Thank you all so much for your prayers and kindness. 

CPS released T into his father's custody on Friday, so fortunately he didn't have to spend the weekend in a foster home, just one night.  (Not that there is anything wrong with foster care, but it has to be traumatic for the child involved.)  In court this morning, he was awarded temporary custody, pending another court date on July 21.  The mother and step-father will have only supervised visitation until that time.  They also ordered him to stop paying child support for the time being, and instead the mother will be paying him $25/week.

We are hoping that all good things come out of this in the end.  At this point, they are looking favorable as the custodial parents.  Both work full-time jobs, neither one of them believe that children should be disciplined by physical violence, and they won't shuttle the poor kid from pillar to post, leaving him with whomever to watch him, as he's being treated now.  They'll also do little things like pay attention to him, read to him, and work towards getting him ready for kindergarten, which at this point, he's woefully behind.  They actually want him around and he won't feel like he's a burden being there.

In response to a couple of your comments about the mother, and whether or not she knew this was going on, all I will say is that she herself has been guilty also of mistreatment by physical force.  Not with the regularity that the step-father has, but T has had bruises inflicted by her, and once had a pretty nasty cut on his face where her ring caught him when she hit him.  Not sure who took their cues from whom that hitting this child was OK when he misbehaved, but its obvious that it has been going on for awhile and escalating.  My daughter's biggest fear was that some kind of serious injury would be inflicted upon him before it all came to a stop.  Hopefully now it has stopped, and he won't be subjected to that kind of mistreatment again, providing the court recognizes he is in a dangerous situation and strives to keep him out of it.  At least for the time being he is safe.   Praise God!

Happy blogging.