After posting despondently on my kids's list, I got a lot of great suggestions, so the boy and I sat down and made a schedule. We have a schedule for most of the summer, including swim lessons, visit to museums, water parks, see movies, go to the big local lake, take small hikes, etc. We have stuff planned for the summer, such that when I got to the week of August 19th, when I start my grad assistantship, Russell groaned in disappointment at the prospect of me going back to work -- totally cool that my 9 year old thinks it's cool to hang out with Mom.

The library has cool stuff going on on Thursday evenings, so I library day will be then, which will work nicely around their swimming lesson schedules.

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Lately, I've been wondering about Pauline. I wondered why I hadn't heard from her, assumed she must be getting laid, and thought about calling her, but then got busy.

This weekend I got a message from her, so I called her back and left a message. Then she phone-tagged me back today, and I called her and caught her. Her sons have grown up and moved out and her daughter had been living with her father, Pauline's ex-something. The middle boy had had an altercation, where he defended himself against getting hit by his father and then his father called the cops, had the kid dumped into Juvenile Hall for assaulting him. The kid got a slap on the wrist and went and lived with Pauline afterwards. Her daughter, however, has stayed with Daddy because he turns a blind eye to her doing whatever her teenage head dreamed up. Well, finally, dad decided to hit his daughter and when the girl stood up to him and fought back, he tried the same routine and had her in Juvenile Hall for three weeks. When it came to court, however, he had the same judge, who looked at him and said,"One kid maybe, but two kids can't be bad. You're the one common denominator" and the judge tossed the case out. However, apparently, despite the fact that she's living with her mom and social services has designated her with some kind of numbering that means they understand that her custody is in limbo, her custody is still with the father.

Enter Pauline's phone call. Pauline works nights and she can't keep on top of a willful horny 15 year old with problems. Apparently, she ran up Pauline's phone bill several hundred $ calling much older males in the Bay Area. Pauline is struggling as it is, so an extravagant phone bill is a ball breaker. so she's asked Mike and I to take her for a month until she can get a week's vacation and spend time setting up a schedule and the like with the girl. She said she needs a break. At first, she'd said a couple weeks, but when I questioned her further, she really meant 5 weeks. *sigh*

I love this kid, but I haven't spent any time around her for nearly 3 years. I know she's been a spoiled little brat for a long time and that Pauline is hoping I'll blow money we don't have on this kid, but I can't. We're on a different budget without me working. What we said is that we'd take it a day at a time with her. I said if things were going well, she could stay, but that if things starting going funky, we'd ship her back to Pauline.

I'm very concerned about the custody issues, so I'm placing calls to the county social services department where they are from and seeing what I can find out as to what I need to do to protect myself and still let this kid come to "summer camp" on the farm. The biggest fear I have in the back of my mind is that Pauline is planning on ditching her daughter with us. I am not averse to caring for any child, but my feeling is that Pauline needs to face the music and the needs of her child because I won't be party to her breaking her kid's heart.