Bebo

Jeffrey Bailey <avinrider>

	It was the best of times, it was the worst of times	551 Tage her
	Last Sunday was one of the best and hardest days I’ve had in the last few months. I was finally able, for the first time in six months, able to see the children. After having been put off for month after month after month I was finally allowed to see Wilona and Thorn. I had already talked to Donna about when I would be allowed to see them and asked if I could bring a game for us to play. So, before I went over I stopped by Toy’s R Us and picked up Kerplunk. As I was driving over to their house I called to let Donna know I was coming over. This was at about 11:00 in the morning. When I called however, she told me that Wilona wasn’t awake yet. Now I had been given a window of 10-3 where I could visit. Knowing that Wilona often slept in I waited until 11 so that she would be awake, she wasn’t. I asked Donna what she wanted to do, since we did have such a limited window to work with. (This limited window was because that was the time that Brian would be out of the house. Donna doesn’t want to put up with the tissy fit that he would throw if I were there at the same time he was.) Donna finally said she would wake Wilona up and I continued to drive over. I arrived at the address she gave me only to find a lavishly planted yard, and a nice little house, with all of the gates locked…with padlocks. Walking around the house I tried to find a way in the yard when a woman I did not recognize came out and asked if she could help me. I replied with who I was looking for and the lady thought I had the wrong Maple Street, and that I should have gone to the one in Lakewood. So I called Donna back and discovered that she had given me the wrong address, (it was 8315 not 8515). So I drove back down the street and found the house. I immediately knew I was at the right house because of the junk in the driveway, old broken furniture specifically. As I exited my car and walked up to the front door I saw in the entry way to the door all of Donna’s tools and various bits of wood piled beside the door giving further indication I was in the right place. I went up and knocked on the door, almost literally with my heart in my hands, though I remained outwardly calm and composed. Donna answered the door and I walked in to see Wilona sitting on the coffee table eating a plastic container full of cereal and Thorn sitting on the couch watching Animal Planet. Thorn looked over and appeared a bit stunned but Wilona continued to watch TV. Donna said that she was still eating as I walked up beside her. When she looked over at me, she too looked surprised but immediately turned to give me a hug. She then jumped up and told me that she had a new room and asked if I wanted to see, as she started running down the hall. I of course followed and looked around her room with her as she showed me all of her things, and went on about how it was all purple and she likes purple. So we oohed and ahhed her new room for a bit and she briefly took me over to see Thorn’s room, complaining that it was messy (which it was) and then yelling at Thorn to clean up his room. We went back into the living room then and she climbed back up on the coffee table to continue eating. We talked a little bit as the kids watched TV and she ate breakfast. She told me a little about their new house and how they left their old house. I told her that I had a new house too and pointed in the direction of where it was. She then said that I wasn’t in her family any more, so I reaffirmed to her that I was still her daddy and still loved her. For the rest of my time there she seemed to have a difficult time transitioning my statement that I was still her daddy, with the fact that she had another daddy and Thorn called me Jeff not daddy. So sometimes she would call me daddy and sometimes she would call me Jeff. I corrected it once, but dropped it after that, realizing how difficult it must be for her to understand how complex it was. She then said she wanted to play a game and it took a bit of convincing to get her to keep eating her breakfast rather than running off to play. Finally she had enough and convinced her mother she was full. She then went to grab her little animals game. I don’t remember the name but it had small bobble-headed animals that are a popular toy right now. We finally got the game sorted out, despite Thorn’s protests that she doesn’t play by the rules. So we spun the wheel, and I tried to turn it into “number recognition time” for Lona, and gently deflected Thorn’s attempts to play the game according to the rules and just let Lona make up her own. After a few minutes though she got bored with the game and started to put it away. She then pulled out a bucket of her toys and we played with those for a while. This became a bit challenging because Thorn was there too and he’s not as interested in playing with dolls and kitchen sets. So he grabbed one of the bears and became “overly caffeinated bear” bouncing all over and wrecking stuff. After Lona got bored of this game I offered to bring in the game that I brought. So we had fun setting up and playing a couple of rounds of Kerplunk, (which if you don’t know is a tube, that you put sticks through the middle then fill the top with marbles. The point of the game is to remove sticks without letting the marbles drop to the bottom.) That was a lot of fun and we played a couple of rounds of that before her attention shifted again. After putting it away she brought out her dress-up box and asked if I would help her play dress-up. So we did that for a little while which eventually degenerated into a game of “hit Thorn with a magic wand and turn him into something, while he figured out how that something would attack us”. After helping her put that away we looked around for something else to do. Her drum caught my eye and I suggested music. So we brought out her instruments and the three of us played several songs, making them up as we went and switching instruments for each song. This eventually turned into “march around the living room playing” until we all fell down on the floor. By this time Thorn was getting really tired of children’s games and tried to convince me to play video games with him. I continued to tell him no and perhaps we could play video games next time. So I finally let him go into his room and grab some books to look through. Apparently he has been given many of the less popular role playing game books. So we entertained ourselves for a few minutes looking through the pictures in some of the books. Lona then took up an old practice which made me feel good, I again became the jungle gym as she climbed up and down my back as I sat at the coffee table. Finally it was time to go, and I had to tell her that I had to leave. She had a crushed look on her face for just an instant then ran over to the door and opened it for me. I knelt down and opened my arms for a hug, which thankfully I received. She then ran over to her mother and huddled close to her, with a sad but hiding it expression. I stood to go but wanted one last hug so knelt down again to give her another hug, including Thorn in this one and holding them both tightly for a moment. As I stood to leave I asked Donna when I could visit again and she replied that she didn’t know, it depended on when Brian went to pour sweat lodge for the prison again and that he never gave her his schedule. Not wanting to fight in front of the kids I nodded and left. This was both one of the best days, since I got to see my little one, and the hardest, trying to stay happy when I knew it wouldn’t last long, then seeing the look on her face when I had to leave. Fortunately for me however, the day wasn’t quite over. After getting back home I got on my computer and started playing. Later that evening I get a call from Donna regarding the child support money order I had given her. I had intentionally left the money order blank so that either one of them could fill it out and cash it. Of course she gave it to Brian to cash and apparently he took Wilona to get her a treat with some of the money. Fortunately for me Brian has the patience of a ground squirrel on crack and can’t think his way out of a wet paper bag. (Sorry, there’s a little hostility there on both sides) So he of course tried to cash the money order without filling it out. I’m not sure who he took it to, but they said not only could they not cash it, but because I had kept the receipt portion that it was no longer valid anyway and they couldn’t cash it. This caused Wilona to be upset since she didn’t get a treat and caused the impatient Brian to be very angry (at me no doubt, since it was my fault he didn’t bother to look at the money order and see I had left it blank so they could pick who cashed it). So I agree to come over and get the money order to return it. As I’m driving over to their house again I realize that I am being foolish. So I stop by the 7-11 on the way to their house and get a new money order for the same amount. Filling it out in the store (made out to her of course, there is a reason we took away Brian’s credit and debt cards for 6 years), I then went to their house to exchange it. I knocked on the door and who should open it, but Wilona! So I immediately got another hug out of that. Apparently she wasn’t supposed to open the door at night however so was lightly scolded for that. Lona then informed me that she didn’t get a treat because I forgot to give them money. So I held out the new money order and told her that I knew so I brought her a better one. At this point Donna came out and I exchanged the completed money order for the blank one. Got another couple of hugs from Wilona and left again with a smile on my daughter’s face. So the good, the bad, the ugly and the most beautiful being to ever walk the face of the earth, my Daughter.
	geschrieben von Jeffrey Bailey