Mom's Don't Take Chances

So, my son, CD, was playing with the neighbor boy. This is the same boy who practically lives here. The boy, whose parents I know really well, but work long strange hours.

We have another neighbor, but not the one with the multiple personality dog that I have mentioned before. This is another neighbor that I have not had any trouble with, but always thought was a "little off". He and his wife have always been nice enough in the past, just a "little off".

Today CD and the neighbor boy were playing outside, as they often do. The "little off" man came out and said to the neighbor boy, "come and and look at the pool". CD wanted to see it too, but was told to mind his own business and stay outside. CD came up stairs in tears, and told me all of this. Well, a red flag immediately went up. Who invites one child in and not the other child, purposely, when the two children are playing together? Especially knowing that we all know each other? The "little off" neighbors have children, but they are both too young to play with the two eight year boys in question, and my son has never been around them to cause any problems that would lead them to bar him from their home. I have never let my son be around them without my direct supervision. There were just too many reasons for me to overlook this event.

I ran outside, drug the neighbor boy back upstairs and went to talk to his parents and let them know what I had learned, and what I had done. Something just wasn't right with that whole encounter and she agreed. My son has been told by me not go in the house for any reason, and to let me know or the neighbor boy's mother know, if the neighbor boy does go inside.

It was just too strange to take lightly, and they aren't people I have been entirely comfortable with to begin with. I am not going to say that anything "off-color" has occurred,it probably hasn't, but I don't know them very well at all, and what I do know is that something isn't entirely right with them. I am not going to wait around and LET anything "off-color" happen. Besides, it doesn't hurt anyone to know, no matter who they are or what their intentions, that I am paying attention anyway.

By the way, my paying attention isn't the only thing that I insist on doing to be sure CD is safe. CD has to tell me where he is going to be, and be home by certain check in times. He has a watch on before he leaves this house. If he can't find his watch he stays home until he does. The check in times are always different intervals. Sometimes a half hour, sometimes 15 minutes, sometimes seven minutes, or sometimes five. If he is going to be indoors at a trusted friends house, then maybe a little longer, but there is always a check in time. If he doesn't make it home by the time I have laid forth, I get to go looking for him, or Dad-E does. If we have to go looking for him, and he just lost track of time, he comes home for the rest of the day no matter what his excuse. That way he remembers to watch the time. If he isn't where he said he would be when we go looking for him, he will be dead when we find him, if he isn't already. Ok, so we wouldn't really kill him, just talk to him until he wishes he were dead. Yes, I have this talent. I have honed it for eight years, and was taught by the master, my mother.