Nikk's step-dad is in the hospital, and Vlad and Lucy's foster parents quit, so now the kids are at Sandy's, and Jess is there taking care of them, but they're not being very cooperative, and she's having a hard time dealing with Vlad especially, but Lucy too, so Jess is starting to question her ability to parent them and whether she really wants ( Read more... )

Josh was in Nebraska last week, so yesterday at church, everyone sang Happy Birthday to him, and his response was "This is coming from a guy who has had deaf people sing Happy Birthday to me all my life, but that sounded pretty good ( Read more... )

After being put through a traumatic event by some kind of social institution, be it frat hazing, a prison sentence, a strict school dress code, whatever, there's 2 main reactions:

"That really sucked, they should change it so that no one else has to go through the crap I went through."
Some day, I hope to really feel this way...but I'm not quite ( Read more... )

Someone was beating Skyler Inman to death. Multiple people had noticed bruises for weeks before her death, but no one did anything about it. Her female biological parent plead guilty to child endangerment in exchange for agreeing to testify against her ex-boyfriend, but she's on drugs and thus not a credible witness, so the ex-boyfriend just plead ( Read more... )

Thinking about Megan's comment about me being all or nothing, I started thinking about the difference between Spock and Data on Star Trek. (In case any non-geeks read this, Spock is half-Vulcan, half-human, has emotions but tries to hide them and be rational and logical at all times, while Data is an android, has no emotions, and wants to ( Read more... )

Today, I got to talk to the guy I've been crushing on at church. Asked him about his tattoos- he's got the signs for love and support on his arms because both his parents were deaf. Also found out that the reason he usually leaves right after the service is that he has a 2nd job working graveyard on weekends at Four Oaks, so he's been up all night ( Read more... )

"Obviously, the case plan was not so much a roadmap to reunification as a moving target."
-Hart, dissenting to LEE v. ARKANSAS DEPT. OF HUMAN SERVICES

I've been doing a lot of research, seeing how similar cases were handled in other places, and I've been talking on ravelry to an advocate who works with domestic violence/child abuse cases down in North Carolina, and it seems that things would have gone very differently down there, because cops and social workers are given specialized training in ( Read more... )

Jess-

If you're stalking my LJ again, you really should check out the entry about when you found out I was pregnant with Lucy.

In reading through TPR appeals on leagle.com, I found Caldwell vs Arkansas DHS, and thought "Wow, that's how my case could have gone if it was handled differently."  The big difference is that Nikk was careful not to leave bruises, while Sammy Caldwell was drunk and left visible marks.