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You are truly blessed to be surrounded by these people. What a great group of moms!! I almost cried when I read it because isn't DHS every mom's fear. I'm sure that woman was just being hateful but if she did call you have a whole street full of witnesses. HUGS
Oh. Wow. I got teary eyed. What a great ending. I know suburbs are "different"...I have lived north for a lot of years. But its not all bad.
Rae
Wow. Just..wow...
I knew suburbia couldn't be all bad. Sounds like you have some neighbors who like you and your kids.
I'm stunned. I'm sorry this happened. You showed remarkable restraint by walking away. Kudos to you. And as for Bulldog, I certainly hope that one day she realizes what a horrible thing she did.
I think that's actually among the most harrowing stories I've ever read. Thank God the other neighbors are good people.
I am surprised though that all those people let the kids walk past before you got to them. A good happy ending though.
I love your blog and tell everyone to read it because it's so well written.
I think just about every neighbourhood has one of those -- just keep in mind that Bulldog must be one lonely, sad woman. Kudos to your neighbours for their support - they probably realise that if Bulldog comes after you, she could come after them. Safety in numbers!
That's a great neighborhood you have, flea. We who are several states away and who only know one another through screennames have your back in the strongest possible (but still figurative) way, and frog's got your back on the phone, and your neighbors have it up close and personal, and you deserve all of that and more.
I live in a non-traditional household. I live in fear that someone like bulldog will sic DCFS on us and just because of our family structure, I will lose my daughter.
My daughter is healthy and happy;her development is on track to slightly advanced. She has the best care that anyone can ask for. Because of our unusual family we have never had to leave her in the care of anyone who is not her parent, yet I know that there are assholes like bulldog that would gladly rend my family apart in the name of family values.
What Portia said.
Wow.
Yay!!! A happy and a great ending! 
Definitely upgraded to heck 
Oy. Oy vey. Lee, I hear you... one of my friends has been scared to have kids because of her "nontraditional lifestyle", fearing her own family will take them away. Flea, it was heartwarming to read about all the love and support, even over there in Heck. I was clucking my tongue at the Bulldog until I realized that we have those people in the city too.
wow. i was on the edge of my seat the whole time. i was going "what the fuck, lenore?!?" you are a wonderful mom. i still don't want to be a mom, but you are the kind of mom i would want to be. really.
and your writing is heavenly. thanks for sharing yourself with us. glad to hear everyone's home in one piece and that sisterhood is still okay.
love,
Man, the women in your neighborhood rock. I DID get teary-eyed. That was a beautiful showing of solidarity. Awesome.
AWESOME the ladies came to the door after and got yer back. It's horrible when things go south like that, especially with special needs kids.
I had a couple Bulldogs I never met--I heard about them from the cop who brought my autistic son (Pugsley) home after Pug let himself out a window. He claimed the Bulldogs who worked at an eye doctor's had returned him to the neighborhood several times.
"That's not possible." I answered, without even getting into the total bullshitness of his story.
He started to let it go when I questioned where he said the women worked. (There's no eye doctor in the 'hood, yo.)
He said he was calling CPS (Child Protective Services) and left. I went into total hysteria mode. CAlled the summer minister for our UU church. Turns out he used to work for CPS, and set me straight (ie. cop full of shit).
That was a very It Takes a Village moment!
What makes me mad is that we *did* call CPS on the couple across the street who left her 9 year old in charge of three younger children, and also liked to lock them all out of the house (the youngest in diapers!), and nothing happened. There are so many truly bad parents out there that CPS doesn't have enough people to handle, only an idiot would start calling them on good parents.
In my defense, I want to say that I didn't mention PMS to flea in any way on Friday.
I did, however, suggest that burning down someone's house is not a good plan, overall.
Thanks, everybody.
Yes, frog, that was more of an amalgam of our conversations in general than Friday's specific conversation.
What I need at the moment more than anything else is a little faith in humanity. Thank you, *thank you* for posting this story. The kindness of other people is always such a surprise--it's so large, and so unexpected. This was *great.*
Your neighborhood kicks ass... and they need to kick some bulldog ass! I'm so glad everything worked out OK and your kids were safe.
Oy veh - all the scary stuff I have to look forward to. Mr. selzach and I can barely stand to be around our neighbors because they let their little girl play unattended and in the middle of the street...we're always telling her not to run over to our yard, that we'll go over to her (she always wants to pet our dog). I can only imagine how it'll be when it's our own kid.
Wow. Hurray for The Mamas of Suburban Heck! Yourself included.
I wanted to hug Lenore for offering to be an instant babysitter. Then I wanted to slap her five ways till Tuesday for screwing it up so completely. But then Lenore came over and took responsibility, and apologized, and made it clear she knew exactly what she'd done, and was really sorry. So I settled for giving Lenore a half-hearted tap upside the head, then I asked her in for a beer.
Oh. My friend Marla's very young daughter did a vanishing act one time by hiding in one of the teacups at Disneyland, for five long, frantic minutes.
Larkspur - yes! Exactly. I've been waffling between being very irritated with Lenore and respecting her for taking responsibility for her poor decision.
What a horrendous creep of a woman. And this could happen to any parent. It HAS happened to most of us.
When The Kid was in his 4's and 5's, I was starving and single and getting my second degree. Loans paid for the classes and books. Stripping paid for rent and eats.
Everyone should spend a year either stripping or waiting tables. It should be like the Swiss Army.
Anyway, the apartments had a huge gated courtyard with heavy, locked gates. Every kid in that complex ran hither and yon, playing. There were almost always a couple of parents somewhere, keeping an eye out but not watching obsessively. I would sit outside to read or study for my "shift."
About 6 - 12 kids at a time would all herd into an apartment or two to refresh. I usually had a pan of granita; someone else had Capri Sun. Occasionally someone doled out real ice cream.
I felt a real sense of community until someone called CPS on me for neglect.
Wait! Don't end it there! What happened?
Oh, sorry. Well, it was an anonymous call, and to this day I have never guessed who on earth it was.
Well, I guess I was in class when the first caseworker came by, because there was a card in my door with the CPS number and an extension. I left a message. I honestly thought someone had called about some other family and maybe CPS wanted to ask me questions.
The worker called back and said that someone had placed an anonymous call on me and that she was opening a case. We set a time for an appointment and I proceeded to freak. I called my ex and told him what was up and he was outraged (or said he was. We try to get along). I cleaned the apartment top to bottom. I called my sister to come over for moral support.
The caseworker was a couple of years younger than I am. She reported that she had already interviewed The Kid at kindergarten (they can legally do that without permission or notification, at least in TX). He was clean and unbruised. He was undersized (and still is) but obviously at a good height/weight ratio. Apparently he gave all the right answers; he eats on demand, he is never left alone, etc. When questioned about being struck or even spanked he told the caseworker, "That's silly!"
We spent the rest of the interview talking about her degree, her job with CPS, and her plans for the future (criminal justice). She told us she was closing the case.
Too bad you didn't find out who it was - as I wrote down in my blog entry, one of my neighbors said it's against the law to harrass people using DCFS here in Illinois. I wonder if TX has similar laws.
I'm glad everything went well.
This is the social worker in me, but I try to charitably imagine that the call was genuine, and a misunderstanding.
There was a time that That Kid was bratting out horribly. I put him in his room and he started throwing/breaking things. I couldn't afford that and I was too angry to sit and restrain him (also he was getting really good at the action hero-style backward head butt when in that position).
So I informed him that we behave a certian way in the house (apartment)and if he couldn't manage it he couldn't be in the house. I picked him up, placed him just off the porch, turned around, walked in the house, locked the door, and stood at the window watching.
He flung himself repeatedly against the door, screaming incoherently. Twice I opened the door to ask if he was ready to behave; on the third try we got it down to loud, defeated sobs and he went inside to be postdictal on the couch.
Maybe someone thought something horrible was happening. I mainly remember how hard it was not to collapse into giggles. That's never good for discipline.
Its amazing sometimes how people can be blindingly rude and hypocritical. I was watching my friend's kids (she's like a second mom) and we went to see Powerpuff Girls and as we were leaving the kids were skipping about 8 feet in front of me and kind of dancing. These other kids were running up and down the hallway screaming. I remember what it was like to be as young as that but when kids are being that uncontrolable to the point where their screaming echos throughout the building and the mom does nothing, its mildly irritable.
This woman looks at the kids that are with me and loudly comments to her friend that "some people shouldn't have kids if they can't control them." and I was a bit irritated at that since I knew she was talking about them, and they were being behaved, as we got outside the screaming kids ran up to the woman who made the comment and it turns out they were her kids. I just wanted to laugh at her. So the kids and I went to get cookies for being so good while a the movies. Sorry that was so long. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Bulldog had kids and thats what her kids did.
I may be a little PMSey...but I definitely got a lump in my throat and a tear or two in my eye when I read this. The picture of you frazzeledly opening the door to see all those supportive women...that's wonderful.
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