I never really set out to make a spectacle of myself. It just sort of happened one day. It was the only way I could figure off the top of my head to try to save my grandsons.
Ryan and Hunter are my grandsons. They're three and four years old, and they're in a bad situtation. Their mother and father (my step-son) are divorced. Their mother is schizophrenic and bi-polar. Much of the time she's off her medication. And as Shakespeare would say, "There's the rub." (That was Shakespeare, wasn't it?) When she's off her medication, she's a little nuts. (In fact, she's a little nuts when she's ON her medication. But it's worse when she's off. I digress. Sorry.)
In November, she went berserk and bit Hunter - the three year old. It was bad. Hunter was left with a big circle of teeth marks on his arm and a permanent terror of his mother. I have a lot of sympathy, because she terrifies me and I'm 61. My wife called Child Protective Services (CPS) here in Louisville, and Hunter came to stay with us. Ryan toughed it out at home, coming to stay with us on the weekends. That wasn't his choice. It was his mother's. She wouldn't let him leave full-time. She uses him to clean the house.
After a lengthy but superficial investigation, CPS substantiated the abuse. (That means they agreed she bit him and that it was abusive.) But they didn't order the boys removed from her home. Apparently biting is an acceptable form of abuse to CPS. When Jennifer (the mother) learned she was off the hook, she brought the police and picked up Hunter. (Clever girl. She realized I wouldn't give him back, because he was still terrified of her and didn't want to go. The two cops with guns persuaded me to see it her way. The cops in this town frequently shoot people.)
At this point their father (T.J.) intervened. He went downtown to the courthouse and obtained an emergency protective order for the boys. So far so good. Since he has joint custody with Psychomom (Jennifer), the Sheriff's Department (they have guns, too) picked up the boys and delivered them to T.J. And things were fine for three weeks. The boys were safe. Then we met the judge. More about that tomorrow.
