Year around

Last half of the school year.

Haven't seen Harold since before Christmas, they've changed all the numbers I've had for them. I heard from one of Libby's friends she's pregnant or could be. Then she wonders why I give her a funny look every time she says we're family...

Summertime

We got to see Harold for a few days, then Libby let him go to PA to spend a few weeks with Mark, his father Doug, and Doug's wife Kimberly. While Harold was away Sophie was born. We had seen Libby a couple of times even visiting Libby at the hospital after the baby was born.

Sometime later Mom and I ran into Libby and Steve at Safeway shortly after Sophie was born, she was asleep in the car seat Steve was carrying. We were talking to Libby, and Steve set Sophie (still asleep in the car seat) on the table while he looked at the free magazines. When he found one he liked he flicked it into the car seat hitting Sophie in the face with it. Mom expressed concern over this since not only did it wake Sophie up but it left a red mark on her face where he hit her. It hadn't broken the skin but it was like a bright red bloody mark under the skin. Due to Mom bitching out Steve about the damage he could have done to Sophie Libby took her and went inside. Steve simply told Mom it was his daughter and he would do what he wanted and followed Libby. I stopped Mom from following them and got her to go home. Where Mom called the cops and CSD. We didn't see them again until the end of summer when we got Harold for a couple of weeks. When we returned Harold to them Lance (Steve's brother) again spoke with Ann's dad privately and expressed concerns over the paternity of Sophie. Again, stating that he didn't want Harold there and now he didn't Sophie there as neither was related to him.

During that fall

Once school resumed CSD was again called on Libby and Steve, due to Harold's lack of hygiene. Libby told them that IF they took the kids she would like me to have them. When they spoke to me said that wouldn't be an issue. At this point, Libby began telling me of all the issues that she'd been having with Harold. His behavioral issues, lack of hygiene, school, and everything. She began letting us take him more often again. He and I spoke privately about many of the issues he was having, the following are some examples

Not doing his laundry: The washer and dryer belonged to Lance and while Harold knew how to use them he wasn't comfortable with it because he was worried if something happened to the washer or dryer he would be blamed and Lance would flip out on him and physically hurt him.

Harold was failing school: He had no time to study as he was busy doing "chores" and taking care of Sophie from the time he got home until bed. Given that I'd seen how Libby took care of Harold, I figured that he would be taking care of Sophie mostly by himself. Steve was of the opinion that tending to a child was the woman's job.

Not doing as he was told: Many of the times where this was brought up it was because he didn't understand or know what they wanted him to do or how to accomplish it. (Example: They told him to stack wood parallel to a hill with a 60+ degree grade but didn't tell him to make a Jack's Ladder to keep the logs from rolling down the hill. Then started yelling at him when the logs rolled down the hill and Steve called me to come "fix it".)

Hygiene: He'd been listening to the adults complain about the water and/or sewer problem and didn't want to add to it by taking more showers, etc. so he only took 2-3 min showers where he rinsed off with water and got out.

Cat piss-soaked clothes: There were over 30 cats and several dogs when CSD was called. Harold stated he couldn't smell the cat piss, as long as the clothes felt dry he would wear them. In the end, CSD made them get rid of all but two of the cats, and arrangements were made through them with me for Harold to come down on the weekends to do his laundry. That was fine.

Harold began saying he "didn't remember" or "didn't know" excessively, about things that were expected of him, things that were asked of him, and so forth. It got to the extreme of him claiming to forget questions that we just asked less than 2 min beforehand. I was able to work around this by making him say the question back to me, to make sure he understood it. Sadly Libby, Steve, nor Steve's family bothered to continue this, and when Harold would say this to them. They would tell him to go away. It was obvious to me it was like a get-out-of-jail-free card for him. Not that I could blame him but I felt like he may have abused this escape clause.

Winter

At some point, Libby and Steve had moved back to his family's property during the past summer. So we were heading up there to return Harold after a visit. When we arrived Lance was babysitting some goats for a neighbor. Well, somehow the Billy goat had got his head caught on in the fence, rather than deal with it rationally Lance (in front of my parents, myself, Libby, Steve, Harold, Sophie, and anyone driving by), went out screaming about killing the goats, everyone could go fuck themselves, at the top of his lungs, grabbed a hold of the fence, started jerking it up and down as hard as he could. He even ripped a couple of the fence posts up in the process the poor goat was just being jerked around, you could see him be jerked up off his feet and then slammed back down. Mom asked Libby if he was trying to kill the poor thing, and since we had just been talking to Harold about his violent outbursts, I took the opportunity to tell him that what Lance was doing was completely unacceptable for anyone older than Sophie. He and I spoke about it for about 10 min. Harold told Libby that the outburst we were witnessing was why he didn't want to use anything of Lance's. Libby brushed this off by saying that Lance had never hit him. Which hadn't been the question or the point of the comment. A few days later Libby called me to tell me that CSD was again called on them on the grounds of child endangerment by one of the neighbors. The neighbor had apparently come over after CSD left and told them she wasn't going to stop until the children were safely away from Steve's family and that Libby was stupid if she thought this was a good environment for her children.