Yvonne Rodriguez

A young Kissimmee mother is in jail without bond after she allegedly left her three small children alone in her apartment Saturday while she shopped and got her nails done.

An anonymous caller to 911 just before 5 p.m. Saturday to the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office stated three children between the ages of 2 and 5 were alone in their apartment on Cobblestone Circle.

When the deputy arrived at the apartment, he found the front door unlocked and ajar, according to police report.

A five-year-old boy opened the door further, surrounded by his two-and-three-year-old sisters, the deputy wrote.

“Policeman, mommy is not here. I watching my sisters. Can you watch us now?” the boy told the deputy, according to the report.

A search of the home found no adults in the apartment. While waiting for an adult to show up, the boy told the deputy his mother, Yvonne Rodriguez, 23, often leaves him to care for his younger siblings when she goes to pick up “Fernando ‘Papi’”.

The deputy called the boy “very mature” in his report but pointed out the child did not know who to contact in an emergency and lacked the skills to properly care for his siblings.

The deputy fed the children snacks and cereal after they complained of hunger and had to have another deputy go purchase cups for the children after none were found in the home to use to give the children something to drink, the police report stated.

An hour and 40 minutes after deputies arrived, Rodriguez returned to the apartment, telling deputies a friend of hers was supposed to be watching the children.

She told police she was only gone an hour to purchase groceries for the children but when deputies pointed out they had been at the apartment longer than that, Rodriguez told them she had gone to Best Buy, Unidos and to get her nails done.

“I’m not a bad mother,” Rodriguez was alleged to have told deputies before apologizing for her “bad parenting skills.”

She denied often leaving her five-year-old son in charge of his younger siblings despite the boy telling deputies otherwise.

The Florida Department of Children and Families responded to the apartment, where they removed the children from Rodriguez and placed them in the care of her parents, Hilda and Roberto Rodriguez, who had arrived on scene.

Yvonne Rodriguez was arrested and charged with three counts of child neglect without great bodily harm. She was taken to the Osceola County Jail and held without bond.