Soooo....

[Mousey Girl]

At 1145 am my cell went off. It was a BPD officer who had just got done paying Nickolas a visit. It seems that someone decided to call CPS. This annonymous caller said that he has been running all over the neighborhood unsupervised all summer, that he is filthy (and living in filth), that he had no food, that the house was so dirty there were rats ****ting all over the house, that there was no running water and that the electriciy was turned off.

The cop showed up, Nickolas and Bladen were playing video games. Bladen's brother saw the cop at the door and went home to get their dad. Nickolas said the frist thing the cop did was look at the girls (in their cage) and say, "oh, they're pets." Nickolas then showed him that there was running water and that we had plenty of food, and that he was more than capable of feeding himself. By then Andrew was outside to talk to the cop. He told him that Nickolas spent his days with his kids and that his 13 yr old daughter is the babysitter.

The cop then called me. He told me what was going on and that in his mind Nickolas was mature enough to be alone.

I called Nick and he was heading to the boy's house for the afternoon.

Then the cop called back. After reporting his findings to the supervisor, the supervisor nixed him and said that Nick needed to be with a caregiver. Basically they wanted to see how long it took me to get home and then if I had somewhere to take him. Not a problem. I was there within 10 minutes and took him to The Old People's, and that is where he will be tomorrow too.

Grrrr!! It just sucks not knowing who called. We have a verrrrry good idea of a couple of people (kids) who could have done this. I know it wasn't a neighbor. whoever did it knew enough about us to know about the rats, but not enough to know that I have only been working for a week.

Luckily it is only a short term temp position and I will be home again next week. Unluckily, I now have to prepare for a CPS followup to happen within the next 10 days.

Mean people suck.

[Prudence]

That is truly unbelieveable. How thoughtful that CPS is there to scruitinize your life while kids with readily apparent signs of actual neglect are returned to their parents in the interest of "family unity." What complete asshats to call in an unfounded complaint!

[Mousey Girl]

Through process of elimination, and rehashing what happened, we think it was former friends of Nick's. It was either them or their mom. Nickolas said that they showed up when Bladen & Brody were here (last week or early this week) and Nick told them they could not come in. These 2 are older than Nick and they used to all be friends, but the younger one (Blake) started stealing and he was the one that kicked Nick out of his b-day party a year or so ago.

We may never know for sure. In the meantime I am scrubbing down walls and doing some major dusting and laundry.

[BarTopDancer]

Ugg MG, that truly sucks. And as much as it sucks, make sure your house is uber-spotless and you have a ton of extra food on hand. Make sure that Nick has only clothes that aren't overly worn and/or small (play clothing mainly) visible (if you can, take his play clothes to your parents), that sharp objects are stored properly, medications put up high(er), pretty much child-proof your house. If the new dog (forgot her name) can stay somewhere else for a bit that would probably be a good idea (pit bulls don't make CPS happy).

CPS visits can be a bear, and if you get a worker with a stick up their butt they can make your life a living hell.

/bleh

[wendybeth]

CPS is also quite used to getting retaliatory/innaccurate reports, so don't get too freaked out! You're a good mom and Nicholas is very loved and well-cared for, so I really don't think you have anything to worry about. The officer could see that, and his superior wasn't there and simply covering asses on the off chance the reporting officer was wrong in his assessment. Just out of curiosity, how old is Nicholas? When I was ten I used to babysit other kids, but it's a different world these days.

(Btw, when Tori was nearly three her daycare threatened to call CPS on us because she had bruises all over and a pretty dramatic new one on her chest. We were freaked out, as she had been sick with this intractable ear infection for nearly four months, and now every time she bumped aganst something there was a new bruise, but a trip to the docs finally cleared it all up: she had been taking ibuprofen for the ear pain and it was causing the bruising, and the chest bruise had actually been incurred that day at the daycare when another kid poked her with a drum stick. The office hadn't bothered to check the daily incident report. . The ear infection is what eventually damaged her hearing. Anyway, I totally understand how you feel, but be glad that at least they do check on reports!)

[Mousey Girl]

He is 9. I know that is young, but he had someone watching him. He is more worked up about all this than I am. He was crying last night because hecouldn't stay home and play with his friends.

As for the CPS visit, I am not overly concerned. Teh cop said that it may even be him that comes back out. BTD, Sox looks more like a boxer than a pit. He does not have the short, stocky body type. The way he is growing he is less and less pit like every day. They would probably be more concerned about Pooh and the way he behoves towards every one but us.

I was thinking about it this morning. I can just see Blake telling his mom that he wasn't allowed in the house, but that was ok because of...and listing everything that the cop was told. She is an airhead and I can see her making the call.

[Gemini Cricket]

MG ~ That totally sucks. Pulling something like that on you is lame. I'm wondering if there's any sort of fine or something for filing a false claim like that. I'm sorry that happened to you.
Fvckers...

[Gemini Cricket]

I hate printing mailing labels for work. One page printed out half outside of the label margin. The other 10 pages printed fine. Grrrr.

[RStar]

MG, I had the same thing happen, I know what you are going through. But the person who made the call got theirs in the end. It was a next door neighbor, and about a year later PCS came out and took their kids away because they had reports that the father had been abusing them (wasen't me who called, BTW). They got them back after a few months, but now I belive in "what goes around, comes around" even more!

But after the follow-up visit I never heard from them again because they realized it was an unfounded report.

Good luck to you MG!

[Gemini Cricket]

I believe in karma. What goes around...