Walking to Court

With some daring do I have finally secured the required papers from the social worker to get out daughter adopted. Yes Rajal was right there are one (1) interview that is done in the home and 3 additional interviews. Four (4) interviews six (6) months or one every two (2) months. Now the kicker here is what constitutes an interview? Twenty some odd years ago when I was a prospective employee candidate with the Hewlett Packard Company their interview process was 100% phone. You didn't even get to set a foot in the door unless you get get past their phone exam/interview. So how do you help the process along. Keep in contact with your social worker. For us we called ours once a month. For our last interview we met at a half way point. Unfortunately that was 1/2 way in terms of miles not by hours. We were almost an hour and a half late due to traffic. Let's hear it for cell phones.

Armed with the documents from my previous blog and the Court ready paper form the social worker (I had to supply the exhibits that were mentioned like a copy of her Visa, and India court papers) I took a half day off to head over to the Edmund D Edelman Children's Court in LA

a little info about the place

http://www.laalmanac.com/crime/cr57.htm

Central Juvenile District

Edmund D. Edelman Children's Court

201 Centre Plaza Dr.

Monterey Park, CA 91754

More than 70,000 children each year in Los Angeles County are placed in the care of the Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services due to abuse, neglect, abandonment and exploitation. About 50,000 of these children require the protection of the Juvenile Dependency Court.

Prior to July 1992, dependency hearings were held at the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles and in temporary trailers behind Van Nuys Superior Court. The proceedings and formal courtroom environments were seen by many as intimidating and stressful for already victimized children.

Los Angeles County became the first in the nation to establish a dependency courthouse designed specifically as a "child-sensitive" facility. The courtrooms are smaller and less intimidating to children than traditional courtrooms. Special areas are designed for children to play in, engage in interesting activities or just catch a nap. These features are meant to reduce as much as possible the stress and trauma associated with the child’s experience in the legal system.

It is a bit tricky to get there so here is a map if you happen to be in LA

more info here http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/Locations/ui/location.aspx?loc=CCJ&

The folks there are quite accommodating. I took my papers in and said I think I have filled them out correctly but I have questions on two of them. Once I got that cleared it was easy sailing. They asked where my VS44 was. I told them that i was not given a VS44 but if they had one I would go fill it out in the waiting are and come back. As I had the package that they gave me 6 months ago they took a look at at and noted that yep, it was missing from the packet. I took a look for it on line and found a couple of counties/cities have it on their web site. Mendocino had the shortest link...http://www.mendocino.courts.ca.gov/forms/VS-44.pdf.

You need to supply multiple copies of some of the forms. They stamp and gave back two Adopt-200 one for my records and one for the adoption agency. and Adopt-230. I made 2 more copies of Adopt-200 and sent one to the mother agency in another state and one to the agency here in California.

Now it is another waiting game for my self-addressed and stamped envelope to come back to me telling me when to show up at court.

HomeFront

I built a wall-to-wall shelf for the kids stuffed animals. It runs, as you can imagine, the length of the wall and it about 1 foot below the ceiling. Too many stuffed animals. Here is a partial accounting of the ones whose names I can remember and each of their afflictions.

Brown Baby this was Kermit's first big doll and is much loved. so much that she will soon be a single amputee

Baboo - a white terrier that we got when Kermit was about 1 1/2 on a trip to a bread baking convention in Prince Albert a small town outside of Toronto Canada

Sarah Baby

My Little girl

Moolawn

Tatia our Russian immigrant

Talia - she is deaf you know, one hand form the letter "a" while the other says I love you

Thurston - a stuffy bear properly dressed to the nines

Christmas Bear 2005

China - and yes she is Chinese

Gina

Kewpie Doll - an original Kewpie doll for Camille aka toilet bowl baby no details needed

Mee Baby - times 3 one for each small pink things with tails from our friend in the OKC

Rose Dawson - I think this one was a build a bear

Butterfly Heart Bear

Cozette - a flying dragon that used to play You are my sunshine

Smiley - a critter from Hellboy The girls love him and RN has had to put some limits on his movements. Since we use real words in our house his affliction is that he is agoraphobic. Now one day when the youngest wanted Smiley I made the mistake of taking him out of our room. Kermit just about had a meltdown. "Daddy you have to put him back, take him back, don't let Two have him he is getting scared. At this point tears are streaming down and Two is starting to well to give smiley Me. Dad he is agoraphobic and he needs to go back now hurry." Oh my gosh what is my daughter talking about. When she said agoraphobic I was translating to arachnophobic. So I am looking for a spider somewhere and then she says again "he is agoraphobic daddy he can't leave the room he gets scared when he leaves the room." Duh, neurons connect and I know understand what she is saying. "Sorry Let me put him back." Wow and Smiley is one of the not so nice critters in the movie and in our home he is just a love bug that is confined to a single room.

Two on the other-hand runs around with her stuffed Tyrannosaurus Rex – Jane, saying “I'm a Shea Butter Junkie.”

je