug and kiss and then left.

I didn't notice any unusual marks on his body. He just seemed a little tired, and was still sick and he was a little underweight and had circles under his eyes still.

I should add, that after my son said Holly was giving him spankings, I said, "I wonder why. Do you know why Oliver?" My son said nothing. Which was really interesting, because I like Joy Behar and was recently watching a program where she said it's interesting how kids remember the spanking but not what they're being spanked for. I kept asking Oliver if he thought he knew why and then he said, "She said I can't watch cartoons." In his mind, he's getting spanked because he wants to watch cartoons and she says no. In one instance or for one reason at least. I said, "Well, I don't know. Maybe Holly doesn't want you to see so many cartoons and that's probably good." Or maybe it's not if he's just left alone to play without interaction with children. My opinion is that you either get on your hands and knees and play with, and put your full attention on your child, or you find other kids for them to play with and hopefully, you're doing a combination of both. There is room for quiet play but not all day. But then I repeated I wouldn't spank him and he didn't need to worry about that with me. He looked relieved. For all I know, he had cartoons cut out completely which also wouldn't be good for him, just because I don't approve of t.v. all day doesn't mean I think a kid should go cold turkey. They should be allowed to watch a little if they were watching before.
**********

Do I think my son should be removed from the Avila's? No. There is nothing new now that the whole department hasn't known about before. They all know. And there are other foster parents who are worse or would do worse. I feel my son would be traumatized by any other separation and that this would NOT be in his best interests. The state allows spankings and so do the police, and they told both ME and my aunt this, over and over and I voiced my objection a long time ago.

My aunt just needs to be REMINDED that she is not to physically touch my son to mete out punishment.

I know my son loves the Avila's and has grown attached over time. They try to do what they can. Also, he didn't dart under the table like I was going to hit him at all. It was more like he felt bad when I said I hadn't wanted him to eat the candy. But he has always prefered his mother because our bond was exceedingly tight and healthy to begin with. He had a SuperMom. I knew he wouldn't forget this and he still does not.

My son should be returned to his mother, as he desires, as soon as possible.

I also need to find someone who will intervene in this process and demand an audio recording of the visits be made for each visit. I have no way to prove my visits are good without it.