2nd Court Date

Before I go into what happened at court, I want to say a little something about the weekend. So, Friday was the Competency Evaluation. Penelope was a mess afterward so instead of taking her to school, which we pretty much knew beforehand she wouldn't be able to go, my dad took her to his house. I have to work on Saturdays so the plan was for Penelope to stay the night. I was worried about her not being with me to help her calm down but she was okay with it and so were my parents. Good, maybe I can get some sleep. Didn't happen. I had a dream that I was picking Penelope up from Daycare (as if this was the daily thing and it was normal for a older child to be in Daycare) and the worker that waiting for me while someone went to get her was going over her day with me and part of the assessment was to say "She is pretty stupid." I handled it the way that I handle most things like this in real life.. I post it on the bulletin board in my head and let her continue to see if she says anything else that I was going to use to bury her with. I do this in business too, but in business I don't yell, I state the facts. When it comes to Penelope.. that lid doesn't seal real tight and the facts come across at a higher volume. Obviously in my dream, I defended Penelope's intellligence and got the worker fired. It wasn't a satisfying dream though. I didn't wake up feeling like I accomplished anything other than the tiredness of a 1,000 restless tosses in my bed.

The other thing that happened on Friday is that my mom emailed me. I didn't know what it was nor was I really interested in what she wanted to say. I was still pretty upset with her. Eventually, I did open the email and it was links to two listing of condos in our area. I looked at them but then responded to her with a lot of "How?"s. She called me within 60 seconds and told me all she had been doing. She had these different conversations and she is trying to find an investor to buy my house that I would just rent it from with an option to buy down the road. But if nothing else, I could get one of these condos. They are half as expensive as my house, but my credit has to be shot. She talked about a "land contract" where you basically lease to buy from the owner. I told her I only liked one, because the location of the other one was too close to kids that are not healthy for her. She wanted to go see it on Saturday. Bring Penelope. I told her that Penelope can't know anything about it. She doesn't know anything about the house situation. She is under too much stress about everything else. NO. We will go Saturday when Papaw can watch Penelope. She just said "Maybe." I told her I'd think about it. Figure out if there was a way.

Saturday, my mom called me about wanting to set up a showing on the condo. I told her that I don't think Penelope should go. She is a smart cookie and would figure it out. She argued with me so I gave her permission to show Penelope pictures of the condo "for a new client that wants to move into your area." See what she says, then if she is okay with it, we can tag along with you when you do a preview. Approach it like that. But she can't know we are looking at it for us. So what does she do? She says "Hey Penelope. Don't you think this condo would be nice for you and your mom?" DUDE! My mom admitted that to me. It didn't come from Penelope. Of course Penelope started to get scared and went into babymode saying "I don't want to move. I like where I am. I don't want to move." My mom went on about how my house needs too much work and too much for her and I to take care of etc. Then Penelope got stern with my mom and said "I am staying at my house. I am not moving. I have moved way too much and I'm not moving!" Great mom. I got huffy with my mom which pissed her off since she was doing all this for me. I told her that we will never be able to take Penelope to look at anything now because she will always be suspicious. Now she is going to worry about that too.

I went to go get Penelope from my parents after work. I was still fuming about what my mom did, I'd prefer to have just honked the horn and have Penelope sent out. But when I went in to get her, she really wanted to stick around and hang out there. It was around 2pm, she was still in her pajamas. I made her get dressed. She was definitely in R&R mode. My dad was out golfing and my mom was working in her office on her computer. So I hung out with Penelope and we watched a movie. I was dead tired. I told her we had to leave because I was tired. My mom agreed to break away from her computer to hang out with Penelope so I could take a nap. I was a little rested after the nap. I napped on my parents bed. :) I use to LOVE getting to lay on their bed when I was a kid. I slept on my dad's pillow and his scent made me immediately start to cry. Feeling all the tension try to melt away. Why? I'm not sure.. Sometimes I wish I could start over my life. I miss that sense of false security /invincible-ness we have when we are growing up. Like we could do anything. I want my dad to protect me from all this. He is doing all that he can and I'll never be able to express my full and total gratitude for all that he has done to help Penelope and I. I was remembering that feeling of security. That warm feeling helped me fall asleep and get some rest. I woke up and we had dinner and shortly later left.

Sunday, we didn't go to church but did some chores before my dad came over so my mom and I could go look at this condo. It had some nice features. Central air and a washer/dryer hookup in the unit wasn't one of them. The kitchen needed to be completely replaced but the bathrooms and other rooms were nice and big with hardwood floors. The location was perfect. I was ready to take it despite it meant I finally was giving up on trying to save my house. Other than I can't afford it, without even knowing if the owners would except a land contract.

I had to totally lie to Penelope about where we were. I am a horrible liar and my dad just cleared his through and left with my mom. Penelope and I had to get ready to go meet an old friend of mine from my late teen and most of my 20s days. We were going to meet her two daughters. I had met them when they were little kids but now they are just a tad younger than Penelope. We were painting pottery. Penelope was all over the place there. She painted two items in the time it took the rest of us to start on one piece. But her pieces were very sloppy and truely unfinished. She just doesn't have the focus. I saw my friend's one daughter just look at her like "what's wrong with you?" and then she'd look at me and I'd just do an indifferent shrug to say "To each their own. No biggie." The girls had decided at the beginning that we should come over to see their dogs - as we were talking about how great our pets our. And that was the plan, but one of my friend's daughters had started to feel bad from being at the zoo with aunt all day prior to this. So we changed it to another day. Penelope couldn't let go of this. She admitted on the way home, that she was made at me because we weren't going to my friend's house. I said "Would you have preferred that I said 'I know that you don't want us to come tonight, but we are coming anyway.'" Penelope said reluctantly "No.... but I'm still mad. She would have been fine. We could have gone anyway..." It wasn't up for discussion.

I couldn't find the keys to our safe box. It wasn't where I had put them. Our safe box is the box on top of the refrigerator where I house the knives, matches and other weapon type stuff. Earlier in the day, Penelope went to get a glass out of the cabinet and said "Are these yours?" like she just found them there. I hadn't put them there. They were in a hiding place outside of Penelope's reach. Great... I questioned her and she said she didn't put them there. I said that I'd have to ask Papaw and Grandma. Papaw said it wasn't him. I told her that. I said that the last person is Grandma. She said "What if Grandma lies to you?" Is that an admition of guilt? I asked her "What reason would Grandma have to lie about moving the keys?" She said "Because Grandma would have gotten into the box." I said "Grandma is allowed in the box. You are the only one who isn't allowed in the box." She said "Oh..." I gave her another opportunity to let me know if she knew where they were but she didn't. I told her it isn't about breaking a rule as it is more about making unsafe decisions and what I have to do in order to make it safe again. . I was hoping they'd show up but they haven't. So now the box is locked in the car. However, I need things out of the box. Like a flathead screwdriver to put my plates on my car as the temporary plates have expired. I will find those darn keys this weekend or figure out how to break the lock and invest in a new box. But I'm concerned. What is going on in this girls head?

So the court date was Monday morning. We got there early so they decided to let us go first. We didn't have to wait long. Penelope's PO was there was well. They received the Evaluation results and it said Marginal when it came to being Competent. I learned once we went into the court room and listened to everyone talk and the decision the magistrate made, that it meant that she is considered not competent at this time but there is probably cause to believe that after she takes restoration classes, she will become competent. The psychologist found Penelope to have moderately low intelligence and that once she takes the classes to learn about how the court system works, she will be able to aid in her defense. Right...
I wasn't happy but .. the public defender and the PO that it was a success. The class is with other kids taught by a Probation Officer on Saturdays down at "2020" where the evaluation was. Like that isn't hard enough for her, she has to go by herself. My dad or I are not allowed to go past the lobby. You try to make it like it's no big deal but for Penelope, it's huge. Before she can come down from one adjustment, there is another one she has to deal with. On the way home I asked her if she understood what was going to happen. She said "I will have to go to a new school.." We could see how she got that from the way the judge tried to explain it to her. Immediately my dad and I said "Ohhhh no wonder you are freaking out. That is not what is happening. You are still going to be going to your school. This is a class on the weekend that has nothing to do with your school." She defensively said "I know that. You didn't let me finish." She does that when she doesn't want to look stupid. That's not how she said it though. But I just said "Oh, okay." She went to school for the rest of the day. She seemed calm enough to go. But not necessarily where things stayed.