Week 15: Drawing, David and Daddy hiking

Posted on February 20, 2021 by admin

We walked (some of) the Cliffside Trail this week, which we haven’t for a while – since summer, when we would have our picnic on the rocks at the cliff. That worked better when I was at the campsite in the park already; hiking the three mile loop with time for a picnic took most of the three hours I have with David, without having to add 1/2 hour to travel to the park (shorter in summer even when I’m not staying there, because a shorter route, Cabin Creek Road, is opened). It was snowy, so we dressed warm in our “big hats”; I got some pictures of the two of us.

David loves to draw; I had to get him a new sketchbook in town after he filled up the old one, which was a gift from (my, his Great-) Aunt Sharon and Uncle John with the crayons, stickers, and some books and a bag I used for a long time before getting the big black Adidas bag (which David likes to look through and get toys out of).

He also likes to line up his cars and count them – 22 of them here (few more with the race track etc.) – and then he counts backwards when he removes them from the line.

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“Catch Daddy!”

Posted on February 18, 2021 by admin

I didn’t think much could top “sack of potatoes” in David’s eyes, but lately I’ve been running ahead of him and inviting him to “catch Daddy,” trailing one hand so he can catch it, or, which he likes even better, giving him a big hug and picking him up when he catches me. It’s one of the things he’s quite verbal about – when we go to the playground or arrive on the grassy field I park on outside the place I rent when I’m there, as soon as I go to get him out of his car seat he tells he he wants to “catch Daddy on the grass.” And so we do. Or across the road if it’s too muddy, as it was earlier in the week.

He also likes to get up on the wood-cutting stump on the gravel area and jump down, or clamber over and jump from the picnic table. And he locks the car by pressing the button. I couldn’t get pictures of him actually jumping, since he still likes me to at least hold one hand or catch him with both hands.

Since the playground and the place I stay are both close to the road, I have been emphasizing to him that the road is “very dangerous” (although it might carry less weight than otherwise because the “tickle zone” in the game we play is also “very dangerous”, and he heartily throws himself into it!) I’ve taught him to stop and look left, look right, “no cars”–I started him on knowing his left and right hands and feet a little while ago, and he’s generally got it. And I talk to him about turning left or right when we’re driving.

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Rearranging the drive to WV

Posted on February 14, 2021 by admin

Since July 2020, when we got the order for me see David, even though the time given was very limited, I have been driving from my home–our home–in Indiana to West Virginia every other Sunday, and home Saturday.

I like to fellowship with believers Sunday morning–“go to church”. When I started going to Harvest Bible Chapel (now Harvest Church) in Indiana in 2018, there were two services, the first at 9:00 a.m., and it also took me about seven hours to make the drive (my GPS was set to avoid all tolls, even though I had an EZ-Pass for the WV tolls, and it knew it). Even if I went to the first service I would miss seeing David at my allotted time of 4:00 p.m.

So instead I got up or stayed up until midnight Sunday morning and left then, scheduling in sleeping a couple hours at a rest area in Ohio for safety, and went to the 9:30 a.m. Breaking of Bread meeting at Otsego Bible Chapel in Mullens (making four of us, or sometimes five). But that’s rough on a person. I would sleep a few hours in the early afternoon when I could get into my accommodations there, but sometimes that wasn’t until an hour or so after the second service at Otsego, meaning sitting/trying to sleep in my car for that time.

But when Harvest added a third service, the first moved to 8:30 a.m., and fixing my GPS brought the trip closer to six hours (the new road to Mullens also contributed, taking off about five minutes). I had been meeting a friend an hour before the service, too. So now it seemed to work to have coffee with my friend in the foyer, stay in the service for the singing, and duck out when the preacher started, continuing listening to the sermon on my phone in the car (piped through the car speaker via Bluetooth). And that’s exactly what I did today.

I’m not sure I’ll do this every week, but it’s certainly less of a strain, although I was a little tired when David was here, but not so much it slowed me down, and he still got to be “sack of potatoes” all he wanted! I do like the consistency of going to the same church each week.

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Introduction and Welcome

Posted on February 10, 2021 by admin

My name is David Robins. In March 2018, my wife left our home in Indiana with our seven-month old son David Geoffrey. David has been kept from me for most of time since.

This summer (2024) David has finally been able to come home, first for my graduation in May and then for alternating weeks after his school ended. We have a great time together, but it’s not enough. This site is for sharing pictures and stories with friends and family, and about my fight to bring my son “home to daddy” again, and, I hope, for others in similar situations to tell their stories and to obtain resources and encouragement.

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Week 14: At the playground, baking cookies, doing puzzles

Posted on February 6, 2021 by admin

Sunday, January 31, 2021 to Saturday, February 6, 2021.

Although this is the 14th week, and more than that since this is my second exile to West Virginia, after I finally got court-ordered time with David after she withheld him completely for over a year and a half, this is the first one I’m writing, so still figuring out workflow and how I want to arrange things. I want to let family and friends know how David’s doing, and show pictures of him from our time together. I take a lot with my cell phone when I must and camera when I can, in hopes of preserving a moment. When I look at them I remember the brief times we have together, but I think I miss him even more.

I’ve written separately about David moving out of the kid swings with leg-holes this week. A few other pictures from our time at the playground, and walking across the nearby bridge, then he likes to walk on the low stone wall beside the road, and jump down from it:

We also made chocolate chip cookies this week – I packed in mixing bowls and measuring spoons and non-perishable ingredients, and we bought a dozen eggs to get one (I gave the rest to Honey). David enjoyed looking in the oven with the light on and watching the balls of dough change into flat cookies. The recipe made a bunch, so Honey got some and so did the owner of the place I was staying in.

Since it’s cold out we spent a lot of time indoors at the Highwater; we went back to puzzles this week, moving up from the 2×2 to 2×3 3×3 and 3×4. He needed some prompting to turn some pieces around or to look for certain matching elements, but had fun and seemed to feel some accomplishment when he got a piece to fit or finished a picture. He’s also been drinking from an open cup for quite a while with me – he’s not completely confident yet, but he does fine. He tried a plum and really liked it–I picked one up on our Sunday grocery shopping trip–so I picked up a couple more the next day.

And finally, a few pictures from our Saturday morning hike at Twin Falls – we did the Nature Trail again; it’s a convenient loop, not too long, and has a good place to sit in the wide walkway where it overlaps the Falls Trail.

We watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang over the week, which he really enjoyed. I also had him type on the computer (Notepad with a large font)–his name, APPLE, BANANA, etc.–he had to look a little for the letters, since a keyboard doesn’t have them in the order he expects.

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David on the “Big Boy” Swing

Posted on January 20, 2021 by admin

Until now when we went to the playground (one in Mullens or one of the several at Twin Falls state park), David rode in the kid swings – bucket-shaped with leg holes – but he never liked getting out, because his feet would get stuck and it could take some turning to extricate him. So I thought I’d see if he was ready for the “big boy” swing, the ones with a seat and no back. Turns out he was, and liked it just fine, although needed to devote more attention to holding on and was more important to have his mittens in the current below-freezing temperatures (he also recently learned to put his hands in his coat pockets… “hands in pocketses!”).

I may have been trying to acquire his feet in some of the pictures, which makes him laugh a lot.

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Hiking the “Nature Trail” on a Chilly Day, and a New Hat

Posted on January 9, 2021 by admin

On Saturdays, it became our habit to hike one of the trails at Twin Falls, and we have done several of them. Today we hiked the Nature Trail, a 1 ¼ mile loop that crosses the Falls Trail and touches the Huckleberry Trail at a bridge.

Since it was below freezing, I brought out a balaclava I had gotten David for the first time, one similar to one I had gotten years ago from Canadian Tire, which he liked… not only does it (like his gray hat) “keep your ears warm”, but keeps his whole face warm.

Here he had his mittens off and hat down for a mid-walk picnic, where we would open our backpacks and sit (on my sweater/coat) on a handy “fall-down tree” and have some grapes, cookies, or other snacks, and a drink.

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The Beginning

Posted on February 2, 2018 by admin
David Geoffrey in his Woody cowboy hat
David Geoffrey, August 2020

If you found this site, welcome – at time of writing (February 2021, but back-dated to be the first post) it was still ramping up. This is the first entry. It will chronicle my strange journey from my wife leaving with my son in 2018, when he was seven months old, and my fight to return him home. I hope I can share stories from other parents dealing with this issue, and provide helpful information, inspiration, and resources. I’d like to thank Arun K. for the idea.

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