54,600 Miles, ready for takeoff

It had to happen sooner or later...a blog entry from the airport. I thus haven't accrued any additional miles, and won't until my plane departs in 90 minutes. Tomorrow is the big day--the court hearing. Nearly nine months after filing my "expedited" motion to modify our divorce judgment, D-Day is finally here. As expected (see previous entry) the Guardian Ad Litem (GAL, for short) concluded that my ex is wacky and delusional, but shouldn't lose the kids because: 1) they are extremely attached to her, and 2) I don't live in the same community where they allegedly have a support network.

Now I will admit that my kids are attached to their mother, but they are also attached to me. She did manage to bamboozle the GAL by convincing him that, because she's still nursing our 4-year old daughter, that our little girl simply can't be away from mommy. Of course she just got done spending 15 full days away from mommy and only cried for her one time after hearing her voice on the phone. I am fully convinced that, at this point, the nursing is 110% about the mother, not the child.

As for the second issue, I don't see why my residence matters. Their mother puts the kids in harm's way every day of their lives by letting an unreformed drunk live with them while their other parent (me) has a safe, secure home. The GAL asserted that the kids have a strong support network in their hometown, specifially citing their grandmother. Never mind, of course, that their grandmother was barred from their lives for more than 6 months last year for suggesting that the drunk should go, and that they see her at most once a month, though she lives two miles away. To me, the point is this: one parent puts them in danger and the other does not. Shouldn't they live with the one who keeps them safe?

Well, anyhow, there may be some hope. Call me obsessive, but for the past 1.5 years I have checked up on the drunk boyfriend by scanning the local police log that gets posted online every two weeks. Time after time there was nothing, and I began to think that maybe he actually is serious about staying out of trouble. And then yesterday I took one last-ditch peek at the current report and, Eureka, there it was--a domestic disturbance last Thursday night, the very day that the GAL report arrives. I still don't know all of the details but it seems that my ex and her boyfriend got in a violent screaming match at 6:30 pm (while the kids were home) and a neighbor called the cops. Though they were dismissed with warnings, there is now hard proof of very current bad things going on in her home. I've gotten my hopes up 100 times before, but doesn't this event at this late date portend something positive for me? Shouldn't it?

So will truth and justice prevail? One can only hope so. There will certainly be no shortage of material for the next entry!

Tune in next time for the conclusion to this cliffhanger.