Going A Courtin'

Yesterday was our small claims court hearing.

Six of the seven families showed up, all armed with copies of cancelled checks, timelines, D's postings on Craigslist, etc.

D did not show up. I didn't expect her to. However, we still had to make our case.

The volunteer judge called all of us plaintiffs up and asked questions. He wanted to know how much we were claiming and why. When Chris said we were claiming the money we spent plus the personal items that weren't returned to us, including some baby bottles, the judge scoffed. Clearly, he doesn't know how expensive clothes, formula, diapers and baby bottles are. That was annoying.

He also said he likely wouldn't award us all of the money we had spent to hire a private investigator. When I explained just how difficult it was to find her, he seemed flippant and uninterested. We didn't just hire a PI because we wanted to! It was because she was almost impossible to track down; the PI never did find out her address.

In all, our testimony was over in 15 minutes. He's going to rule and send us his judgement in a few days. After that comes the even more difficult part of getting her to pay us back, considering, once again, that we don't know where she is!

I don't know what I was expecting, but I certainly was not anticipating the know-it-all attitude of the judge. Now you can see why it was a good idea that we didn't show up on Judge Judy. Chris would have been even more annoyed by her.

After the hearing, one of the dads shared a copy of all the reports written up on D from the family child care licensing office. It was appalling.

Allegations by parents or neighbors are what trigger unannounced visits by licensing.

In February 2010, there were allegations that D's two adult daughters were smoking pot in the garage all day; the same report also alleged that these two daughters got in a fist fight and the police were called (this was confirmed by the dad whose son was there at the time). Of course, the response from D on that paperwork (she had to provide an explanation) was that she denied it ever happening.

In June 2011 (when Charlotte was going there), there was an allegation that an unannounced male was caring for the children. The report said that D claimed that the man was staying with her while he was visiting from Australia and that his car was being stored in the garage. I never heard about this, even though she was supposed to have us all sign reports on unannounced site visits by licensing. I certainly never knew that there was a man there, but obviously someone else saw it. Uggh! Why didn't we parents ever talk to each other.

The final site visit was last October, when we were in Chicago visiting Chris' parents. D had just brought on a new baby, when she had no business doing so. I think one of the parents called licensing on her, which is why the caseworker came unannounced. Sure enough, she found too many children, despite Phoebe not being there that day. In fact, she pretended that Phoebe didn't even go there and didn't show the caseworker her paperwork. We had to re-enroll her when we got back.

Finally, there is the story of what happened to Charlotte's old friend A, who is a few months older than Charlotte and had been at D's from the time she was a few months old until she was 3 and a half. A's mom texted me on Sunday to see if Charlotte ever talked about a guy yelling at her. Apparently, A's been playing and bringing up D recently. A's mom says she's eating a lot less right now and wanting to sleep all the time and that she's concerned that A is depressed. She also asked if Charlotte ever mentioned being yelled at by D and being put in a crib (as a 3 year old!). To hear this is infuriating and sickening. A is a very sweet and sensitive child and not a troublemaker by any means. It's really disturbing that she's mentioning things that happened nearly a year ago, especially since her parents don't mention D to her at all. What was D doing?

I'm glad that D didn't show up yesterday; I'm not sure what I would have said had I seen her.

All of this makes me sick as well as mad at myself again for not trusting my intuition. What it makes me want to do is just get out there and tell people to always check licensing reports. All of this information would have been public and it would have raised serious red flags. I did check licensing before bringing Phoebe to Miss S's house - she has no allegations or violations in the time she's been open. I don't want to discount in-home daycares, because we really are so happy with Miss S. Here are some pictures she sent me last week of their field trips to Fairytale Town and the Folsom Zoo.

Getting food to feed the ducks at Fairytale Town

On the train

Looking at deer