IIRC, CA had her 50th birthday in early June 2008. That's a big milestone birthday for a woman. She probably wanted to retreat from primary child rearing and take on more of a traditional grandmother role. Just that fact tells me she was probably very conflicted about taking on the role of being a primary parent of a 2 year old!
However, just the fact that she discussed seeking an involuntary custody order for Caylee tells us volumes about what CA did see about ICA's parenting. CA discussed this with her therapist and perhaps others -- most probably with GA. However, seeking involuntary custody results in huge tension and rifts in a family.
About the same time, the law pertaining to Grandparents seeking just visitation of grandchildren was undergoing great changes across the nation. The courts were siding with the natural parents' rights to raise their child. (Basically, the last thing the seriously understaffed, underfinanced and overwhelmed family law courts need is to add a whole new genre of litigation to their impacted caseloads -- intergenerational litigation. This may change over time though as society wrestles with the effects of aggregious parenting, but it will take a generation or two of a combination of legislation and precedent court decisions based on that litigation to temper the current state of the law, which is a nearly complete shut-out of grandparents.)
If CA sought legal advice, it would not have been encouraging; thus it was easy to put it off. However, there was that big fight on June 15th. If GA's memory is not of the morning of June 16th but another routine morning, then maybe Caylee wasn't there. CA didn't see her that morning. ICA was on the computer that morning uploading photos, but she might have been alone without Caylee. The testimony is otherwise. The undercurrent of CA seeking custody and thinking ICA was an incompetent parent is a very important undercurrent to this case.
It was CA's mother that summed up this case more succinctly; something about ICA hating CA more than she loved Caylee. Revenge against CA could have been at least part of the motive.
