Comic Relief?

I've been looking for a distraction...this is not exactly what I had in mind.

Normally, yesterdays events would have been a crisis. But because of the heaviness of this week, it was almost comic relief. Almost.

A little background information:

• On Sunday, Parker somehow banged his face on the pew in front of him at church and scored himself a serious black eye. I didn't see it happen. Reid and I were home sick from church.
• Parker caught what Reid and I had and stayed home from school Monday and Tuesday.
• Spencer teased Parker about his shiner and told him people were gonna think his dad punched him.

See where this is going?

When Parker arrived back at school after missing several days, his teacher questioned him about his nasty black eye. Parker decided to tell the teacher that his dad punched him. She asked him over and over again and though his story was inconsistent, he remained true to the fact that it came from his dad.

Yesterday evening I got a knock on the door from a friendly stranger. She turned out to be a social worker from Columbus Children's Services.

My house was a wreck...remember, I had been painting. I had neglected the rest of the days duties in order to paint. There was a basket of unfolded laundry in my living room. Tons of toys and art supplies covering the floor. My ENTIRE KITCHEN was in my small living room. I was ignoring my kids and letting the TV babysit for the time being. It was disastrous.

She had to interview me thoroughly and then the kids one at a time. She quickly ruled out interviewing Gray because he was so young. But when interviewing Reid, all he could do was lift up his shirt and sing his favorite belly button song. I had no time to prep Parker. I quickly told him to tell the truth...whatever she asked.

Luckily he did and our stories matched up. It didn't sound good when I told her I didn't witness the incident at church. My husband left the house with Parker and Gray (the kid too young to tattle) and Parker came back bruised.

While the social worker was here, she was required to check the bedrooms to make sure everyone had a bed and look in my fridge and cupboards to make sure I had food. The whole thing was quite intrusive.

It's just so odd to think about Spencer as an abuser. He is the gentle, compassionate, sentimental, nurturing one in our relationship. This is so far from his demeanor. Parker's teacher knew that and apologized profusely. But she is required by law to report things like that. She luckily knows Spencer and I and told Children's Services that one, Parker was acting like he was lying. And two, she would not suspect it from our family.

I asked Parker why he lied. He assumed since no one at school goes to our church that no one at school would know what church was. He was too shy to try to explain that to them. Since Spencer had put it into his head that people would think his dad hit him, that was the quickest lie he could conjure up. He's gonna have to get over that if he ever plans to be a missionary. Plus it instigated a nice chat on the importance of being honest.

So our family is under investigation for the next 30 days. A social worker could pop by at any time. It's a little unnerving. We had to nix Parker jumping off the top bunk last night. A broken leg would not look good. We told him to wait until April.

I did shed a couple tears...I'm emotionally charged right now. I have also had a few chuckles over this. But I won't get a good laugh out of it until these 30 days are up and we're in the clear.

It's just the cherry on top.