MOTHER OF THE YEAR ~~Distraught~~

This is very amuzing.... Well some isn't but...how could people actually do this to their kids??http://www.azcentral.com/news/columns/articles/1220roberts1220.html



And now my picks for Mom of Year

Laurie Roberts Republic columnist Dec. 20, 2006 12:00 AM

Come now the latest candidates for Arizona's Mother of the Year, two fine nominees who join a crowded field of standouts that simply must be recognized for the rather astonishing levels of maternal care and concern they've demonstrated in 2006.

This year's crop of contenders is a most impressive group, including the usual assortment of mothers who prefer their boyfriends to their kids. Who can forget Janene Allred? She knocked around her 8-year-old daughter one Saturday morning, then locked her in her room and left to visit her boyfriend. Thirty hours later, she came home after a friend notified her that she was on the Sunday evening news.

In April, the tearful mother came to court and asked for her daughter back. "I think I deserve a second chance to be a parent," she told a judge through her tears. The judge was apparently unimpressed, sending poor Janene to prison for 2½ years.

That one's going to be tough to beat, but I'm guessing that our latest nominees will give Janene a run for the title of MOY.

First comes Gardenia Zakrzewski-Johansson, 39, aka Scottsdale's shopping mommy. Zakrzewski-Johansson, as the world by now knows, needed to pick up a gift at Neiman Marcus one afternoon last week. So she grabbed her dog, left her 2-year-old in the BMW and asked the parking valet to keep an eye on the sleeping boy.

Thirty-five minutes later, she returned with a bag of makeup and an air of indignation that police would deign to question her about her parenting technique. "She was uncooperative and kept stating that she did nothing wrong and that the valets were supposed to be watching her child," the Scottsdale police report said.

Turns out it doesn't appear to have been the first time Zakrzewski-Johansson left the baby in the Beemer. On Dec. 4, according to a police report, she'd been browsing for 15 or 20 minutes inside a north Scottsdale jewelry store when she suddenly announced to an employee that her son was in the car and would the employee mind watching him while she went to Starbucks. Several store employees told police that Zakrzewski-Johansson then went to the car, got her dog and disappeared into a nearby Starbucks for another 15 to 20 minutes.

No word on what she and her dog ordered. I'm guessing an Alpo Espresso Macchiato.

While Zakrzewski-Johansson was pondering the unfairness of it all last week, a few miles south in Mesa, Rosanna Kaye Dudley, 36, was trying to force her 12-year-old son into her car. It seems she'd been drinking and the kid didn't want to get in.

Maybe it's because her driver's license was revoked, due to her previous DUIs. Maybe it's because the terms of her month-old probation on a prostitution-related felony offense say she's not supposed to drink. Maybe it's because the kid just plain didn't want to die that day.

At any rate, somebody heard the argument in their apartment parking lot last Wednesday afternoon and called the cops, who found Dudley in the car with the motor running, trying to pull the boy inside.

Dudley, who told police she'd had only one malt liquor beer, smelled boozy, had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech. She was mumbling and made no sense, according to police. While results from blood tests aren't yet back, Mesa Sgt. Chuck Trapani told me Dudley couldn't stand up long enough to perform field sobriety tests.

"The mom was yelling at her son that it was his fault police were there," he said.

Proving once again that there are mothers and there are moms, and just because you are one doesn't mean you even approach being the other.

Show all stories by   Author:  62887 ( Click here )