Child Protective Services...

When you work with children you have an obligation, a legal one, to report any and all signs of suspected abuse and/or neglect.

And while everyone wants to do the right thing..sometimes it comes back to bite you in the arse.

I remember one time visiting a kid in detention and noticing he had a golf-ball sized bulge on one side of his cheek.

"Why is your face swollen right there?" I asked the young thug, pointing to the side of his jaw.

"That is where the cops broke my jaw" he responded.

According to the kid he was running from the PO-PO and when they finally caught up to him they threw him against a fence, he hit his face on something and broke his jaw.

I asked him when it happened and he said it had been a couple of years.

Dr. Mom (that would be me) assessed the situation and determined that someone with a bit more credentials should be called.

In other words, a CPS report had to be made.

A co-worker told me I was nuts to even report it.

How could I not...?

You probably have no idea what kind of work and hassle and drama and paperwork I'd just signed myself up for.

The kid ended up having surgery for an infected, not properly repaired jaw bone fracture.

I did the right thing.

And I'd do it again if I had to.

Yesterday I came across a couple of staff and a couple of loveables in the hall outside the classroom.

I smelled chaos.

(it really didn't take the trained nose of a blood-hound like middle aged nosy know-it-all to smell it...the sight of one of the loveable thugs laying on the floor, one up against the wall, red faced and yelling into a cell phone and three pacing staff to say real loud..."what the frick, somethin be UP").

Upon closer investigation I learn that the loveables have been in a fight.

With each other?

Didn't appear as such.

Upon closer investigation I learn from the staff present that one of the loveables is covered in bruises.

Holy crap!!! (I think when I see him up close) he looks as if he's been choked almost to death.

"What happened to you?" I asked the bruised loveable laying on the floor.

And although the staff with the loveables were doing a fine job with the situation I had to get my two cents in there...

"Who hurt you?" I grilled "WHO did this to you?"

I picture a battering step-father.

Or a double-crossed gang member.

I figure maybe a really mad, current girlfriend's ex-boyfriend.

Upon closer investigation I learn that some times things aren't always what they seem.

Upon closer investigation I have a different thought...

The mother in me (and my former teenage self) suddenly sees the forest for the trees...

"Come here" I said to the boy "let me have a closer look at that neck of yours".

"Those aren't brusises...they are HICKIES" I say.

His entire "bruised neck" (which truly looked as though he'd been strangled by the HULK) was a stinkin hickey fest.

A hickey necklace we used to call em.

And the other loveable, the red-faced one screaming into the phone confirmed my suspicions.

Thank God no one had yet dialed CPS.

It could have been incredibly embarrassing.

An example from Google Images...our loveable's neck was "abused" 10x's worse

A face a mother could love....

We got ourselves a new loveable.

I walked over to meet the person hunkered down under the big thick gray hoodie.

Only a pair of hands, texting on a cell phone could be seen.

When I was standing in front of the lump of person I introduced myself and waited for a response.

The lump continued texting and grunted something inaudible.

"Ummm excuse me" I said "you need to look up when you are spoken to".

He tossed his head back and pulled his hood off.

I almost peed my pants.

The kid looks so much like The Sweet Prince Buttercup it took my breath away.

Same blue eyes, same big white teeth.

Same high cheekbones and puffy lips.

Holy shit...I was smitten.

By this boy who could be my boy.

My big grown up man son...here in front of me a boy again...

Okay, so I knew, just knew that this would spell trouble.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am head over heels in love with my perfect children.

They can do no wrong most of the time.

That I am nothing more than putty in their hands.

Well by the looks of things it appears this kid will be getting away with murder.

So as this first day continued this familiar looking loveable proved quite uncooperative.

He liked to take his phone out and text.

And tell us, when reprimanded, that he was checking the time.

Cell phones are not to be used during school.

Well, my fuse was short yesterday.

And like I said before my children can do no wrong (MOST OF THE TIME)....

When the text happy loveable continued to disobey and disrespect, and look just like my kid when he did it...

I had no choice but to treat him like my own.

"I'm telling you one more time to put that phone away" I said "if you don't...the next time I see it I'm going to twist your ear or slap you in the back of your head...DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

What's that expression...Familiarity breeds contempt?

Disclaimer: While I did beat the holy hell outta my own kids...(wink), I would never in a million years touch a loveable (and leave a mark).

Wonderful feeling...wonderful day!

You know the drill, you get an A on a paper.

A pat on the back from your dad.

A high five from your boss.

You shoot, you score.

A home run...

you know,

a zippity-doo-dah-day.

Well, I had one of those yesterday...and it started the day before that.

One of the Loveables has been asking to make fried ice cream.

He's a bit of a nag...and so he's been asking a lot.

I get the impression that he asks for lots of things that he doesn't get.

Anyway day after day after day after day...."can we make fried ice cream today? when we gonna make fried ice cream? you promised we are going to make fried ice cream!!!"

On Wednesday he asked me again about the ice cream.

I explained to him that we needed a recipe, and we needed the "stuff" to complete said recipe.

And cash to pay for stuff.

And staff to drive the van to the store.

And so on and so forth.

Too much work. Too many details. Too little time."

But on this day Mr Bluebird was on our shoulders, it was the truth, it was actual, and ev'rything was satisfactual....

Zippity dooo dah....

And so on Wednesday the Loveables and the dedicated staff made baseball sized balls of vanilla ice cream, dipped them into a cinnamon sugar mixture,

then they rolled them into crushed corn flakes and packed them even tighter than snowballs.

They worked at breakneck-speed...if the ice cream got too soft, the balls would be ruined.

It was fun to watch them work.

And be a cooperative team.

It was fun to watch them run to the large walk in freezer with the balls on a large sheet tray where they would be spending the next 24 hours getting rock hard and ready to fry.

It was rewarding to hear the Loveables say "we did good" and "they look GREAT"  and "I can't wait until tomorrow".

On Thursday, the Loveable who started it all told our visiting chef "I've never worked faster in my life" ( I'm thinking I saw his hand reach around and pat his own back).

I told him how "spoiled" he was that everyone worked so hard to help him to finally get his fried ice cream.

He flashed me a 100 watt smile.

When chef fired up the fryer and dropped the first ball into the hot grease the Loveables watched, fascinated.

The staff watched fascinated, too.

"Hold the ball between the tongs" chef instructed "and when it starts to feel soft, pull it out".

They laid the hot ball onto a dab of hot fudge syrup and then we poured a spoonful on the top too.

Like my dad says "their tongue beat their brains out"...

I seriously don't think I've ever tasted anything so yummy.

A couple of the Loveables ate two balls of fried ice cream.

I think one ate three.

My, oh my, what a wonderful day,

Plenty of sunshine headin' my way,

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay......

A veggie tale.....

Sunday, is a working day for us working folk.

Housecleaning, laundry, cooking, and of course the dreaded grocery shopping.

My God, I hate to grocery shop.

Especially since I've decided that we aren't eating healthy enough around here and I know what that entails.

A closer inspection of every damn thing that goes into my cart.

A closer examination of all the crap I usually feed my loved ones.

Hauling around extra healthy bottled water and a heart filled with guilt makes the trip even worse.

It's sooooo much easier to just throw in a bag of cookies, a couple of boxes of mac and cheese and call it a day.

Anyway, I was feeling out an avacado when I heard someone say something to me.

I looked up and in front of me was a young man who I recognized, but couldn't place.

A friend of Sweet Prince Buttercup's??? Bears??? Someone Googie knew?

"How are you Beth?" he asked me.

Who who who who who the heck are you? I thought.

And where do I know you from?

"I've been doing fine" I said. "how bout you?"

When he began to talk more I suddenly remembered who he was.

A kid from my program.

But wait...something had happened.

This was the face, the voice, the smile I remembered.

But gone was the dingy raggedly cut long black hair.

Gone were the seven (or more) rings that used to hang off his ears.

The stainless steel bolts that pierced his eyebrows, with skin and hair and perpetual redness around them...GONE.

Gone was the thick black ring that he wore in his lip.

He used to twirl it when he got into trouble.

It made my stomach hurt to see it go round and round.

He was always in a lot of trouble.

Gone were the angry chains and spikes that he used to wear around his wrists and neck.

And in a funny twist, gone were the grungy black shorts that he wore all winter, instead in this muggy August heat he wore a pair of light colored jeans.

And an American Eagle tee.

And his hair...my God, you should have seen his hair.

Light brown and cut in the most current "handsome young guy" look.

"Still on probation?" I asked.

He'd been taken out of our program when it was determined that he was not going to cooperate. He was not going to behave. He was not going to stop endangering himself and others.

He was the only kid our visiting chef ever almost laid his hands on.

He caught him eating raw stewing beef off the end of one of our butcher knives and chef came unglued.

He backed him against a wall and yelled like I've never heard him yell.

Jared was good for that kind of stuff.

The shock value of any action was his motivation.

The more outlandish, the more outrageous, the more he liked doing it.

To the other youth he was a Day Treatment hero.

To the staff, he was a mighty thorn in our sides.

A 6'4" inch thorn.

"Yeah, still on probation" he said "for another six months."

Obviously "placement" had been good for him.

"I'm on non reporting" he said.

I asked him about what his court order said and what the judge had him doing.

"Working and eventually going to college" he said.

Awesome, I thought to myself.

We talked for a couple more minutes and then I swear I wanted to reach up and give him a big hug...I was soooo proud of the new and obviously improved him.

Instead I offered a closed fist.

Which he bumped with his own.

"Take care kid" I said "and stop by school when you're in the area. I know the other staff would love to see this transformation you've had."

"We love to see our kids all grown up."

"I will Beth" he said "see ya around."

I don't remember much about the rest of my mundane Sunday grocery shopping.

I do remember catching people looking at me.

Probably wondering why this crazy fool woman was skipping around the fruits and vegetables.

Whistling and giggling.

And shaking her head.

Witnessing a miracle will do that kind of stuff to ya.

EDITED TO ADD....Don't anyone go getting their bloomers in a bunch..I have nothing against long black hair, spikes, piercings, tattoos, grungy clothing, etc etc etc, honestly, I don't...I do have something against angry, self destructing teens who make the world an unsafe place for themselves and others.


I try never judge a book by its cover.

Put me down....

I took a week off from the Funny Farm.

 I needed a rest.

 And my house is a sty.

And summer is passing me by, again.

The loveables, the other staff and I have been busy...busier than usual.

I agreed we'd take a "catering job" which entailed preparing food for an extra 50 people every day for eight days straight.

Thank God....last Thursday wrapped that extra duty up.

I am no caterer.

You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Or something to that effect.

One of the loveables, a pint sized strong man who goes around picking people up picked me up the other day.

He came up behind me and threw his arms around my arms and up I went...feet dangling in the air.

50 year old feet dangling.

In the air...

I'm pretty sure I laughed at first...I think I was so caught off guard and shocked that that was my first emotion.

Then I hollered "PUUUUT ME DOWN!!!!"

One of my coworkers was standing near and ordered him to "LET HER GO!!!"

When my feet were planted firmly on the ground once again I had a strange thought....

My own boys have picked me up before...and when ordered to "put me down" they respected me and did as I said.

When my brother did it, and didn't put me down I elbowed him in the ribs and donkey kicked him in the nuts...he dropped me, then ran like hell.

Okay so while I didn't feel threatened...I also didn't feel the respect that I should be gettting from this youth.

So how to handle something like that???

If I had ordered him to put me down, and the other staff hadn't been in the room to order him as well...I wonder how long the "game" would have gone on???

He has no idea I used to pound my siblings into the ground.

They knew one thing about my fighting style...

God help and pity the fool who takes her off her feet.

The plea "self defense" worked before...

I have no doubt it will work again.

I see you......

"I don't like to take my Adderall " one of my loveable thugs said to me yesterday morning before class began, he was responding to my asking him how he was feeling.

" I don't like taking it at all. It makes me feel invisible" he said.

"Invisible?" I asked

"Yeah, I come home from school and there is nothing left of me. I don't talk. I don't feel. I am invisible". He explained.
 
"Why don't you try doing something that you love when you get home from here?" I asked.

"I was a good hockey player, a real good one. I was a freshman on the varsity team. Then my grades began to slip and I started smokin weed and then I didn't care anymore." the invisible man was spilling his guts.

"What about your artwork? I ask
 
"I've seen your drawings" I said "you are very talented."
 
"Yeah, I guess I am pretty good" he replied. "When I draw, I forget about everything else."
 
"I'm gonna get my ass kicked over five bucks" He told me.
 
"I made up a tattoo for someone and charged them five bucks. They paid me and then said they didn't like what I drew".

"So now this girl's sister's boyfriend is going to kick my ass." He seemed more angry than scared when he said this.

"Do you need five bucks to pay him back?" I ask.

"No" he answered "I got 5 bucks and I gave it back."

"Good" I said.

"What kind of tattoo was it" I asked.

"It was a tribute tattoo. I drew a heart and then In Memory Of and I put her dad's name in it. The tattoo was going to be tribute to her dad. He's dead, ya know...lots of people have those kinds of tattoos." he told me.

Then he continued "she wanted this tattoo to show how much she loved him and then she couldn't even remember the date of his death".

"That's pretty bad" I comment "a tribute tattoo and she can't even remember the date of the person she is permanently honoring, using needles and ink and suffering all kinds of pain for something that will mark her body till the end of time...wow.

"Yeah, that's what I thought too, and when I said it it pissed her off and then she went bitchin to this Dave guy who told her that my tattoo sucked and since Dave runs his own clique they all listen to every thing he has to say no matter how stupid, then she had Dave call my girl's mom, and you know? I'm really tight with my girl's family and Dave calls there cause he wants the five bucks back and starts all kinds of shit. I think my dad's gonna kick Dave's ass, he's 18 so it's not like my dad's gonna kick some kid's ass."

"Hey, do you have anything to drink in here? " he askes changing courses suddenly "I don't have much of an appetite when I take this medicine, but I need to drink stuff, the Adderall makes my mouth dry" he said.

I made him up a big glass of chocolate milk to go.

"You'd better get going to class"  I tell him. "you're a half hour late"

"Thank you for listening to me" he said, then walked out the small kitchen door toward class.

Ohhhhh-boy....I thought to myself, and it's only 9am.

I dropped a bomb and the ball....

Two days ago in my culinary class I had the loveables making cake cookies...we do this often, they're cheap and easy to make.

Most times we use an ice cream scooper to make really large cookies...they are baked in a professional convection oven.

Stressing the importance of having the cookies be uniform in size I suggested to one of the loveables that since he didn't have enough dough left to make another cookie that he should divide what he had left and add it to any of his other cookies that might be "needy"..."add it to the deserving cookies" I teased.

He proceeded to go to each cookie and comment...

"You are stupid" he said to one.

"You are ugly" he said to another.

"You are too fat already" he said to a third.

"You are black" he said to the fourth.

I was stunned silent.

I hoped his stupid comment went past my African American co-worker.

There were four staff around that large table and not a damn one of us said one word.

But I'm positive we all heard it...there was no way we didn't.

This incident took me back to something that happened to me in high school...I was in ninth grade and had a wonderful friend named Jackie.

My high school was mixed (I won't say diverse, because we weren't)..we were mixed.

There were the blacks and there were the whites.

And once in a while we mixed.

I'm Caucasian and Jackie is African American.

Back then we called ourselves White and Black.

Jackie was a tall, leggy beautiful girl.

And she was funny as hell.

We talked every day at school and often on the phone.

One day I was telling her a funny story and in the middle of it I said the "N" word...it slipped out of my mouth and before I could catch it, it landed in the middle of Jackie's and my friendship.

Like a lead balloon.

I pretended like I didn't say it.

Jackie pretended like she didn't hear it.

But our friendship was never the same.

So I stand some 30 years later around a work table with a couple of punks and the adults placed in charge of them and I pretend that the elephant in the room is not there.

I should have told the punk to shut the hell up. I should have yanked his dumb ass out of the room and told him how stupid and ignorant what he said was.

I should have done something, anything.

Instead, I let it melt and slip through the cracks and slide it's slimy slithery self onto the floor and out of the room.

It's destruction, though mighty, was silent.

Just like the bomb I dropped so long ago.

Shame on me, times two..... :-(

Not like I'm keepin score or anything....

Friday.....what the holy hell took you so long to get here?

What an incredibly loooooooooong week.

I think being sick made it feel even longer.

Being stuck inside a musty old school building for 10 hours on the nicest day of the year so far made it looooooooooger still.

Yesterday, walking into the commercial kitchen where our afternoon culinary arts class is held and smelling the distinct stench of cigarette smoke INSIDE THE WALK IN FREEER made time stand still.

Even with a terrible cold I have the nose of a Blood Hound.

How dare they!!! HOW DARE THEY!!!

PUNKS!!!!!!

I find it totally amusing that they all think the staff came down with yesterday's rain.

Yes sir.... we're dumber than doornails.

The loveables think they're so slick they'll be able to pull crap over on us....and sometimes they do, for about five seconds.

So as my face flushed and my heart raced I reached into my bag of "effective mothering" tricks and techniques and pulled out a doozy.

The GUILT CARD.

Sadly, with droopy eyes and a tear in my voice I told the loveable thugs that I was certain to lose my job over the Smokin in the Boys Room Fridge Mystery.

How hard being jobless would be, especially since my husband was laid off. (sniffle)

That I had every hope that the next lady they brought in to teach them to cook would care about them as much as I did. (sob)

I laid it on pretty thick.

And they bought it.

A few minutes after my little over dramatic monologue the other staff took each loveable aside and asked for information.

Every last one of them...every.... last..... one of them pointed a finger at the guilty kid.

Baby criminals aren't usually singing canaries.

But yesterday this bunch of lightweights were putty in our hands.....(hahahaha).

Juvenile Justice Day Treatment Staff 1
The Loveable Thugs 0

A job for a good daddy.....

I've caught a cold.

And as Daddio would certainly tell you, (if you cared to listen) I could brave an appendectomy sans anesthesia better and with less complaining than I do a cold.

I start fall to pieces at the slightest twinge of a sore throat or one too many sneezes.

I caught this cold from one of two places.

Marmie (my darling mother) was sick and sounding like a slightly feminine man when we spoke numerous times last week.

As much as I sometimes think otherwise, germs don't travel 3000 miles over phone lines.

So it must have come from the other source, one of my lovables.

One of the youth in my work program came in sicker than a dog last week.

Sneezing, sniffling, coughing....

"I caught it from my baby girl" he confessed.

"Ya gotta stop kissin her on the mouth" I told him with a smile.

"I can't" he said " I can't stop she is sooooo cute and her cheeks are chubby. Every time I'm near her I try to eat them off her face. I can't help it. You should see how chubby her cheeks are, soooo chubby and sweet"

He continued, "You know her whole family dogged me and didn't think I'd step up and be there for my girl. I've showed them. I buy her diapers and clothes and I even got her medicine for this bad cold."

Oh well, I can't really complain about catching a cold from a juvenile offender who has admitted to being a kind of father to his baby girl that every daughter should have...one who smothers her with love and kisses, diapers and clothes and calls her fat cheeks the sweetest things he's ever seen.

PS...Bob, thanks (and I love you) for paring (nibbling) these mammoth babies down to a normal size ;-)

I'm having attacks.......

I have a lot of irons in the fire these days, maybe too many.

The past few days have found me in some kind of not so nice state.

I finally figured it out, I'm having apoplexy attacks.

An apoplexy attack, yes, exactly.

That phrase jumped out at me as I searched my mind for what word might accurately describe what I am feeling.

I hadn't heard it in a long, long time, and had no idea what it even meant.

Maybe I heard it when I eavesdropped on one of my mother's 1960's-70's conversations.

They talked weird back then.

I was relieved when a Google search popped up the word.

And theWikipedia definition fit.

Apoplexy is an outdated medical term, which can be used to mean 'bleeding'.

It can be used non-medically to mean a state of extreme rage or excitement.

Outdated, uh-huh.

Medical term, yep (a self proclaimed hypochondriac picks up on those kinds of words).

Bleeding??? Not recently. (In case you're new here, I'm mennnnnnnnnnnnn ah, never mind).

A state of extreme excitement and rage?

Yesterday at work I had a bit of both.

Standing around waiting for the magic moment we begin class I listened as the children (my loveable thugs) talked. The conversation centered around April 20th.

4/20

Wikipedia says this about 4/20,

4/20 is a way to identify oneself with cannabis subculture. The date 4/20 is sometimes referred to as "Weed Day" or "Pot Day.

Okay, sitting around talking about pot is not a normal in most people's lives, unless maybe you knew what 4/20 meant before I schooled you????

Then maybe you do sit around and talk pot.

Anyway, many conversations at my work center around pot.

Who dropped dirty? Who is expelled for thinking they could outsmart the staff and sneak outside and smoke a blunt?

They talk about other not so nice things too...

This is what you drink, eat, smoke, inhale, shoot up, to get high, to make your pee clean, to quench your munchies. To get higher than high.

Arrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Sometimes I wanna  hit them, honestly I do.

Instead, I just stop the talk and gather it around more appropriate things like measuring cups and funnels.

Today, before I could do just that, I had an apoplexy attack, which came about in the form of hysterical laughter.

One of my students, a blonde whose beauty may very well make up for her lack of grey matter stared wistfully skyward and whispered in her soft Marilyn Monroe like voice "I wish 4/20 was my birthday, wha'da party that would be, when I'm old enough maybe I'll change my birthday".

My mouthful of sugar coated Corn Flakes almost came out of my nose.

And that discussion turned into this discussion.....

"Did you see that? Miss Beth just choked on her Corn Flakes"

And onward our morning marched.

In class, we were short staffed.

And the strong smelled the weak.

After much coaching (begging) and encouragement (threatening) they did as they were asked.

And soon we were cleaning up the mess.

One very tall young man, who (somehow) wears the waist of his pants down around his knee caps was not in a very cooperative mood.

He'd worked, but I nearly had to do a handstand and spit nickels out my ass to get him to.

This morning's class was almost over, there was one thing left to do and that was to put the chef coats and aprons from the washer into the dryer.

I called out to him, as he was the closest to me.

"Come help me" I said

He looked at me.

"Come help me" I said again.

He looked at me.

"Come help me.. I need you" I said

He looked at me.

And then I had another apoplexy attack.

You would have thought I was home and with the children of my womb when I did what I did next.

I pulled out a pile of wet chef coats and I threw them at him.

They flew through the air, and when his hands failed to deflect them they hit him in the chest and rolled down his body till they hit the floor.

You might have heard a pin drop except the other loveable's collective sharp intake of breath made it impossible to hear anything over the sound of their shock.

They stared at both of us waiting to see what would happen next.

The big, tall, very angry loveable turned and walked out the door.

I was glad he choose that instead of pounding me into the ground.

I followed him and apologized for my lack of judgment. I told him that I was plain wrong to throw clothes, or anything, for that matter at him.

I let him walk it off, hoping he'd take in and accept my apology.

In the mean time the others were deep in conversation when I got back into the room.

"Miss Beth is going crazy" I overheard one say "this morning, she spit her Corn Flakes right out on the table".