[Traci Reed]

Let me preface this by saying that in no way am I a perfect mother. I have never claimed to be nor will I ever be and I am aware that we all make mistakes..however....

My neighbor is even further than I from mother of the year. I have a litany of things that I could go on a tirade about but I will display some of her more serious transgressions and ask you what you think, at which point do you call CPS? I am loathe to meddle (thus why I haven't called yet) I think "the system" has the possibility to ruin kids even worse than she can and I have never seen her physically abuse her children, however, she and her husband are the culprits of serious neglect.

My first complaint (or what I noticed first) is that she lets her 4 year old run wild. Our apartment complex is about 3/4 of a mile long and winds and turns and all sorts of stuff and you cannot see from one end to another. She never. ever. knows where he is. She has come to our house multiple times to see if he is here and often stands outside for an hour screaming for him until he happens to (hear)? her or just happens to be on his way back. We live in apartment complex people. With 100 apartments and a huge mess of traffic at times. And he's FOUR. I don't even let my four year old outside if I'm not out there. Besides the traffic, there are some rather "unsavory" characters here that terrify me, who knows what they'd do to my adorable kids.

My second complaint is that she never tags along with her one year old. No, I'm not kidding. She does stay outside with him, yes but she'll stand at one end of the block yakking on the phone and he'll toddle off, often to the main street in the complex, or behind parked cars and she'll run screaming after him when she notices he's in danger. In the last month, I've watched her run screaming down the block when she noticed he was playing in the roundabout AFTER a car screeched it's brakes trying to avoid hitting him. I've watched (and helped) her run screaming around the block trying to find him and he ended up being on the back side of the building playing on the steep cliff-like (especially for a 1 year old) hill that goes down into the forest down there, and Patrick has literally SAVED HIS LIFE as he was playing behind a car that started backing out (as she screamed his name at the top of her lungs helplessly instead of sprinting to the car). He's ONE people.

My third complaint is that the other day during a heated (public) fight with her husband which was very verbally abusive (and loud, right outside MY window) they started fighting over the car keys (with him saying she had no life and didn't need the car while he was at work). At this point the BOTH jump in the car and drive away. You guessed it, leaving all 3 of their kids outside. I decided to go outside and watch the kids, if nothing else than for the baby's sake, and she didn't come back for half an hour. She didn't know anyone was watching her kids. Her oldest is 7 and certainly not old enough to care for the youngers. When she got back, not a word to me or the kids and straight in the house. SHE LEFT HER 1 YEAR OLD OUTSIDE IN A PARKING LOT FOR A HALF HOUR, VIRTUALLY ALONE FOR ALL SHE KNEW. I nearly called CPS right then and there but I didn't know if there happened to be someone in her house watching the kids (out the window?) Which would still be awful, but I'm obviously loathe to call CPS.

There's lots of other unverified things, Patrick is pretty sure she's on Meth, which is a huge problem in our county and also I know she's been busted a few times for things like prostitution and possibly drugs.

So WWYD? Am I making more out of this than I should?