Yesterday our 3 year old went on a little adventure. My husband came home from doing some errands, we chatted for a bit in our kitchen, leaving our son to play on his own like we always do in an adjacent-but-not-in-eyesight room. He usually watches TV for a bit after his snack, it's been the routine for a year now. Color us surprised when he managed to unlock the front wooden door, open it, unlock the front glass door, and open it, get down our porch all without us noticing. We noticed after about 10min and we freaked out. 911 and 3hr later, he's brought home from a few blocks away: full of mud but otherwise O.K.
I'm not asking if we were the assholes for not paying attention, because I know we full well were. I do want to ask about our neighbor though and if me blowing up at her was justifiably assholish. After we had our baby back, she piped in to the police officers with us in earshot "oh I saw him running across the street, I thought he was playing so didn't do anything". She detailed she knew our kid got out unattended (and did nothing), what direction he went in (and told no one), and previously said she had no idea about anything (lying to cops and us).
I don't get along with my neighbor. She somehow has four cars to their household and frequently parks in our driveway. We don't have a car ourselves. It's been a constant battle over the last five years to get her to stop. She's retaliated, too, but I think this time goes too far. I exploded at her and would have got physical were the police not there.
While I know we should have been more attentive, what my neighbor did was outright malicious. AITA for exploding at her? Is she TA?
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