At the beginning of July, Mari and I spent a day cutting a hole in our the wall between our bedroom and the walk-in closet of the adjoining room. Restoring a doorway, actually. Our house is over 100 years old, but was "updated" by a developer about 7 years ago and I spend a lot of time walking around frowning and complaining about how if one is going to fool around with 100yo architecture, one had better think a long time about it.
In houses built before air conditioning and zoned heating, a lot of thought was given to air flow. One cannot just build a wall where there never was one and expect it to all work out. It has always been stuffy and airless in our bedroom, in spite of having two eight-foot tall windows in there. It took us 3 years to figure out what the problem was. Ever since then, we have been talking about removing the patch in the wall and reframing it, reseating the closet on the other side, yayaya.
It was really, really hot in the beginning of July, night and day, so I woke up one day, completely deranged, more insomniac-suffering than usual, and said that today was the day that Mari would cut through the silhouette of the seam on our bedroom wall or I would take care of it myself with a sledgehammer.
While the children were at camp we took everything out of the closet, moved everything out of the bedroom. Mari cut a big, 
drywall-y hole in the wall, dust was all over the second floor, just everywhere. I was downstairs cooking eggplants and then later, when everyone was all unshowered and covered in drywall dust and blood and olive oil, the "Mommy Police" came to our door. It is necessary that one think of this term a tad euphemistically.
I do not want to spend too much time on the visit from the "Mommy Police," but they were called because of a counterfeit concern propped up mostly on the vindictiveness of Old Ms Officious + Bitchy Neighbor. I could not actually believe they came over -- what with their incredibly busy schedules -- to check up on an allegation of Too Much Hollering (hollering what? Get down in the dungeon?? Hurry, so I can drink gin and turn tricks?? I am from Chicago. We are a hollering lot. I cannot help it, I am loud.) and Physical Restraint. Physical restraint, really? Ropes and latex tubing? No. Mommy wishes, and not for the little darlings. Old Ms O+BN reported normal grabbing & squeezing of an oppositional + defiant + fisty 5-, 6-, 7-, then 8-year-old boy.
The whole thing irritated me. Not because Old Ms O+BN called the Mommy Police, not really. If someone really believes children are being mistreated, then it is their moral obligation to get involved. (Although if anyone thinks my children are mistreated, they probably need to get out more + stop watching that kind of cinematic horseshit where everything school-age children do & say is precious & wise & important. Maybe spend an hour or two at the local Walmart.) because it was bullshit. It is bullshit because she has never had a conversation with my children, ever, even though they are out in the street long hours playing & drawing with sidewalk chalk and also home all day long, in the main.
It is furthermore extra triple-plus bullshit because the one neighbor who is a friend and knows us well and will sometimes babysit the children for us is a social worker. Also, Old Ms O+BN's very next-door neighbor. But Old Ms O+BN never dropped by with a word for her. Or, me, for that matter! What about me? What about going over and saying, "Hey, you hollerer, why don't you let those kids come on over and weed my garden?" Ms O+BN would never do that because something so sensible is the provenance of reasonable people and also, MS O+BN does not have children (nor spouse! nor love interest!) and perfect mothering ideals are the exclusive provenance of the childless since they have all the fucking time in the world to polish them and admire their vainglorious idiocy.
The Mommy Police Officer was very kind & professional & thorough. When the Mommy Police Officer comes to your house -- even if it is covered in dust & you in blood and olive oil & your husband in bits of drywall all over and everything you never unpacked is out of the closet and piled up in the hallway between the second and third floors -- it is probably a good idea to smile widely and invite her right in. Apologize for your douchebag neighbor, then assure her that you know she has forms to fill out and get to work. She will feel torn between your candor and your obvious busyness plus her necessary business and then you must smile still more sincerely + encouragingly as befits the daughter of the real police, and insist that she take her time doing her job and that you will love to help.
She will ask a number of questions about the children's and the family's administrative associations -- school, pediatricians, organizations -- and ask you to sign off on her checking with the physician to confirm the children receive adequate care when required. It does not have to be a medical doctor, presumably it can be a shaman or a naturopath, as long as the children have never been neglected according to that paradigm. There will be a lot of rooting around through one's filofax for numbers one never needs. Then, she will ask to be taken on a tour of the house: the kitchen to establish that the stove, water heater, and refrigerator, are in good repair and that the last is appropriately stocked with provisions; the rest of the house to look for evidence of the children's activities and to make sure they do not sleep on a little bed of nails in the basement.
By then, the children will have been fetched from camp by a cleaned-up co-parent and then she will interview them alone. She will ask if they have ever been harmed at your hand, if, how, and by what method & frequency they are punished, and that is all. Then she leaves. The Mommy Police are supposed to visit two times before they can clear a case, but she already called me and pretty much said, "You are not my priority because I have real work to do, so see you for this second visit sometime in 2010."
So, that. Forget about all that, it just spilled out because the point is: the timing of it was so excellent! Of course, of course, the Mommy Police have never even driven past my house all the other 25,000 
days of parenting that it was clean & tidy and I was beatific & well-groomed. No, she came by on the day we were doing demolition in 98-degree heat. Awesome! More awesome, our house is now -- as constructed -- an excellent thermodynamo! During this last heat wave, it was hardly above 83 inside and when the weather broke last night, our relief was instantaneous! No waiting till 2010 or when they turn 18!
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