It's a good thing that they were able to work something out. If we'd gone into court, Linda would have looked really bad. For one thing, even though she's been in her apartment a couple of months she's unemployed again. She told me at the family Christmas party that if it wasn't for the food pantries, she'd starve. How did she plan to feed Tomas?
She's never been reliable about visiting with Tomas. Sometimes the excuse was that she had no gas and sometimes the car broke down. Sometimes she said she was sick. She'd pick him up late and bring him back early. Most times she had a young man and a baby with her.
What was up with that? She told me she had a neighbor with a daughter and in exchange for fixing her car, she'd watch his daughter. She brought the two of them to the family party and he told me that he was her boyfriend...live-in, we think.
Anyway, between the lawyer, Kennan, and Linda, the best arrangments for Tomas possible got hammered out. Kennan will keep residential custody of the little guy. Linda will see him every Wednesday from 4-7 and have him every other weekend. We were a little concerned about him getting food to eat but Kennan said he was willing to try.
Most days TB and I will still pick T up after school and bring him to our house to play until his dad can get there. He will continue to have speech therapy and Kennan will get health insurance for him through the state.
I hope that once we can settle into this routine that things will continue to improve for T. Right now all of us are having some issues with "self-directed behavior"--which means he does what he wants to do and doesn't necessarily listen to us right away. There are so many of us involved doing different things we all need to get on the same page.
These pictures are from T's class party. Parents and grandparents were invited. Two classes got together and performed some songs for us, which was really cute. I think an older class of 1st and 2nd graders are "mentoring" T's preschool class which is really cool. They all have a diagnosis somewhere on the autistic spectrum.
T's tearing into his stocking gifts
Tomas and Kennan
Yum! A chocolate candy cane!
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2 comments:
It's great to hear that things are settled and Tomas is safe and cared for. We will pray for all this to work out well for him!
Raven's #1 issue right now is something similar...he does what he wants to do no matter what, and it's hard to get him to do anything else. The school is really strugglng with this right now as is his babysitter, and it's frustrating to us because we don't know how to help. We try to "act out" situations to show him the right way to do things, we talk to him to make sure he understands what he should be doing, we've done rewards systems (immediate and long term). He understands that he shouldn't do certain things, but it's like there's a switch that just won't let him follow directions.
He's not as bad about it at home, but of course he's the only child here, so it's easier for us to redirect him faster if needed.
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