Snippets of Updates

My kids started back up to school yesterday after being home for eighteen days. Yes, eighteen, which seems utterly ridiculous to me. I mean, come on; mine have a hard time focusing after a three-day-weekend, so I can't imagine them slipping right back in to the routine. I, on the other hand, fairly leaped out of bed at 5:45 yesterday morning-despite having been able to sleep in an hour later over the long vacation-in order to get the kids up and in the shower and out the door. If I had been able to shove them out the door forcibly, I would have. Besides the fact that they go back to school all befuddled and lost (again), but believe me, after that much "together" time, they are really driving each other (read: ME) in.fucking.sane.

Sam was the only one of the three to actually be excited to go back. You see, he got his new glasses the day after Christmas and he is so thrilled to be able to finally SEE. He is a little bit worried about being made fun of, "four eyes" and all, but I truly do think that for him, being able to see clearly is so new to him that even if he IS teased, it isn't going to bother him much. It was funny, the other day his third best friend in the world came over to play, and as soon as he saw Sam he started laughing. Ok, that part isn't funny. What was funny was that Sam just cocked his eyebrow and said, "Um, dude, YOU wear glasses, too!" Maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious.

Hannah had, finally, her first counseling session last night. With the holidays, and then the fact that the counselor had the audacity to go on vacation, made it so there was a long delay, but last night the woman W. said that for trial purposes, later is actually better. That way, the defense cannot accuse the therapist of tainting testimony or leading the witness. How fucked up is that, that we have all of these kids who are really hurting, yet we do have to think strategy? She was telling me that in some cases, the kids go without any kind of treatment for years, at which point they are irrevocably damaged. It is a terrible, terrible thing. She was also adamant about me using the words "sexually abused" as opposed to molested; she said that it diminishes the enormity if what happened. I hadn't thought about that, obviously, but it makes perfect sense. When talking about this with the few people here who know about it, I stumble over the words and attempt to downplay it, even if I am not aware that I am doing it. God save us all from the curse of feeling like things HAVE to appear better than they really are!

I obviously went in to talk to her for a few minutes before Hannah went in, and that was really good. It was amazingly easy to be completely frank with her, which is clearly a quality you WANT in a therapist, so I was relieved about that. I told her that because of my own history of extended childhood abuse, I was completely incapable of helping Hannah from this point on; "I got her here," I said, "and now she is in your hands." Probably predictably, I started crying-might be hard to believe, but it has only been in the last year that I have told ANYONE about even a fraction of the things that happened, so it was really difficult for me to do so in an unemotional manner. She was very, very kind, though, and said that I was going to be surprised at how much healing would be available to ME through this process, and also that she would be there to help me learn how to help Hannah. That seemed very comforting to me, and I felt a lot less in the dark and fumbling than I did prior to talking to her.

And Hannah really liked her, feeling the same sense of instant connection as I did. She slept better last night, and just seems a little calmer inside herself today. Not that it is over by any means-in SO many ways, the journey for her is just beginning-but in that now there is help available and she will learn how to be okay. I am glad for her; I am grateful to see a bit more peace in her eyes, grateful to not have heard her rustling around in her bed all night, tossing and turning and getting up and down. Yes, it is one night, but with luck and hard work, it will turn into two nights in a row, and maybe eventually she will sleep unbroken as a rule rather than an exception.

I haven't heard anything new in terms of court stuff; I know there is a preliminary hearing of some sort on the 12th, I believe it might be a status hearing but am waiting for a call back from the Prosecutor's office to find out for sure. If that is what it is, I don't believe it is one I am supposed to attend. The trial is set for the 28th of this month, which is a little scary in that it is three weeks away and we are totally in the dark. When I talk to the Prosecutor, I plan on asking him what exactly is going on behind the scenes, and why I have not been kept apprised of the different steps being taken. As it is, no one has even contacted us since the preliminary hearing, so I am feeling stonewalled and frustrated. I am trying heard to simply breathe, as my friend C. always tells me to do, and not call them up and pitch a fit. After all, it does no one any good for me to lose my temper, and in the long run just makes me feel like shit. So if I haven't heard anything by this afternoon, I will call and be as reasonable and kind and yet firm as I know how to be-and I will keep breathing.