Bob Loblaw

We had an unscheduled visit Friday from Child Protective Services. The case worker seems nice, probably genuinely wants to help. this was not entirely unexpected. Let’s face it, it they are trying to get a genuine view of the environment in which children (specifically, our grandchildren) are dwelling, some visits need to be unscheduled.

In fact, the case worker did call ahead, I’m sure this was so as not to make a 20-mile drive (one way) to arrive at an empty house. No worries.

Sooo, all seemed to go well. She brought us some papers, no doubt looked around a bit, didn’t find a dungeon with chains (We don’t have one to be found.), munchkins looking healthy. All good things.

She did compliment us (my wife really, I was at work) on our sticking to “the plan.” Well, duh! I know that not everyone does. I’m also aware of the potential that our grandchildren, and possibly even our children that remain with us, could be taken away and “put into the system.” One doesn’t even need to see this to grasp that the danger there is very grave indeed.

In short, good visit, quiet time is rare in our house, Criminal Investigation still underway.

Go, Ducks.

Friday, we had a scheduled visit from our/our Grandchildren’s Child Protective Services Case worker. She seems nice, although i am not deluded to the point of thinking these folks are my friends.

At this point, our grandchildren are under the care of my wife and myself. While no one actually think my daughter hurt her kids, she voluntarily submitted a list of persons that had been alone with the children the week before the visit to ER at Doernbecher. (see entry Dear Lord… and forward.) that included her. So, it seems, that rather than actually investigating the people on the list, the Detective made a brief phone call to at least a few of them, asked directly “Did you shake the baby?” and, after receiving a 100% negative response invited a few of them downtown for a polygraph test. Some accepted, no one has shown up for one, to the best of my knowledge.

Because the Detectives believe they have the right person (but not enough proof for the DA) they seem uninterested in legitimately checking any other leads. they seem to think my daughter’s boyfriend did it, and told her as much, and that she is protecting him. They have “requested” she take a polygraph test as well, and will hold her as a suspect until she passes said polygraph, or until the previously mentioned BF confesses (I suppose.)
Anyway, Child protective Services says they feel the lil’ ones will be safe here. Indeed they are, except for occasionally running with scissors and knives, and the fact that we feed the foods high in carbohydrates and cholesterol. (I made a fritatta with Spam™ and some lovely Medium cheddar. Everything as lovely, I could feel my arteries closing as I cooked it. Served with seasoned oven-roasted red potatoes, topped with margarine and sour cream. Yum-O!)

Sooo, D#1 is now taking some courses at the Community College, and working a 40-hour week. These are good things. And she has promised to help with the expenses for living; rent, food, etc. Meanwhile, we’ll just enjoy these little guys, and eke it out as best we can.

A Sunday night. It was a Sunday a few weeks ago when we got that horrific phone call. (See the entry for July 18th, Dear Lord, …)

In retrospect, we are all doing better than we deserve. We are still under the scrutiny of Children Services Division, and possibly will be for some time, although the Case Worker is anxious to close the case (the Detective is not, but CSD can close the case, & the Detective can keep it open.)

Baby is doing well.  She’s now about 6mo, and starting to get up on her little knees. (did you know they don’t have kneecaps until they’re a couple of years old? Me neither!) The doctors has said she is developing within normal parameter, they’ve determined that there is no need for further eye exams (at least related to this injury.)

Since D#1 and her 2 kids could not continue to live with Suspect#1 (well, *she*could, but she’d have to give up the kids, and she is not going to do that easily), they were instructed to live with us. That makes seven (count ‘em! 7!) persons living in this house.

D#1 got herself a job, working graveyard at the local mega-mart. Since she’s working nights, and supposed to be sleeping days, and I’m working days and supposed to be sleeping nights, she uses the master BR most days. (Whiny portion here.) This can be an inconvenience, since it blocks entry to one of the bathrooms in the house and means that I need to try to nap in the living room. (She still needs a ride to work, and she starts at 11 pm, I am designated driver, Sweet Baboo stays at home with the under-10 group. I start work at 7 am. Getting home at approx. 11:30, in bed by midnight, getting up at 5:30 am, work my 8 in a (currently very warm) warehouse, come home ane start all over again. Oh, yeah, since she sleeps til 10 pm, or so, I can’t get in a shower until after I drop her off at work. UCK!!

(Hopefully, the whiny portion ends here.) So, two of us have jobs. Sweet Baboo (aka “Gramma”) is basically watching the kidlets 24/7. I believe D#1 has most, if not all, her stuff moved our of the house she was in. There is more stuff in a friend’s garage, and that will also need to be moved, but for the most part, she should be spending more time on this side of town.

Let’s see, more positives… D#1 should be getting her first paycheck soon. I think she has it spent about 15-times over, but logic, cold and crewel (SIC), with impress itself upon her spending. She has promised to kick in on the rent, utilities, food, et al. We’ll see.

We have food. We have a house. Are are still on track eliminating our debt. (It’s slowed somewhat, but still progressing.) We are all healthy. We live in a country where it is still legal to get, be, and remain outrage and vocal about our elected officials. We have elected officials. We lost no relatives in 9/11.

We are blessed.

(Not A Dylan tune, I know. So sue me.)

Here I am, after a near 40-hour work week in a rather warm warehouse. I’m tired. I’ve been presented with the task of wrangling Grandson #1. gs#1 is 2. Very much so. He has limited vocabulary. He’s very confident with his use of “No,” “down,” “car,” and “ow.” Less confident with “Please,” “Thank you,” and quotes from Robert Frost and Walt Whitman, much less so Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, and Chaucer … doesn’t know a word from Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Groucho Marx, or J Danforth Quayle.

He is tired, too, but 2-year-old’s seem habitually in denial about naps. those of us in the 50-something range have a greater tendency to like naps. He’s frustrated, and has just stopped saying “ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow” for a little while. He’s also stopped jabbing me in the ribs, kicking me in the privates, and only occationally trying to throw himself backwards over the arm of the chair.

We both need naps. I need several naps. I need a shower, for humanitarian reasons, the greater good.

So, I’ve decided to blog, listen to Pandora (which, from my eclectic musical preferences seems to have settled on a ragtime/jazz piano set with some George Jones, Freddy Fender, Vince Gill, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo thrown in, and is now playing Somebody Stole My Gal by Errol Garner, and now Harry Connick Jr.  I wonder when it’ll switch styles again.) And ignore all pleas for “Down.”

Well, Grandma has taken pity on his little whinny hide, and rescued him from the awful fate of being forced to sit still and listen to Grandpa’s music. She’s also recommended I take that shower. “Recommended” means she all but swore out a warrant for my arrest if I don’t comply. Well, when she’s right, she’s right. Gottago.

End result so far:

Granddaughter seems to bee OK. She smiles, she coos, she wants to stand, but HEY! she’s 5 months old. She, her 2yo brother, and their mom, Daughter#1, now reside with Sweet Babboo and me. This is not as D#1 would wish it, this is the way Children Services Division has stated it should be.

Since the boyfriend we were not supposed to find out about is the prime suspect, the children are not to be in his presence. Maybe not ever. The investigation is still underway. D#1 was living with said boyfriend. Geez, she’s in her middle 20’s, ya think she could fess up to what she’s doing, except that maybe, just maybe, she knew she was making wrong, foolish, and hasty choices at the time, and didn’t want HER mom and dad saying “I told you so.”

Well, D#1’s EX#2 seems to have agreed to a polygraph test. This should be interesting. I wonder what he’ll end up admitting to, since he was not previously a suspect. I’ve been playing with the thought of suggesting to the Detective to question him about internet porn. You see, D#1 really knows how to pick ‘em. Yes, indeedy. EX#1 was slapping her around, Ex#2, well, there he is. At least now she knows how her clothes were getting stretched out of shape. Their poor neighbors.

And the boyfriend we weren’t supposed to know about? Well, Lord willing, CSD will say he should never be around our lil punkins again.

I suppose we will never get back to the Ozzie & Harriet life-style, mainly because you have to have been somewhere in order to get back there, yes/no? This does now make seven of us living in a 1440 square-foot 3-bedroom house.

On the other hand, there could be seven of us living in a mud-floor hut wishing we had a subsistence-farm and hoping the hunger pangs would go away. I’m so tired of whinny Americans suffering endless angst ( and making the rest of us suffer their endless angst) because they haven’t the money to get the newest, shiniest gizmo. Come on people, you have enough to eat. You have a home, clean water, easy access to modern medical facilities, and so on. This IS America, regardless of what is wrong in this country, we have wonderful, seemingly limitless (it’s an illusion) resources available. Most of the world envies us. They may hate us too, but they envy us.

First things first. The Hospital’s name is actually “Doernbecher.”

So we take our turns going in to see our little girl. D#1 & her BFF make nice. X#2 is pretending to be a descent soft of guy. Everyone there knows him and knows he wants something.

D#1 is still fuming.

Eventually, we are allowed into the PICU to see our grandbaby. She’s been intubated, catheterized, has an IV, is wearing an electronic blood pressure cuff on her ankle, a pulse monitor on her toe, an ECG, and God and medical records only knows what else. Dear Lord… this is difficult enough to see on a stranger, almost too difficult when you’re looking at a four month old whose only possilbe offence was that she was acting like a four month old.

They’ve already done one CT scan on her little head, another is scheduled for 2 AM. They’ll compare to look for any change. Nurses, doctors, technicians, all wander in and out. At some point I notice that we are being watched every second. I can deal. they think some hurt my baby. Yes, watch us, watch everyone. She never deserved this, no infant could.

All the nurses are professionally cheerful. It helps. This is so painful I can barely stand it, even now, almost a week later.

They gave her pain medication when she was first admitted, before they intubated her, and hooked her up to the 10,000 other tubes and wires. It was to make that process faster and easier for the ER team. Now they’re letting that wear off, hoping to get good vitals while we wait for 2 AM. little by little, she rouses a bit.

Finally, about 2 AM, a team of nurses comes into the room together, it’s time to transport her to the CT Scanner. one of is is allowed to go. I’m elected. Her father (D#1’s X#2) had departed. I’m not sure why. He said something about having to get up for work. To hell with him. D#1 claimsto be having too much difficulty handling this, I can see that. I’m elected.

The team of nurses switch out her tubing and wires to portable machines, and off we go. Everyone is excited that baby is objecting so much to he movement. This is a good sign. no paralysis here. That she’s survived is miracle #1, this is #2. Down the hallway, through the labyrinth, down a floor (up a floor?), across a skybridge, through more labyrinth, and finally to radiology.

Radiology has 2 appointments for 2 AM. The other patient is a woman. Older, Caucasian. I still don’t know what happened to her, but she very banged up. Heavy bruising around her right eye. She seems barely conscious. I say a quick prayer for her. She’s got a good medical team, I’m sure. Prayer is the help I can provide.

We get baby into the CT room, It’s clear my absence is required. I’m told I can wait in a cubby down the hall. I comply. Minutes later, again I sure it was a much shorter time than it feels, the nurses come out with baby, and we start out trek back to PICU. About 90% of the trip is travel time, 10% is time spent in Radiology.

Switch baby back to her bed, switch back to the more stationary machines. Minutes later, Dr Slick comes in and tell us there is no change from the first CT to the present one. This is the first good news. No surgery needed. Miracle #3. Praise God.

Some time during the night, I meet the detectives investigating the case. There’s little I can tell them. D31’s relationship history is spotty, at best. Her relationship with this person is quite recent. No, I’ve never met him. They are gravely concerned that he’s left the hospital. Later on, I’m told D#1 advised him “don’t do anything foolish.” i retrospect, I wish he had taken a poke at one of them. I’m told police officer don’t take kindly to that sort of thing, even outside of LA. I’m counting of “rule of law” of take care of him.

D#1, her BFF, and BFF’s boyfriend go with the detectives to the house where D#1 lives with pond scum. (Apologies to actual pond scum everywhere.) D#1 is still fuming. She’s still sure that pond scum is telling the truth and that baby fell off the couch. “He’s consistent with his story,” she says,” He hasn’t changed his story at all.” If I claim to be a gigantic shiitaki mushroom, and continue to claim such, at no point will I actually become one, neither does my claim gain validity based upon my consistency. (On the internet, no one knows that you’re a gigantic shiitaki mushroom, and no one cares either.)

Time passes, eventually, D#1 returns to the hospital, still fuming. she’s going to sue everyone breathing. She still believes pond scum. Says the floor in the apartment is very hard, and that’s the reason Baby Girl’s injury is so severe. She say the detective have no right to play “Good cop, Bad cop.” In fact, they have every right to do so, they are cops after all. no one expects that they can ask, “Did you directly cause harm to this child?” and the suspect will, tears in his eyes, confess all immediately, and willingly go to jail. We still have laws that prevent them from beating a confession out of him, well, mostly we do.

She’s talking about “innocent until proven guilty.” Yep, e aren’t allowed to punish him until he’s been convicted by a jury of his peers. That’s still mostly how it works here.

We finally go home, getting there about 5:30 AM. We sleep fitfully for a few hours, and go back to the hospital.

You know the feeling. It’s late, at least late for you. You’re in bed, or getting ready for bed. The phone rings. A sinking feeling.

You might pray, quickly, that it would be a telemarketer, but they don’t all this late.

This time it was daughter #1. She’s at Dornbecker Hospital. Grand-Daughter #1 is in Pediatrics-ICU. Dear Lord…

Daughter #1 is 23 y/o. Her second divorce was finalized about 2 months ago. Good riddance. She was living with a pastor and his family. Had a job, things were looking up. the pastor and his wife were councilling her, we all thought she was advancing

The Pastor’s nephew was also living there. He’s a piece of work. Had a job, but would not assist with household expenses or housework. He also drinks more alcohol that he should. he’s a mean drunk. The pastor had enough and was giving him the boot. Daughter #1 had a sudden urgency to have her own apartment again, ASAP. Pastor requested her patience while tough-love did it works and until the nephew was removed from the scene. Daughter #1 would have none of it. She found a way to  get her own place.

Then she moved the nephew in. She went out of her way to prevent her parents from knowing all this. We have our ways.

Daughter #1 (D#1) is on the phone saying she had gone to a movie, and left the kids with a friend. (the “room-mate we still aren’t supposed to know about.) Grand-Daughter #1 (umm… Sweetpea) was spitting-up. She’s 4-months old. it happens. She spits-up quite a bit, and medicine has been gotten to ease that symptom. The “friend” sat Sweetpea on the couch and went to get the medicine. Baby fell off the couch. He hears a thud from the other room, and calls D#1, she rushes home, calls 9-1-1, Everyone rushes to the best pediatrics hospital in the region

Thoughts of so many child-abuse news stories I have heard and read in my half-century that I couldn’t count them all. how many of them featured the abuser’s excuse that the baby fell off the couch/high-chair. Again I can’t count.

We call Son#1 to come home to watch son#2. Son #2 is still to young to be left on his own. Taht may be a cultural perception, but it’s my culture. While we wait, probably 3 or 4 months (minutes really) we start making phone calls of our own. We are going toneed support for this one.

Sweet Baboo calls daughter #2 while I call our Pastor,  Ginger Baker. I start to brief him, and SB is trying to brief D#2, SB is overcome, and can’t speak. I suddenly have an earphone in each ear with a different person speaking to each half of my brain. Explain to Pastor Ginger what’s up with the phones, and begin to tell both of them what’s going on. I will never fault SB for crying. It’s a good thing, but we need to get hlep here, and thye need to know what the crying is about.

I somehow am able to form the awful words, tell the story and whereabouts of the other branch of the family. i ask both of them to meet me at hospital. Pastor Ginger has had an awful load of hospital visits lately, he’s a brick.

I get off the phones, and start getting directions for Dornbecker Hospital from Google Maps. First attempt, they locate Dornbecker hospital, and half-a-dozen or more related clinics in a 4-county area. I figure out which one is the hospital, then try to gen Google map to give me directions. I used to drive a delivery truck, I’ve been on that hill many, many times. in a calm moment, I could tell you the quickest route, the easiest route, and the shortest route. This is not a clam moment. I only have enough sense to know I need help. I finally get Google Maps to give me directions instead of acting like it’s never heard of Dornbecker Hospital. It would seem spelling counts.

S#1 arrives, SB and I hop into the car and head for the hills. Around here, that’s not just an expression. I bet we broke a record getting from here to Hospital. On the way, I call D#1’s BFF. the hill is a big one. The people up there know there are a lot of panicky persons in the area, they have a ton of signs pointing the way. We follow the signs, and park as close to the main entrance as we can, walk across the sky-bridge… it’s locked. Damn. We walk back across the sky-bridge, go down one floor to ground level, cross the street to the main entrance. locked. Damn, damn. We start walking up hill to find the next door, when D#2 and her hubby arrive. they park, and we re-commence our door hunt.

We finally succeed in entering the emergency entrance. We are directed to a guard a a desk labeled “INFO.” The guard is clueless. He thinks he knows the way to P-ICU, it might be up one floor, down a very long hall and across another sky-bridge to another set of elevators, down a floor, to the left, jump into the hole, follow the white rabbit wearing a waistcoat, etc. We just go. Eventually, we find the first among many extra-ordinarily helpful nurses. This one was off duty, but gave good directions. Thank you nice lady, whomever you are

We get to PICU, just two steps ahead of Pastor Ginger. Hugs are passed around. I let D#1 know her BFF is on the way. She say, in a flat, deep tone, “I don’t want her here.” I respond in a flat level tone, “It’s too late, she’s coming.” i know what’s going on. they both know the right way to live, and each freely shares her wisdom with the other, Neither follows her own advise.

D#1’s X#2 is in with the child. D#1 is very angered at the doctors because they are treating this as a child-abuse case. Well imagine that.

Part 2 to follow.