48 hours

It's amazing what a mere 48 hours can reveal. I was taken aback when he told me he's been given sleeping aids for years. Shocked when he told me he eats Banquet frozen dinners and Spaghetti-O's for dinner every night. Appalled when I found out his baby teeth rotted out of his mouth before he lost them naturally.

I feel like punching someone. I feel like screaming as loud as I can to get someone's attention. I feel like writing long and nasty letters. I'm not an angry person nor do I feed my life with negativity, but when someone hurts a child as a result of their own need of convenience, I'm pissed.

Two and a half years ago, T-boy watched his grandfather, who raised him, seize and die of a heart-attack in the back seat of their car. This is when the violent behaviors began. "Gee, could this possibly be connected? Why, I don't know... let's ignore it and see if it goes away! Or let's pump him with more drugs to drown out his personality or "calm" him down because he's such a disturbance!"

Clearly I'm infuriated. We've tried to help. We offered to take him on weekdays last September so to offer him structure, tutoring and the opportunity to be involved in extra curricular activities. But apparently someone thought we had ulterior motives... wicked, wicked people that we are.

I digress from the ultimate form of sarcasm.

To know these things are taking place in your family and yet further knowing there wasn't a thing you could do until the courts got involved, is like being under water with no breath left, seeing an air tank, but being tied down by chains and drowning.

There are 6 uncles (all brothers), one of whom is the father of T-boy. So you wonder why none step/ped in? Each brother's efforts to help being warded off by T-boy's legal guardian. In some way, shape or form, each of their attempts to help is apparently some sort of threat that T-boy is will be taken away. It's clear the only people not bamboozled by her frighteningly bitter reactions is social services.

Two days ago this was proven true when we all stood before a judge and custody was handed over to us.

This is what I've found out in 48 hours. I don't even want to know what 3 weeks will reveal.