Having not been there to see it for himself, your ex is gonna imagine the worst. I don't know what to tell you, except to wait and see. Maybe once your ex calms down, you can rationally explain to him exactly what happened, but if he's not the type to listen, then you might find yourself wading up shit creek soon. Be prepared for anything!

Here are your biggest problems... (1) H2B is not the boy's father or even step-father yet; (2) you have a sitter who was an eyewitness to the end result and felt it crossed a line (and it is her legal duty to report it to someone, I'm surprised she didn't call the police); and (3) if the ex did call the police, they are duty-bound to investigate it, possibly with the help of DHS or CPS or whatever they call it where you live. Because there was a visual mark left, no matter how small, DHS may want to do a homestudy and possibly refer you to something... counseling, anger management, whatever, I don't know. If this happens, agree to whatever they want you to do.

As a solution, is there any way you can change your work hours? What about counseling for the child? I think if you are proactive in coming up with a game plan to prevent another incident, and I mean getting on the phone and making an appointment ASAP with a child psychologist or a family therapist, it'll look much better for you. All families have stuff like this that happen, things that were truly not intentional, and the professionals do know that. One incident is not going to cost you custody of your children and even if he does get arrested, I just don't know that the charges would stick. But you are probably going to have to show them that you have made changes to prevent a recurrence.

You know, I remember one time when my son (he was 7 at the time) was being horribly mouthy, disrespectful and rude. He was just spewing all kinds of vitriol, so I reached out and popped him on the cheek. I didn't hit him hard, not even hard enough to leave a slap mark, but I popped him as he was turning around, he lost his balance, fell to the ground and cracked his head on the cabinet. Big goose egg! Boy, did I feel like Mother of the Year that day! Just two weeks ago, I was sitting down on the coach next to my 4yo daughter with a big, not bowl of soup. Well, she plopped down beside me just as I moved my bowl to the left and she ended up dumping it all down her legs. Yep, that was a trip to the E/R. So it does happen.

You guys are going to have to do something about this problem between H2B and BS before it gets any worse, though. Have you talked at all about counseling or anything? Keep us posted and try not to fret too much... it may not be as bad as you think.

~ Anne ~

Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice: Pull down your pants and slide on the ice! -M*A*S*H (Sidney Freedman to the OR staff on dealing with stress)