Well, wednesday night was awesome! The daycare had a christmas dinner, each class got up in front of everyone and sang too! The Bears (Tristan's class) sang the ABCs and Jingle Bells (while the little dinos used bells). The Firebirds (Jadon's class) sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It was totally awesome, I got it on video and I will post it as soon as I've edited it together.
Jadon and Tristan are both doing great with their letters (identifying them, pronouncing them and writing them). Jadon esspecially has made some significant progress, once his teacher and I agreed that he was afraid of answering questions incorrectly, we unlocked a wealth of knowledge he was afraid to use.
The boys are going down to Arizona for Winter break. They will be gone from Sunday December 23rd thru Sunday January 6th... long time, I only get 1 day of the break... Its stupid but it would have gone all the way to a hearing and with everything else going on I just didn't want to deal with court again so soon.
I don't know what to say really, so much has been weighing on my mind since the hearing. I feel more stressed now than at any point during this entire process. My chances are still good, and the process is far from over, but I feel very defeated right now. I don't even know how to continue the fight.
Its not the chance of losing that bothers me, when I started this process I was skeptical that I would even have a chance to win at all. What has ultimatly defeated me is the realization of just how far Nicole is willing to take this. The lies she submitted to the court when this process began were nothing compared to trying to seperate the kids. She knows full well I am Jadon's father and agrees that I should continue in that capacity and she even agrees that I deserve rights as his father. But she is willing to trample over all of that to win.
She agrees seperating the boys at such a monumental and sketchy time in their life could be horrible to both of them, yet she is more than willing to do it to win.
Partly this makes me feel even more determined to fight for what I believe to be right, but despite that it crushes me.
I am at a significant crossroads in this process. I can make a deal with Nicole that would secure my adoption of Jadon, that would get me 50/50 custody of both boys and allow the kids to stay up in Washington until the end of the school year. As long as I agree to move to Phoenix Arizona before the end of the summer of 2008.
I say it is a crossroads because there are three different possabilities.
1) I propose a deal similar to the one above right now while we are waiting to hear the judges decision about my rights to Jadon. Hopefully having enough legel weight to convince Nicole to give me primary custody while in Phoenix instead of 50/50.
or I wait to hear the decision, which is what a friend and my lawyer both feel I should do.
2) We hear the decision and it is against me. I lose Jadon, but propose the deal above and hope she agrees instead of pushing it to trial (she would agree to it, in fact she is ecstatic at the idea).
This is what I wish to prevent, I can't risk losing Jadon. Its too big of a risk.
3) We hear the decision and it is for me, I could potentially move on to secure a full victory in trial.
With the last option though, there is still reason to consider avoiding the trial and proposing this deal (much easier to convince Nicole of agreeing to give me primary custody if I move). I don't know if I could survive an appeal. She hasn't spoken about this, but if she is willing to totally trample all over our children to win than I feel she would definitly be willing to push this to the Court of Appeals. My lawyer is confident that they would not overturn our judges decision (he has had very few decisions overturned). My main concern is if she would even represent me, and if she couldn't than I could't defend against an appeal. She said, and I quote, "I've never done an appeal, I don't do them".
When I spoke with her about my concerns in this regard she kind of half indicated that she would represent me if it went that far, but she didn't come out and say it and it still feels unsecured to me.
I feel like I just want to end this and control it as much as I can in the process. I want to get the most important things (not interupting the school year, not seperating the kids, adopting Jadon, having 50/50 or primary custody) and protect the kids from a never ending divorce where their mother has only acted in her own interests and not our childrens.
So right now I wait. Ill probably be posting it pretty quick once we hear the judges decision, which could come at any time between now and Mid-February.
On a final note, I've decided to not worry about dating at all until this is fully resolved. While I am interested in someone right now and I would love it if she wanted to be a part of my life, she just doesn't. I mean, there is no point in starting something if the chances are high that I will be moving 1500 miles away anyway. And even if we did I couldn't picture her, or anyone, moving that far away with me after such a short span of time.
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