Seasonal Transitions

Today is the coldest day since winter ended last spring and I forgot to put on a coat. Fortunately, the children are wearing jackets and I’m dressed warmer than I was yesterday. Still, I was chilly dropping kids off and getting to work this morning. I’ll need to dig out some fall jackets and stick them by the front door so I remember to wear them. The seasonal transitions always seem to take me by surprise. I guess I’m not much of a planner. My goal this weekend is to dig out my fall/winter clothing. I changed over my shoes (I have so many that they cannot inhabit the same closet all year and so roughly half of them get tucked away each season in what I dub the bi-annual shoe migration) but I never got around to doing my clothing, mostly because the weather kept fooling me with warmer than expected days. I just bought the little ones new winter pajamas over the weekend because it was getting too chilly to wear the summer ones they had.

 

Esperanza visited last night, coming over right after Primero got out of school. She was there when I got home. Primero and I had a therapy session and I asked our usual baby-sitter (Mr J’s girlfriend) to stay with the kids. Esperanza said she would most likely leave before we got home but she ended up staying. I took her home just before going to bed last night, although she seemed reluctant to leave. I think she was having a nice time reminiscing with Primero and it felt like old times. Those types of visits are hard to quit. While she was there I pumped her for information regarding her ex-friend with the car loan. I have some data I can share with the lender and Esperanza reached out to the friends older brother in a plea for her to take are of this issue. Apparently, she is living with her boyfriend in Florida and not working. Whatever. Not my problem.

 

During the visit a discussion came up regarding Hermano’s baby. According to Esperanza, some family members question if the baby is actually Hermano’s son because he doesn’t look like him. This tiny baby, just two months old this weekend, doesn’t look like Hermano and so mustn’t be his child. Primero also told me the baby was autistic (which made me mad because no one could possibly know this about a newborn) and now that he has Down Syndrome (which is used to accuse the child of not belonging to Hermano because there are no instances of Down Syndrome in his family – the ignorance in all of these suppositions enrages me). Basically, how I see it, Hermano is done playing daddy and is now trying to disqualify himself based on undetermined paternity. The irony is that CYS and his foster parents begged him to get a paternity test before agreeing the child was his and he refused, insisting he knew the baby was his baby. Now, he has broken up with the baby’s mother (again) and questions the baby’s paternity. As I told Esperanza and Primero last night, Hermano’s name is the one on the birth certificate so he is the legal father of the baby and therefore responsible for that child. I don’t feel sorry for him and I don’t feel sorry for the girlfriend; who I feel sorry for is the innocent baby they created and brought into this mess. The cycle of broken homes has now turned into this latest generation. Where will it end?

 

This morning Primero was pumping me for information on custody disputes. He said his younger sister (not the youngest, but the one in age just after him) has been asking to move back in with her step-father (the man she thought was her father for most of her life) and younger sister but her aunt (related to the other assumed biological father) wants her to move to Florida to live with her biological father. There are questions over who has legal custody of her, since her mom removed her from her step-father’s home and placed her with her paternal aunt, but still retains custody as far as anyone knows. We talked about how long her step-father had raised her and how she felt connected to him. We also discussed how her wishes would need to be considered since she is over 12 years old. Still, I told him it would be a complex case and there were a lot of outcomes, should it be taken into a courtroom for a decision. Primero seemed very concerned about the issue, I’m sure because he worried about losing a sibling to such a faraway place. I know he and Esperanza tried contacting their mother about the whole thing, but were unable to reach her. I hope the situation resolves itself in a positive manner.