Things You Wouldn't Want To Have Happen In Front Of A Social Worker #673 -or- Look! My Kid Has An Emerging Skill!

Are there contests out there for longest, most rambling post titles?  I'm certain this one would win if there are.

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile.  It wouldn't be pretty if I did.  So instead, I will leave you with a short and sweet post about an event that occurred yesterday and was so NOT funny that it kind of WAS funny.

M receives some services through a local non-profit agency.  In order to qualify for their respite program, they require you to also apply for the state's in-home social services program.  There's lots of attempting to pass the buck going on in this great state.  Some of it I totally understand, other things become a waste of everyone's time and taxpayer money.

Anyhoo...we finally had our (knowingly unnecessary) meeting with a state social worker yesterday.  She asked me about 90 minutes worth of questions that we both knew were a complete waste of her time since I would never qualify to be paid as M's caretaker.  (I did not leave a job to care for him; I have always been a stay at home Mom to my kids)

The other half happened to be working from home as well and was sitting in a room adjacent to the one we were in, eating his lunch.  Between those two rooms is our open kitchen.  M was doing his typical I-can't-sit-in-one-place wandering which has of late lead to banana peels getting bitten, onions sampled, and any leftover food B may have left at the kitchen table being swiped.  But never before, I mean NEVER BEFORE, has M ever retrieved anything from one of our drawers or cabinets.

I recently tried teaching M that one kitchen drawer held his beloved chew tubes in it.  M is an incessant chewer (come take a look at our dvd collection-you wouldn't believe it!) and if his 'chewy' falls to the floor, he likely won't take the time to locate it again, but will move on to whatever else is closest to him.  So I thought it would be good to show him where he can find them on his own.  Backfire!

So here I am talking to a STATE SOCIAL WORKER, when she looks toward the kitchen and says, 'OHMYGOSH!'  I quickly turn to see M sauntering toward the other half with a flipping 6-inch long BUTCHER KNIFE in his hand that he is sort of flicking back and forth like he would his chewy...and then he actually put the handle in his mouth as he was holding onto the blade part.

Um.  Yeah.

Naturally I yelled to the other half, 'OTHER HALF!!  M HAS A KNIFE!!!'  No harm was done and the other half tried to make a not-very-funny joke that the good news was the knife was ridiculously dull.

As for me and my make-jokes-when-I'm-uncomfortable personality, I tried to quell the situation by saying, 'Hey, look!  M just showed us an emerging skill...opening up drawers!' 

We were very fortunate that this particular social worker had the best personality of any social worker I have met thus far.  She was actually really funny about the whole event, but also quite seriously implored us to please put locks on our drawers now.  I mentioned that I hoped she didn't think we were the worst parents in the world, and she told me, 'No, I have seen those.'  That made me feel better and saddened all at once.

So there is your wow-I-feel-much-better-about-my-own-parenting-skills story of the day!