A Second Chance
Part 4
The last week had gone really well. On Tuesday Mommy took me to a new doctor. Dr. Gordon was Billy’s pediatrician, and now he was going to be my pediatrician, as well. He was a really nice doctor. He gave me a very thorough exam from head to toe. He wanted to do some blood tests on me, but his nurse couldn’t draw blood from me with my arms in the casts, which was just fine with me. He also had my x-rays and medical records, which Mommy had gotten Miss Shelly to get for us.
The really depressing part of the visit was when I was weighed and measured. I only weighed 45 pounds, from which the nurse deducted a few pounds because of my casts, and I was only 44 inches tall. The doctor took out a growth chart and showed it to Mommy and me. It was a graph with two sets of wavy lines on it that showed the range of average heights and weights of boys at all ages from two to twenty. It listed stature—I had had to ask to find out that that meant height—at the top of the graph and weight at the bottom. I didn’t really understand the whole chart but he showed me where I was, and where I was supposed to be, and I was way below where I was supposed to be. Even as a small ten-year-old I should have been at least six inches taller and weigh ten pounds more. If I were an average size ten-year-old I would need to be a foot taller and twenty pounds heavier. As it was, I was the size of a slightly below average six-year-old.
The doctor told us that I might catch up, and I would certainly grow more, but that I might always be small because a lot of developmental milestones—I didn’t know what those were—take place in the early years, and I could have missed those because I had been so malnourished—he finally explained to me what that was—for so long. He said I had probably been underfed for the last five or six years. He told us that malnourishment might also explain my bedwetting because it may have caused me to have an underdeveloped bladder. He said that an underdeveloped bladder could have also been caused by me being born prematurely and addicted to crack in the womb. He told us that I might be a bedwetter for the rest of my life because of that, but it was really too early to tell.
All that news made me feel really bad, but Mommy held me and comforted me. She told me it didn’t matter that I was small because lots of people were small, and they were no worse than anyone else. That made me feel better. I also got a lollypop when we left the Doctor’s office, which made me feel a little better, too.
After leaving the doctor’s office, Mommy took me to a barbershop where we got my hair cut. Mommy asked me how I wanted my hair cut, but I really didn’t know. I wasn’t one to really care about my hair all that much. Mommy thought I would look better with my hair trimmed pretty short, so we decided to do that. I had kind of messy, brown hair that got tangled and stuck up a lot, so short hair would probably be best anyway. The lady barber—I found out they were called hair stylists—spent quite a while cutting a lot of hair off of me. When she was done I could actually see the tops of my ears and my eyebrows in the mirror, and I thought I looked pretty good.
On Wednesday, Mommy had taken me to Billy’s school, which I found out was a private school, where I had taken a bunch of hard tests to see how smart I was. On Thursday, I had stayed home with Ms. Rosie while Mommy and Daddy went to the school to talk with the people there about me. When they got home they took me to the den and sat down with me. They told me that I was a little below where I was supposed to be in reading, writing, and math.
“Does that mean I’m dumb?” I had asked sadly.
“Of course not, baby,” Mommy assured me. “That just means you haven’t learned enough, yet.”
They told me I probably just hadn’t had enough help with schoolwork over the years, and that moving around from home to home and to different schools probably had only made things worse. That made sense, because I couldn’t really remember ever having any of my foster families help me with homework, or take much of an interest at all in my education.
They told me that the school had suggested that I be kept out of school for the rest of the semester, and then I could start up again with the fifth grade in January. In the meantime, Mommy and Daddy were going to look for a tutor to come to the house and home-school me so that I could catch up with everyone else in my grade. I kind of liked that because then I wouldn’t have to go to school until after my casts were off, which was good because it was still hard for me to do things by myself with them on.
When I wasn’t at the doctor’s or at the school taking those tests I was either at home being a baby, or off with Mommy running errands. She had taken the whole week off from work so that she could stay home and take care of me. Mostly we stayed home and she played with me, read me stories, and did other fun stuff with me. I was fed a lot of bottles, and whenever I was hungry Mommy and Ms. Rosie stuffed me with a ton of food.
I was also getting more used to my diapers. By Friday it was getting easier to pee in my diapers whenever I wanted, and my diapers were almost always wet. I was already starting to like my diapers when they were wet, and I usually tried to pee as soon as I was changed so my diapers would be wet again. After Monday, I had pooped in my diapers at least once a day and sometimes twice. On Wednesday, Ms. Rosie had made Mexican food for us for supper, and I had pooped four times the next day because of it. I was getting used to my poopy diapers, but it was taking me longer to do that, since I didn’t poop nearly as often as I peed. Whenever I pooped I usually sat around in my mess for an hour or two until Mommy or Ms. Rosie got around to changing me. Since I wasn’t allowed to ask to be changed, I just had to sit around until someone noticed the smell and came to check on me, but I really didn’t mind that.
Every day I seemed to like being a baby more. I didn’t even mind when we went out and Mommy dressed me in babyish looking clothes. She took me shopping and even to the doctor in outfits similar to the one I had worn on our outing on Monday. The only time I had worn “big boy” clothes since coming here was when I took the tests as the school. It was still embarrassing when people stared at me, but no one had said anything to me or been mean, yet, so I decided I could live with some minor, temporary embarrassment, especially since whenever I was upset about it Mommy would hold me and comfort me.
On Friday, I slept in until Mommy came in to wake me up. The last few days I had woken up with Billy in the morning, but for some reason I didn’t wake up then this morning, and he was already gone when she woke me.
“Good morning, baby,” said Mommy as she picked me up out of my crib and gave me a hug.
“Morning, Mommy,” I said tiredly.
“We’ve got another big day, today, baby,” she told me as she carried me over to the changing table. “We’re going to see the eye doctor, this morning.”
Miss Shelly and Mommy hadn’t been able to find any record of me ever having my vision checked, so Mommy decided that I needed to go see an optometrist. We were going today to take care of that. I didn’t really want to go see another doctor, but Mommy had told me that eye doctors didn’t really do anything that hurt, so I wasn’t too worried.
Mommy got me changed into a new set of cloth diapers. I was now wearing nothing but my very own diapers. Mommy didn’t really like the fit of either the smaller or the larger-size diapers she had bought for me on Monday, so she wound up using a combination. She used two of the smaller diapers stacked inside two of the larger size diapers, which turned out to fit me very well. The new, smaller diapers came up to about three inches past my bellybutton when they were pinned on snugly. They were the same thickness as Billy’s diapers, so they still bulged a lot, but I was starting to like my thick diapers. When I went to the school for the tests on Wednesday, Mommy had only put two diapers on me so that I would fit into my big boy jeans, which still only barely squeezed over the diapers. I found that I didn’t like the diapers thinner. They just didn’t feel right in between my legs.
I had also noticed that Billy’s diapers, that I had been wearing, were much dingier and grayer than the new diapers Mommy bought for me. They looked fine by themselves, but when I saw his diapers next to mine, mine looked much better and whiter. I guess that came from the fact that his had been used so much, and they were just stained. Some of his diapers even had brown stains in the center of them where it was obvious that poopy stains had set in.
After I had a clean set of my diapers and a fresh pair of crinkly, plastic pants on, Mommy sat me up and went to my bureau to get me some clothes to wear. Earlier in the week, she had pulled out a bunch of Billy’s old clothes and put them in the bureau that was now considered mine. She went through some drawers and brought a small pile of them over to me. She unfolded a t-shirt and put it on me. It was white t-shirt with blue sleeves, and blue stripes going across it. She pulled the shirt on me and then unfolded a pair of overalls that were the same blue as the t-shirt. She got them on my legs and pulled the garment up over me. Earlier in the week, I had found out that all of Billy’s babyish pants had snaps in the crotches and inseams, which Mommy said made diaper changes easier. The overalls were no exception, which was good because the snaps made it easier for her to put the garment on over the cast on my left leg.
When the overalls were on, Mommy got a pair of socks and one of my new shoes. She put a sock on my right foot and then another over my toes and the lower part of the cast on my left foot. She told me it had gotten just a little cool out, and she didn’t want my toes to get cold. She put the shoe on my right foot and that completed my outfit. She grabbed the diaper bag, which was always by the changing table, and checked to make sure it was stocked with diapers and changing supplies. She slung it over her shoulder and picked me up. She carried me downstairs and to the kitchen, where, as expected, I saw Ms. Rosie at work.
“Buenos Días, Señora Rosie!” I greeted her happily. Over the last few days she had already taught me a few simple phrases in Spanish, or español as she called it.
“Buenos Días, mijito,” she replied. “Como estás?”
“I’m good, thank you,” I said.
Mommy carried me over to the highchair and strapped me into it.
“What would you like for breakfast, mijito?” Ms. Rosie asked me.
“Um, pancakes!” I said after a moment’s thought.
“Something a little faster, baby,” Mommy said. “How about some oatmeal?”
“Okay,” I said cheerfully.
I had been eating a lot of oatmeal for breakfast. I couldn’t remember eating it very often before I came here, but I had come to really like it. Mommy said it was good for me to eat it because it kept me regular. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it must have been a good thing.
Mommy made me some oatmeal while Ms. Rosie went about cleaning and doing whatever else she always did. I had noticed it seemed that Ms. Rosie was always busy doing something. She was always cleaning something, doing laundry, or doing a host of other things. She was a very hard worker, but she also made sure to take a little time to teach me some Spanish or just sit and talk to me, feed me a bottle, or make me snacks. She was also very good at changing my diapers. She was a very good nanny.
When my oatmeal was finished Mommy brought it over to me along with a sippy cup of milk. She fed me my oatmeal, in which she had put some raisins, and some toast with peach preserves on it. After breakfast we went upstairs to the nursery again, where Mommy brushed my teeth. After that we had to leave because my appointment was in twenty minutes. Mommy put me in the now familiar car seat in the back of the SUV. She climbed into the front seat, opened the garage door, started the car, and began to back us out of the garage.
“Mommy, we forgot Squeaker!” I suddenly yelled.
She slammed on the break causing my head to slam into the cushy headrest behind me.
“Baby, can’t you go without him, for once?” she asked. “We’ll be back in an hour.”
“No, Mommy,” I said quietly, but pitifully. “Please?”
She sighed and put the car in park.
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
I smiled as she got out of the car and ran inside. She came back out a minute later with my orange teddy bear. I had named him Squeaker because he had a thingy in him that squeaked when his tummy was squeezed. She opened the back door and handed him to me. I hugged him tightly, causing him to squeak. Squeaker and I had become very attached over the last few days, and he was only rarely out of my sight or personal possession. He pretty much went everywhere with me.
“Thank you, Mommy,” I said. “I love you.”
“Hmm,” she smiled. “I love you, too, baby.”
She leaned into the back seat and gave me a quick kiss before she climbed back into the driver’s seat.
Then, we were off again. We got out of the neighborhood and headed into the center of town. We pulled into a shopping center, which I found out was the same shopping center that the pharmacy we had visited on Monday was in. Mommy pulled up in front of the eye doctor’s office. She got the stroller out of the back and brought it around to my door. She got me out of the car seat and strapped me into the stroller. She then took my arm slings out and put them on over my casts and around my neck.
“Is Squeaker coming with you, or is he going to keep your car seat warm for you?” she asked holding Squeaker up.
“He’s coming with me,” I said immediately, reaching up toward him as best I could with my arm casts and slings on.
She handed him to me and I put him between my chest and my arms, which were stacked one in front of the other in front of me.
She grabbed the diaper bag and slung it over the back of the stroller, and then she pushed me toward the office door. She pushed me into the office and went up to the receptionist, who was sitting at a desk behind a counter. She got a clipboard from the receptionist lady, and then pushed me over to a seat so she could sit down next to me. She began filling out a bunch of paperwork that the doctor needed in order to see me.
While she did that I sat there quietly looking around. I noticed some other patients sitting on the far side of the waiting room. There was a lady about Mommy’s age and two girls. One of the girls was about my size, meaning she was almost certainly younger than me, and her sister was probably a couple of years younger than her. I noticed the younger girl lean over to her sister as she stared at me. She whispered something to her big sister and pointed in my general direction. The girls both started to giggle just a little. They were almost certainly making fun of me. I didn’t know if it was my teddy bear, my clothes, the stroller, or perhaps the babyish diaper bag behind my head, but they had definitely picked up that I looked a little more immature than I should. All I could do was glow in humiliation and try to look away. They kept whispering and giggling amongst themselves for what seemed like an eternity. I kept looking at them out of the corner of my eye silently imploring them to shut up. Finally, their mom reproached them into silence.
By then, Mommy had finished filling out the paperwork, and she returned it to the nurse. She then came back over to me and bent over and unstrapped my restraints. She picked me up and sat down with me sitting in her lap sideways. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me to her chest. I rested my head on her shoulder and let out a satisfied sigh. My back was to those annoying girls, who I knew were still probably quietly making fun of me to themselves. I didn’t know if Mommy was holding me because she heard those girls making fun of me and thought I needed some comforting, or if she just wanted to hold me, but I really didn’t care. All I cared was that once I was in her lap, it seemed like nothing could go wrong. Everything was right with the world so long as I was in Mommy’s lap.
A few minutes later, a nurse came out and called me back. Mommy put me back in the stroller without strapping me in and pushed me through the door into the inner office. Apparently, those girls’ appointments were later than mine, because they were still waiting there. I was taken back to a little area where the nurse gave me a bunch of simple, vision tests. There were some cards with pictures on them and I had to look at them and tell her which objects in the pictures were sticking out. She said that was to test my depth perception. I wasn’t sure what that even was. There were a bunch of other tests like that. She then had me look at pictures of a bunch of different colored dots to test my color vision. I could see all the numbers made of dots, so my color vision was fine. I also had to put my face up to a weird, kind of scary contraption that blew a little puff of air into my eyes. The nurse told me that was to measure the pressure inside my eyeballs.
There were a few other tests with some other funny machines. When all those tests were done, the nurse put some drops in my eyes that were supposed to numb my eyes, and some more drops that were supposed to dilate them. I had to asked what that meant to find out that it made my pupils get really big so more light would come in, and the doctor could look into and actually see inside my eyes. I thought that was kind of neat. I was then taken into an exam room that was kind of dark. Mommy put me into a soft, padded chair that was in the room.
We waited for a few minutes until a man wearing a white coat came in.
“Good morning,” he said cheerfully.
“Hi, Dr. Harrison,” Mommy greeted him.
“Hi, Jan,” he said. “Nice to see you again. I see you have another little patient for me.”
“That’s right,” she confirmed.
“You must be, Thaddeus,” he said to me.
He came up and sat down on a little stool next to me.
“Say hi, Taddy,” Mommy reminded me.
“Hello,” I said nervously.
“Have you ever been to an optometrist?” he asked me.
“No, sir,” I squeaked.
“Well, I can tell you that I’m not going to cause you any owies,” he said. “I’m the most painless doctor you’ve ever seen.”
I nodded and tried to smile. That sounded good, and he seemed pretty nice.
“I want to get a look at that little shiner you have there, first,” he said.
He came around to my left side where my formerly black eye was. Over the past few days it and all of my bruises had faded considerably. They had gone from purples and blues to shades of yellow and brown. They were kind of ugly, but only the worst of the bruises still hurt.
He gave my left eye and the area all around it a thorough exam.
“Did your eye swell shut after it got hit?” he asked me.
“Uh huh,” I said sadly, remembering when that mean man had punched me there.
“Well, the eye itself looks very good,” he said. “And no broken bones around it, either. Looks like just some soft tissue bruising. I don’t think there’s any permanent damage.”
I guess that was good.
He then looked at my other eye. He gave it a thorough exam too, but he didn’t poke and prod around it as much. After he shined some lights into my eye from some little scope he was holding, he started with the rest of the exam.
He turned the already dim lights off, leaving only a single light in the room that illuminated a white, eye chart on the wall in front of me. He had me look at the eye chart and read from it, which wasn’t too hard, since I obviously knew the alphabet. Then he pulled a weird looking contraption out.
“Now, Taddy,” he said. “This is a special set of goggles, called a phoropter, that is going to help me find out how good your vision is. I’m just going to set it in front of your face in front of your eyes. It won’t hurt at all. You’ll just feel it touching your nose and cheeks.”
I nodded as he pulled the thing down in front of me. It was attached to the back of the chair by a big arm. He got the thing over my face and adjusted it so that I could look through two holes on it. I could see the eye chart on the wall through the holes.
For the next several minutes he turned a bunch of dials and switches on the contraption that moved different lenses in front of my eyes. Some of the lenses made my vision really blurry, but others didn’t seem to do much at all. He would put two different lenses in front of one eye and ask me to tell him which one made my vision clearer. He did that over and over on both eyes until I got really bored with it.
Finally, he was done with that. He did a few other tests, including one where he shined a really bright light in my eyes and looked inside my eyes with what he said was a special microscope. None of them were quite as long as the one with the phoropter thing, so the exam didn’t take much longer. When he was done he turned the lights back on and made some notes on a manila folder that he had brought in with him.
“Well, Taddy,” he said after a few minutes. “I think we need to get you some glasses.”
I was shocked and mortified by that. How could I need glasses? I thought I had done pretty well on the tests.
“What seems to be the problem, Doctor?” asked Mommy.
“It seems Taddy is just a little bit nearsighted,” he said. “And he has some slight astigmatism.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Well, nearsighted means things that are far away look sort of blurry to you,” he said. “And astigmatism means your eyes aren’t shaped quite right, which means you have to squint sometimes to make things look clearer. Do you have trouble seeing the chalkboard at school?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged.
“Do you get headaches during the day after you’ve been reading the chalkboard for a while?” he asked.
I thought about that for a second. Then I remember that I did sometimes get headaches at school.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sometimes, but not really bad.”
“Well, that’s from your vision,” he said. “Your eyes are straining too much to see things that are far away, which gives you a headache.”
I was really upset by that. I didn’t want to wear glasses.
“But don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not really bad. You won’t have to wear really thick glasses, just little, thin ones.”
“I have to?” I asked.
“I’ll put it this way,” he said. “If you don’t wear glasses, your vision will probably get worse, which means you’ll have to wear thicker glasses later on. If you wear glasses, your vision might actually get better. Some kids grow out of mild nearsightedness and astigmatism, and then you wouldn’t have to wear glasses at all once you’re older.”
I thought about that for a second. That didn’t sound so bad. Maybe if I wore glasses for a little while my vision would get better and I wouldn’t need them anymore.
“Let me go get you prescription written up,” he told me. “And then your mom can take you right next door to the eyeglasses store.”
I nodded sadly as he got up to leave the room. I looked over at Mommy when he was gone.
“Do I have to wear glasses?” I asked whiningly.
“Yes, baby,” she said. “You don’t want your vision to get any worse, do you?”
“No,” I replied.
“Then you have to wear glasses,” she said.
“Okay,” I replied sadly.
“It won’t be that bad, baby,” she said. “Celli wears glasses.”
“She does?” I asked.
“Yep,” she said. “It’s just now that she’s older she wears contact lenses, so you never see her glasses.”
“Oh,” I replied.
If my big sister could wear glasses, then I guess I could, too.
A few minutes later, Dr. Harrison came back in. He handed Mommy a slip of paper.
“Okay, big guy,” he said to me. “You’re all taken care of. Don’t worry, okay. You’ll look very good in glasses.”
“I will?” I asked hopefully.
“Yep,” he said. “I can tell. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
I nodded, slightly reassured.
“And before you go, I need to give you one last thing,” he said. “Well, actually two last things. One is a pair of sunglasses.”
He pulled something out of his coat pocket and unfolded it to reveal that it was a pair of paper and plastic sunglasses.
“Since we dilated your eyes, you’re going to be sensitive to bright light for a few hours,” he said. “So you need to wear these for a few hours at least. You can take them off inside if the room isn’t too bright, or whenever you feel that the light outside doesn’t hurt your eyes.”
He leaned forward and put the glasses on me. They were pretty silly looking. They were big on me, and they were squarish and kind of stupid looking, but I suppose they weren’t designed to look stylish.
“And the other thing is a Blow-Pop,” he said as he held up the piece of candy to me.
“Thank you,” I said smiling as I took it from him rather awkwardly with one hand.
“Do you think your teddy bear would like one?” he asked.
“Um, probably not,” I said. “But do you think I could take one for my brother?”
“Sure you could,” he said. “That’s very thoughtful of you. I think Billy would like that. Speaking of Billy, he hasn’t been in to see me in a while, Jan. Maybe you should bring him in.”
“I suppose it has been a while, hasn’t it?” replied Mommy. “Let me give you a call next week, and I’ll try to set something up.”
Dr. Harrison nodded, told us goodbye, and left us alone. Mommy got me back in the stroller.
“Does Billy wear glasses, too?” I asked almost hopefully as she strapped me into its seat.
“No, baby,” she said. “But he still has to get his eyes checked every year or two.”
She pushed me out of the exam room and back out to the waiting area. I was glad that I didn’t see those girls that had been making fun of me. I guess they were already in another exam room. I knew it was mean, but I hoped they had to wear glasses, too, big, thick glasses.
After Mommy paid for the visit and I got another lollypop for Billy, we left the office. She pushed me right next door to the neighboring eyeglass store. We went inside where we were greeted by a saleslady. Mommy told her we were here to look at some glasses for me. The lady led us over to the section that had children’s frames. There were dozens of eyeglass frames on display racks. Some were obviously ugly and I didn’t like them, but there were others that didn’t look too bad. I couldn’t really make up my mind about what I wanted, so Mommy started to pull frames off the racks and put them on me. We tried on several pairs, and I kind of just let Mommy look at me and decide how I looked in them.
Finally she found a pair she liked. She unstrapped me from the stroller and picked me up. She held me up to a mirror that was on the wall next to all of the frames.
I looked at myself in the mirror. The glasses were thin, wire-framed, and brass in color. They were trimmed in sort of brown and black striped colors. The saleslady called that tortoise-shell, which I didn’t quite understand because I thought tortoises were supposed to be green. I guess they looked pretty good on me. The lenses were sort of flattened ovals and didn’t look too big on me.
“What do you think, baby?” Mommy asked me.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“Do you like them?” she asked.
“I guess,” I said with a shrug.
“I think they look great on you,” she said. “You look very handsome. Why don’t we get them?”
“Okay,” I said
We got those frames, and Mommy picked out another cheaper set of frames for me because she said I needed an extra pair of glasses just in case something happened to the good pair. Mommy filled out a bunch of stuff for the lady and purchased the glasses for me. We were told the glasses would be ready in an hour or so.
We left the store, and Mommy decided we could run some errands while we waited for the glasses. She got me back into the SUV, and we left the shopping strip. We went to the bank where Mommy had to do something real quick, and then we went to the grocery store because Mommy said we needed baby powder and baby wipes.
As Mommy was taking me out of the car at the grocery store I took the opportunity to poop my diapers. I had needed to go for a while, but I didn’t want to poop in front of Mommy and the saleslady at the eyeglass place, and found it hard to poop strapped into the car seat because I was sitting directly on my butt hole, and nothing would come out. I couldn’t move around very well in the car seat to get into a more comfortable pooping position. When Mommy picked me up, the pressure on my anus was relieved, and I almost immediately filled my diapers. My diapers had already been peed in a few of times earlier in the morning, and the large load of excrement I released only added to the mess. Mommy set me down in my stroller, which squished my poop all over the inside of my diapers.
Once I was strapped in, Mommy pushed me into the grocery store. We didn’t need to get much, so my lap served as our shopping cart. We went straight to the baby aisle where Mommy grabbed two, large, refill bags of baby wipes and two, large, white canisters of baby powder. She piled everything on my lap, but none of it was really heavy, so it didn’t hurt or anything.
That was all we needed, so we then headed to the front of the store and got in a checkout line. As she pushed me through the aisle I found myself staring at all of the pictures on the front of the hundreds of packages of baby diapers that filled a good portion of the aisle. I wondered how much I looked like the babies in those pictures. Since it was still pretty early in the morning on a weekday, there weren’t very many people, so we got through the checkout line fairly quickly. The girl at checkout counter gave me a funny look—I suppose at my silly, babyish attire, but then she smiled and winked at me.
We left the store and Mommy took me out to the car. She put the bag of groceries on the floor in front of the car seat. My feet didn’t come anywhere near touching to floor, so there was plenty of room down there. She put me in the car seat and strapped me in. I guess she didn’t smell my diapers because she didn’t say anything or attempt to check them. Since I wasn’t supposed to asked to be changed I didn’t say anything either. There was another nice squish as she set me down in the car seat.
“Well, we’ve still got another twenty minutes or so,” said Mommy as she started the car. “How would you like some ice cream?”
“Okay!” I said happily. I hadn’t had ice cream in a long time, probably years.
We went down the street to a local Dairy Queen. Mommy took me out of the car again and put me in the stroller, and we went inside. She bought two sundaes for us, strawberry for me and chocolate for herself. It was a nice day out, so she decided we would go outside and eat them in the little covered eating area out in front of the Dairy Queen. We went out there and she sat on a bench at the table.
“Do I have to put a bib on you, or can you try not to make a mess?” Mommy asked before she started feeding me.
“I won’t make a mess, Mommy,” I said. I didn’t really want to wear a bib out in public.
She nodded and began feeding me my strawberry sundae. It was good. I hadn’t had ice cream in so long that I nearly forgot what it tasted like.
After feeding me a few bites and taking a few bites of her own sundae Mommy began to sniff the air suspiciously.
“Did baby make stinky in his diapers?” she asked me.
I felt my cheeks and ears burn in embarrassment. I must have been glowing bright red. I looked around to see if anyone had heard her, but thankfully there was no one anywhere near us. I looked back at her, smiled ever so thinly, and nodded.
“Mommy will get you changed in few minutes,” she told me. “Let’s finish our ice cream, first.
We finished our sundaes, and she used some napkins to wipe my face off. She gave me a kiss on the forehead and stood up. She threw our trash away, and pushed me out to the parking lot. We went up to the SUV, but she stopped behind it rather than on the side to put me in the car seat. She opened the tailgate of the vehicle and then bent over to me.
“Let’s get the baby’s diapers changed,” she told me.
She unstrapped me and picked me up from the stroller. She set me down in the back of SUV. She pulled the diaper bag off the back of the stroller and opened it. She pulled out a changing pad and unfolded it. When it was spread out on the floor of the vehicle, she picked me up and laid me down on it. My head was toward the front of the car with my feet and crotch down at the open tailgate where Mommy had easy access to my diapers. She pulled the inseams of my overalls open producing a fairly loud series of pops as the snaps gave way. She lifted my butt up and pushed the garment up and out of the way. Next, she pulled my plastic pants off and began unpinning my diapers. My damp, lower half became cool as she exposed my diaper area.
“Baby made a big, stinky load for Mommy,” she commented almost happily.
She pulled the diapers out from underneath me and bundled them up. The diaper bag contained a plastic bag for soiled diapers. She put the diapers in there, and went about cleaning me. She used several baby wipes to clean my diaper area up. A minute or two later, she unfolded a stack of diapers and folded them up to put on me. She lifted me legs and butt once more and slid the stack underneath me. She pulled the diapers up between my legs tightly and began pinning them in place. She got them pinned on and lifted my butt one last time to pull my plastic pants back on. She pulled my overalls back down and snapped them up over my legs.
“Now, the baby is all clean,” she said as she picked me up.
“Thank you, Mommy,” I said hugging her around the neck.
“You’re welcome, baby,” she said as she returned the hug. “Ready to go get your new glasses?”
I frowned at that. I had almost forgotten about the glasses.
“I guess,” I replied unenthusiastically.
“It’s not that bad, baby,” she said. “You’ll be okay.”
I nodded as she carried me around to the side of the car. She put me into the car seat and strapped me in. She returned to the rear of the vehicle, cleaned up the changing area, and stowed the stroller. A few minutes later we were back on the road. Five minutes later we were back at the eyeglass store. Mommy took me inside where the saleslady took us over to a little desk to fit me with my glasses. Mommy sat me in her lap and the lady put the pair of glasses on me. She spent the next several minutes adjusting the arms and nose pads of the glasses so they’d fit me perfectly. When she was done with the first, more expensive pair, she repeated the whole process with second pair of glasses.
“You look very handsome, young man,” she said when she was done and I was wearing the first pair again.
I looked at myself the mirror that was on the desk. I guess I didn’t look too bad, but I still didn’t want to wear them. Now, people were going to call me “four-eyes” and all sorts of other names.
“They look very good on you, baby,” said Mommy.
I tried to smile at that, but I still wasn’t all that hyped about wearing glasses.
With that, we were ready to go. The lady gave us instructions on cleaning the glasses, which I barely paid attention to, as I figured that wasn’t something I would be dealing with much. We also got some cases for the glasses, which apparently came with the frames. We headed outside and I surveyed a world now framed in thin ovals. The lady said I’d get used to the glasses and eventually not even notice the rims around the lenses, but right now it was very weird having these things in front of my eyes.
Mommy put me in the car seat, and we headed home. We pulled into the garage, and Mommy got the grocery bag, the diaper bag, and me out of the vehicle.
“Don’t look so sad, baby,” Mommy told me as she planted me on her hip. “You look very cute in your glasses. I think you may even look better with glasses than without them.”
“Really?” I asked skeptically.
“I sure think so,” she confirmed.
She carried me inside to the kitchen where we found Ms. Rosie. She was emptying the dishwasher.
“Hello,” she said happily, giving us a glance. Then she did a double take, looking at me more closely.
“Oh! You got some glasses,” she said with a smile. “You look muy hermoso, very handsome, mijito.”
I just smiled thinly, “Thank you, Ms. Rosie.”
“Let me see,” she said.
She came up and took me from Mommy, who was then able to set her other burdens down. Ms. Rosie set me on her large hip and got a better look at me.
“Yes, you look very handsome,” she repeated. “You look even smarter now than you did before.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said.
That made me feel a little better.
“Are you ready for some lunch, mijito?” she asked me.
“Uh huh,” I replied.
“I made chicken salad,” she said as she carried me over to the highchair.
She strapped me into the highchair as Mommy left the room to go do something else. Ms. Rosie made me a chicken salad sandwich along with some potato chips and carrot stick. She brought them over to me along with a sippy cup of juice and a bib. She tied the bib around my neck, pulled a chair up to sit down in, and began feeding me. Like all sandwiches I ate, the chicken salad one was cut into tiny, little squares, which Ms. Rosie placed in my mouth for me to chew.
I wasn’t sure if I had ever had chicken salad before, but it was pretty good. I was amazed at how many different kinds of food they ate at this house. Mainly, at my other foster homes, we just ate a lot of stuff out of boxes, and things like frozen pizzas. I didn’t know macaroni and cheese didn’t always come out of a blue box until Mommy made some from scratch the other day for lunch. We ate things like chicken, steaks, pork, and other things that I had never really had before. I know I had never had a steak before. Until I came here, I pretty much thought that ground beef was the only type of meat there was. I was also eating a lot more fruits and vegetables here than anywhere else. I had fruits or vegetables with almost every meal. I didn’t always like the vegetables, but I was willing to try almost anything, and the rule about eating what I was fed prevented me from complaining too much.
Ms. Rosie continued feeding me my lunch. I wasn’t that hungry since I had had that sundae earlier, but I wanted to be a good boy, so I ate everything that was fed to me. As she fed me Ms. Rosie sang some little song in Spanish to me. I didn’t understand it, but it sounded kind of funny.
Mommy returned to the kitchen just as Ms. Rosie finished feeding me my lunch.
“I think someone is about to fall asleep,” she said to me.
“Yes,” agreed Ms. Rosie. “I think he needs to take his afternoon siesta.”
“But, it’s not naptime,” I complained.
I usually was put down for a nap right at 2:15, about thirty minutes before Billy got home from school. Then, I was awakened around 3:15 when he got up from his afternoon nap. Mommy said I needed to take longer naps because they would help me heal from my injuries faster, and because I needed more rest to help me grow faster. I wasn’t sure if she was telling me the truth or not, but it sounded logical to me.
“Yes,’ she said, “But it will be in half an hour, and you’ve had a big day. You already look like you’re about to fall asleep.”
I just frowned even though I was kind of tired.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll feed you a bottle of milk, and you can go to sleep.”
She got me out of the highchair, and went over to the refrigerator for a bottle of milk. She started to carry me out of the room.
“Wait! Where’s Squeaker?” I asked urgently.
“He’s already in the nursery, baby,” said Mommy. “He’s already taking his nap.”
“Oh,” I replied.
Mommy carried me through the house and up the stairs. She took me to the nursery and carried me over to the changing table. She set me down on it and removed my single shoe, my socks, and the overalls leaving me in just my diapers and the blue and white t-shirt. She checked my diapers, but I had only wet once since being changed, so I was hardly wet at all. We went over to the rocking chair and she sat down with me cradled in her arms. She pressed the nipple of the bottle to my lips, and I immediately accepted it. I began sucking the cool milk down. Mommy gently rocked me back and forth. I must have been more tired than I thought I was because I don’t even remember finishing my bottle before I fell asleep.
I woke up lying on my stomach in my crib. I lifted my head off the pillow and immediately noticed that Squeaker was right next to me. I reached over to him and grabbed him, clutching him to my chest. I rolled on my side and sat up. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes with one of my thumbs as best I could as I looked around the room. I could hear that Billy was sleeping away in his crib.
I scooted back and sat up against the back of the crib by the wall. I didn’t know what time it was, but I figured someone would probably be in shortly to get us up. I suddenly heard a dull, very low rumble coming from outside. It sounded like thunder. I looked over out of the window not far from my crib. The blinds over the window happened to be open, and I could see that, sure enough, it was raining. Suddenly, there was a rather loud clap of thunder and a flash of lightning that actually caused me to jump. I heard Billy let out a yelp and sit up abruptly.
“That was loud!” he said excitedly. “Is it raining?”
“Yep,” I replied.
“Hey, Taddy,” he greeted me.
“Hi, Billy,” I replied. “How as school?”
“Not bad,” he said. “I’m glad it’s Friday. So, Mommy said you got glasses.”
“Yeah,” I said.
I had actually nearly forgotten about that. I wondered where my glasses were, as I had just noticed that I wasn’t wearing them.
“I bet you’ll look good in them,” he said.
“Thanks,” I replied.
“How’re your diapers?” he asked me.
“Just wet,” I said. They felt a little wetter than they had when I went to sleep, so I had probably had an accident during my nap, but that didn’t really bother me.
“Not me,” I said with a smile. “I’m nice and poopy.”
I watched as he rocked back and forth briefly and moved his butt around on his mattress, obviously trying to smear his poop around more inside his diapers. I silently wondered what disposables felt like as I heard the prominent crinkle coming from the disposable diaper he was wearing and obviously enjoying.
Right about then the door opened and Celli came in.
“Hi, babies,” she greeted us.
“Hi, Celli!” Billy and I both said in unison.
“Who’s stinky?” she asked.
Neither of us said anything. Billy had told me that he rarely told anyone when he did anything in his diapers even when he was asked just because that’s how babies were, so I had started to do the same thing. She went over to Billy’s crib first and let the side of his crib down. He stood up in the crib. Celli gave him a hug and a kiss and reached around behind him to check the status of his diaper.
“Well, that’s one poopy baby,” she said.
She patted him on the butt and lifted him out of the crib. She set him down on the floor and came over to me.
“I heard you got some glasses,” she told me.
“Yeah,” I said flatly.
“You know I was wearing glasses at your age, too,” she said.
“That’s what Mommy said,” I replied.
She went over to my chest-of-drawers and picked up my glasses. I guess Mommy had put them there when she put me in my crib. She brought them over to me, unfolding the arms along the way. She turned them around and slid them on my face for me.
“Aw, you look cute, baby,” she said. “Those look really good on you.”
“Thank you,” I said blushing and actually smiling.
“Come on,” she said, lowering the side of my crib.
I held my arms up to her, and she picked me up. She gave my butt a squeeze and then stuck her fingers inside my plastic pants.
“You’re not too bad,” she said. “Only one stinky baby this time.”
She carried me over to the changing table and set me on one end, leaving enough room for Billy to climb up and lay down. He did, and she began to change him. He was just wearing a red t-shirt with his disposable diaper. He and his sisters all wore uniforms to their private schools, which included a white polo shirt and khaki pants, but when he got home from school those clothes immediately came off, and he was put in either baby clothes or just a t-shirt. Normally, for afternoons he just wore a t-shirt, like me.
Celli changed him out of his poopy disposable that looked like he had been wearing it for a while. He had told me that he usually got changed in the nurse’s office at school at lunchtime. Celli pinned him into a set of diapers equally as thick as mine. Once he had a pair of plastic pants pulled on, he hopped off the table. Celli picked me up and the three of us went downstairs.
I found that Ms. Rosie had already left for the day, but Mommy and Andy were in the kitchen.
“Hi, babies!” Andy greeted us when we came in.
Billy immediately ran up to give her a hug, while Celli carried me over to her.
“Oh, don’t you look handsome in your new glasses,” she told me as she took me from her sister’s arms. “You look even cuter, now.”
“That’s what I told him,” said Celli.
“See, baby? I told you that you would look good in glasses,” Mommy told me.
I figured she was right, but I was also smart enough to realize that my sisters probably wouldn’t say I looked bad or nerdy in glasses, even if I did.
“Mommy made some chocolate chip cookies,” said Mommy. “You babies can each have one before supper.”
“Alright!” Billy said.
He ran up to Mommy by a counter as she removed hot cookies from a cookie sheet and put them on a cooling rack. He started to reach for a cookie, but Mommy swatted his hand away.
“Uh, uh, uh,” she said. “You go sit down, and your sisters will feed you two.”
He frowned ever so thinly, but then smiled and waddled over to table. Celli got him into his highchair while Andy carried me over to the table and sat down. Celli got some cookies and two bottles of milk for us. Celli fed Billy a cookie as Andy fed me mine as I stayed seated in her lap. She tore it up into small pieces and put them in my mouth. The cookie was still really warm, and the chocolate chips were all soft and gooey. It was a really good cookie. Between bites she held the bottle up to my mouth so I could wash my cookie down with milk.
After our cookies, Andy took Billy and I back upstairs. We went over to the entertainment center in the corner to play some video games. Billy had Xbox and Playstation 2 game machines and a whole bunch of games. None of the games were rated higher than “E”. Billy told me that Mommy wouldn’t let him have anything rated higher than that until he was a little older.
I had been really amazed when Billy allowed me to play with his video games. I had lived in a few other foster homes where their kids had had video games, but I don’t remember ever being allowed to play with them. At the last home I was in the two boys had had a PS2, but they had never once let me even touch it. Every once in a while I got to watch them play. I really didn’t even like to do that because, once, the oldest boy had lost at a game when I was watching, and he was really mad, so he beat me up. I don’t know if he blamed me for him dying in the game or not, but I lost a tooth over it. I was just glad that it was a baby tooth, and it had grown back in a few months. I didn’t even bother telling my foster parents about it because they wouldn’t have done anything about it anyway. I just hadn’t been able to eat much for a few days because my mouth had hurt so much.
I should have known that Billy, of course, wasn’t like that at all. When I had expressed my thanks for his consent to play with his video games, he had told me that the same rules that applied to the rest of the toys applied to the video games, as well. According to him, his video games were my video games.
We played a racing game on the Xbox called “Burnout 2” for the next hour or so. It was hard for me to use the game controller with my arm casts, but I managed okay. I was just slower and crashed my car a lot more, but Billy didn’t laugh at me for being such a lousy player, and he even let me win sometimes. After we played for an hour the door to the nursery opened, and I turned around to see Daddy coming up behind us.
“Daddy!” I said happily.
“Hey, buddy,” he said.
He came up behind me and picked me up. I had been sitting in one of the cushy beanbag chairs that were in front of the entertainment center. He hugged me tightly and gave me a kiss on the forehead.
“You sure look handsome in those glasses,” he told me.
“Thank you, Daddy,” I replied.
“Do you like them?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said somewhat noncommittally.
“Well, I do,” he said. “I like them a lot.”
He bent over to Billy and gave him a pat on the shoulder and a kiss on the head.
“Hey, Billy,” he said.
“Hi, Daddy,” Billy said, not really turning his attention from the game.
“Did you boys both have a good day?” asked Daddy.
“Yep,” I said immediately.
“Sure,” said Billy.
Daddy sat down in my beanbag chair and got me situated in his lap.
“How ya feelin’, today, kiddo?” he asked me.
“I’m good,” I replied.
“Not hurtin’ any?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said.
“That’s good,” he said.
We sat there for a little while chatting as Billy continued to play the video game. Eventually, Daddy picked up the controller I had been using and joined in the game. I had so much trouble using the Xbox controller that I really didn’t mind not joining in.
A while later, Celli came up to tell us that supper was ready. Daddy carried me downstairs as he led Billy along by the hand. Tonight, I got to sit in Daddy’s lap to eat, and Billy used his highchair. We had some kind of chicken casserole tonight. It wasn’t too bad, but I don’t think it was my favorite. I, of course, didn’t complain, and I ate every bite I was fed.
After dinner, Mommy returned to the kitchen.
“Tonight is a special night, everyone,” she said a moment later.
She came back out carrying a cake.
“Taddy has been with us for a week, as of tonight,” she said. “And I thought we need to have some cake to mark the occasion.”
She set a little chocolate cake down in front of me. It wasn’t big or fancy, just a simple cake covered in chocolate icing. There was no writing or any decorations on it, but I still liked it because no one had ever made me a cake before. Mommy brought out some little paper plates and cut the cake up into pieces. Daddy fed me a piece of the cake and a sippy cup of milk. It was really good.
“Okay, now we have some surprises for you, Taddy” said Mommy when we were all done with our cake.
She got up and the girls followed her out to the garage. I turned around and tried to peer around Daddy’s arm to see what they were doing out there. A second later they each returned carrying something.
“Ta duh!” Mommy said.
She was carrying a big car seat like Billy’s that I had been using. It was covered in blue fabric, unlike Billy’s, which was tan. Behind her, Andy had a big stroller that was identical to Billy’s. Finally, Celli had something I didn’t quite recognize.
“What’s that?” I asked pointing at it.
“That’s a baby walker,” said Mommy. “They make them for big babies, too. It was in the same catalog I ordered your stroller and car seat out of. I figured that, since you can’t walk for a while, you might like this so you can get around on your own. I bet you’re kind of tired of being carried everywhere, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. I liked being carried, but it did get old, especially since I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything unless someone carried me.
“You want to try it?” asked Daddy.
“Uh huh,” I nodded.
He stood up and carried me over to it. I had seen a baby walker once before, and this looked just like one, except it was bigger. It had a big, plastic, rectangular ring at the bottom with four wheels, four vertical posts, and a big, blue, plastic oval platform, like a tray, on top with a hole in it. The hole was plenty big enough for me to fit into, and it had a blue, fabric basket in it with two holes for my legs. There was a nice, padded backrest on the back of the hole.
Daddy gently lowered me down into the seat basket. My legs went through the holes, and suddenly my crotch and butt were resting in the seat sling. I wiggled my legs around and realized my feet didn’t touch the ground.
“I think we need to lower I just a bit, dear,” said Mommy.
Daddy lifted me up a little to get my weight off of the frame, and Mommy lowered the walker just a little. Daddy set me back down and I could feel my right toes touch the ground.
“I don’t want to lower it much more, right now,” said Mommy, “Because we don’t want you to use your left leg too much, okay? For now, you can just use your right tiptoes to move around.”
I was doing just that as she was talking. I tried scooting around in the kitchen, but it was hard to move in a straight line with only one foot. I kind of just scooted around in a circle until I ran into one of the chairs at the table.
“What do you think, baby?” Celli asked for everyone.
“I like it,” I said, “But it’s kind of hard to move around in with only one foot.”
“Maybe in another week or so we’ll start letting you use your other leg,” said Mommy. “But until then just being able to stand is better than nothing, isn’t it?”
“Uh huh,” I replied. “And this thing is kind of fun.”
“I wish I had one of those,” Billy said kind of whiningly.
“You don’t need one, silly,” said Mommy. “You can walk just fine. And I’m sure Taddy will share it with you when he’s not using it.”
“Yeah, Billy,” I said. “You can use it, too. It’s both of ours.”
He just grinned broadly at that, obviously satisfied.
“Well, that’s probably enough surprises for one night,” Mommy said. “I think it’s time for the babies to have their baths.”
“Can we bathe them, tonight?” Celli asked.
“Yeah,” Andy agreed.
“I guess so,” replied Mommy.
“Let’s go then, poopy butts,” Celli said.
“Hey! We’re not poopy,” said Billy. Then he added: “Yet.”
“Exactly,” Andy said. “Yet. You will be any minute, now.”
Billy just grinned broadly.
Celli picked me up out of my walker while Andy got Billy out of his highchair. We were taken upstairs leaving Mommy and Daddy to clean up the kitchen. Celli sat me on the changing table when we were in the nursery, and then she went to the bathroom to start our bathwater. Andy came up and removed my t-shirt and had me lie down. She started to remove my plastic pants and diapers. I had peed a few times since my nap, so I was fairly wet, but I was nowhere near approaching the capacity of my thick diapers.
“Andy, why do y’all put us in such thick diapers when I never even use them all?” I asked as she was unpinning my diapers.
“Because diaper boys look cute in extra thick diapers,” she said. “And of course, it makes sure you’re in no danger of ever leaking. Plus, you like it.”
“Says who?” I asked.
“Me,” she said. “You love your diapers thick, don’t you, Billy?”
“Yep,” he agreed immediately. “The thicker the better.”
“See,” Andy said. “All you boys are like that. If you don’t like your diapers thick, now, you will soon enough.”
I didn’t say anything. I had already decided that I liked to wear thick diapers, but I don’t think I was ready to admit it just yet.
“All boys like super thick diapers,” she said. “Even the ones that don’t wear diapers. They just don’t know it, yet. As soon as they’re in diapers for the first time they’re on a path toward loving them. Even boys that are being made to wear diapers or have to wear them eventually start to like them. Celli and I have conducted scientific studies that prove that all boys like diapers.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yep,” she nodded.
I looked over at Billy, who was standing behind Andy where she couldn’t see him. He only rolled his eyes and shook his head. I wondered if they really had done such studies.
She finished undiapering me, cleaned me up, and she put a diaper over my privates to catch any leaks. She picked me up and set me on the floor so Billy could take my place. A few minutes later, Billy was completely naked, like me. He climbed off of the changing table as Andy handed him a diaper to hold over his pee-pee. She picked me up off the floor and carried me to the bathroom.
We found Celli in there next to the tub that was filled with water and bubbles. We were getting a bubble bath tonight, which I thought were fun. Celli had my plastic cast protectors out, and she started to put them on me after Andy set me on the edge of the tub. She got the cast protectors on over my three casts, and then she took my glasses off of me and set them on bathroom counter. She then helped me get into the tub, and I sat down into the nice, warm water.
The girls sat on the floor in front of the tub while Billy and I pushed some toy boats around in the tub. I couldn’t really play too much with plastic protectors covering my arms and hands, but I still had fun. After we sat playing and chatting for a few minutes the girls started bathing us. Celli bathed me while Andy bathed Billy. It took them about ten minutes to thoroughly clean us, and then we were being dried off. After we were dry and my cast protectors had been removed, Celli carried me back to the nursery. Billy tagged along with us while Andy stayed behind to clean up the bathroom.
Celli laid me down on the changing table and got me diapered up for the night. She used a fifth diaper tonight, folding it into thirds lengthwise and putting it in the center of my other diapers. I guess she just wanted my butt to look puffier, and therefore cuter.
“I think we’ll use some baby print pants and you boys tonight,” she said as she pulled out a pair of plastic pants for me.
She pulled the babyish pants on me. They were locking plastic pants like we always wore at night. Once I was locked securely away in my diapers for the evening, she put one of my plain, white t-shirts on me. She then set me on the floor, and Billy climbed up onto the changing table. A few minutes later he was in an equally thick set of diapers. He was locked into a pair of baby-printed plastic pants identical to mine, and a white t-shirt left the two of us looking exactly alike.
“Do you boys want to stay in here and play until bedtime, or do you want to go downstairs?” Celli asked us.
“I wanna go get in my walker, again,” I said. “Please?”
“Okay, baby,” she said.
She bent over and picked me. She started to carry me out of the nursery, but she suddenly stopped in her tracks.
“Uh oh. We forgot you glasses, baby,” she said. “Billy, can you go get Taddy’s glasses, please?”
“Uh huh,” Billy nodded.
He turned and quickly waddled toward the bathroom. He and Andy both came out together a second later. Billy brought my glasses over, and Celli put them on for me.
“Such a cute, handsome baby,” she cooed and gave me a kiss. “Let’s go downstairs.”
The four of us went downstairs to the den where we found Mommy and Daddy watching TV. Celli carried me to the kitchen where my walker was still sitting. She lowered me down into the seat. I immediately tried to scoot around the floor with my right foot. I still couldn’t move much, and when I did it was in a circle since I was only using one leg.
“Come on, baby,” Celli laughed at me. “I’ll push you into the den.”
She got behind me and leaned over. She put her hands on the back of the walker and pushed me into the den were everyone else was sitting, chatting, and watching TV. Billy was sitting in Daddy’s lap cuddling with him. I was always kind of jealous when I saw that, but I got plenty of my own cuddling time with everyone, so I had no reason to complain.
I made myself comfortable in my walker. The seat basket and the backrest were quite comfortable. The platform that surrounded me gave me plenty of room to rest my arms on, and the periphery of the hole the seat was in was padded as well, which was even better for my arms. I got settled in and just relaxed in the walker as I watched TV.
At 9:30, Billy and I had to go to bed. Mommy went to the kitchen to retrieve two bottles of milk while Daddy picked me up and took Billy and me up to the nursery. We went over to the lounging area in the corner of the room. There was an extensive library on a bookshelf there of children’s books and more grownup books that Billy liked to read. Billy selected a children’s book for Daddy to read to us tonight. We all settled down on the floor in the corner with Billy and I sitting on either side of Daddy. Daddy opened the book and started reading to us. A few minutes later Mommy joined us with bottles of warm milk for Billy and me. She let Billy drink his bottle by himself, and she sat on my other side and held my bottle for me. I was sandwiched in between Mommy and Daddy, which I found very comforting. I felt very safe there with them.
Twenty minutes or so later Daddy finished the story. I was almost asleep by the time he was done. Mommy picked me up off the floor and carried me to my crib while Daddy carried Billy to his crib. Mommy gave me a hug and kiss and laid me down in my crib. She tucked me in making sure I had my teddy bear within easy reach. She pulled my glasses off of my face and told me goodnight. She then went over to Billy’s crib, and Daddy came over to me. He leaned over into the crib and gave me a kiss before he closed my crib and told me goodnight.
He and Mommy left us alone and turned out the lights as they left. Billy and I told each other goodnight and that we loved each other. I was already so sleepy that I very quickly fell asleep.
The weekend hadn’t been too great. It had rained all weekend. Billy’s weekly football game even got cancelled, which was really disappointing to me, as I wanted to go see my new brother play football. We had had to stay inside all of Saturday, but we at least had a lot of stuff to do. I found out that us babies got to stay up a little later on Saturday nights. We watched a movie with Mommy and Daddy until about 10:30 before we were put to bed. Of course, the movie was rated PG. Billy and I weren’t allowed to watch anything with a higher rating than that.
Sunday had been a pretty bad day for me. I had, for the first time in a few days, woken up with throbbing aches in my arms and leg. Daddy told me that a cold front had come through during the night. He said that cold fronts caused a change in the air pressure, which probably caused pain in my broken limbs and injured joints. I had been kind of achy all day. We were supposed to have gone to church in the morning, but I had been given a bottle with some of my pain medicine, and it put me to sleep for a lot of the day. I woke up and found that Daddy had stayed home with me and Mommy had gone to church with Celli, Andy, and Billy.
It was pretty cool from the cold front and still damp and dreary, so we had all stayed home for most of the day, although Celli went off with a couple of her friends from school. Thankfully, there was quite a bit for us to do there. Billy and I played with Legos and a bunch of other toys along with some board games and video games. Mommy and Daddy even played with us, and the four of us played a game called “Life.” They had to teach me how to play it, since I hadn’t ever play it, or really any board games, before.
On Monday, once again, I slept in until someone came in and woke me up. I was on my stomach, and I rolled over when I felt someone nudging me. I looked up and saw Daddy standing over me. Mommy had to go back to work this week, so Daddy was taking off this week to stay with me. Of course, I could have stayed with Ms. Rosie just fine by myself, but I was also starting home school this week, and Daddy was going to be my teacher. He hoped to find someone to be my tutor from now on by the end of the week. I just hoped he found me a nice teacher.
“Morning, baby,” he told me.
“Hi, Daddy,” I smiled somewhat groggily.
He had already retrieved my glasses from the top of the bureau. He opened them and put them on my face.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked as he picked me up.
“Uh huh,” I said.
He gave me a good morning hug and kiss.
“Well, we sure had a long night with you,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked in confusion.
“You woke the whole house up around 2:30 or 3:00 this morning. You were screaming, and yelling, and thrashing around all over you crib.”
“What?” I asked in disbelief.
“Do you remember having nightmares last night?” he asked.
“No,” I replied.
“I think you were having night terrors,” he said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“We’ll talk about that in a little while,” he said. “Right now let’s get some food into you.”
“Okay,” I replied.
He checked my diapers, determining that I was only slightly wet and could wait a while for a change, and then he carried me downstairs. He carried me to the kitchen were I found, as expected, Ms. Rosie. I said good morning to her, in Spanish of course, as Daddy strapped me into the highchair. He then went to the kitchen and started making me some scrambled eggs for breakfast.
“Daddy, when am I getting my own highchair?” I asked as he was by the stove cooking.
“Hopefully by the end of the week, kiddo,” he said. “We have a carpenter custom make them, and he told us he’d rush it for us. Maybe by Friday we can go pick it up.”
“Cool,” I said.
A few minutes later, Daddy brought me a plate of eggs and toast. He put a bib around my neck and fed me my breakfast along with a sippy cup of orange juice. When I had cleaned my plate, he took the dishes to the kitchen and put them in the sink. A minute later he came back out to me. He wiped my face with my bib and pulled it off of me. He then took me out of the highchair and put me on his hip.
“Let’s go to Daddy’s study for a little while,” he said.
He carried me through the house, down the main hall to his study. The study was relatively large. It contained a desk with Daddy’s computer, a big couch, and several bookcases full of tons of big, thick books. We went into the room and he set me down on the cushy, leather-upholstered couch. He then went to a bookshelf, searched for a book for a moment, and then pulled one off the shelf.
“So, you don’t remember having any nightmares, last night?” he asked.
“No,” I replied.
He came over and sat next to me with the book. It was a pretty big book, like a textbook, and it said “Psychology: An Introduction” on it. He opened the book and began paging through it.
“I think, because you can’t remember any bad dreams,” he said, “That you were having sleep terrors, or night terrors.”
“What’s that?” I asked for the second time today.
“Well, it’s kind of like nightmares, but a little different,” he said, which really didn’t help my understanding.
“You see,” he continued. “When you sleep, you actually go through several different stages of sleep.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Uh huh,” he nodded. “When you first go to sleep, you enter what’s called Rapid Eye Movement Sleep, or REM Sleep. They call it that because your eyes are actually moving around really fast.”
“Really?” I asked again.
“Uh huh,” he said. “You can actually watch someone sleeping and see their eyes moving around underneath their eyelids.”
“Wow,” I replied.
“When you’re in REM Sleep your body is asleep, and parts of your brain are asleep, but most of your brain is still awake. That’s when most dreams happen because your brain is still working and thinking a lot. When you have dreams in REM Sleep, your brain actually tells your body not to move so you don’t move around during your dreams and hurt yourself. And since your brain is mostly awake, you can usually still remember parts of your dreams or at least that you had dreams.
“Now, the rest of the time you’re asleep, you’re in Non-REM Sleep. There are four different stages of Non-REM Sleep. In Stage One you’re in the lightest level of sleep, and in Stage Four you’re in the deepest level of sleep, which means it’s hardest wake you up then. Do you understand?”
“Uh huh,” I nodded.
He showed me a chart in the book he was holding that showed the different stages of sleep and how they changed throughout the night. I didn’t quite understand the chart, but I basically understood the whole concept he was talking about.
“Sometimes, but not often, people have dreams in Non-REM Sleep,” he went on, “And when they do they usually happen in Stage 4. For whatever reason, when you have dreams in Stage 4 Sleep, your brain doesn’t tell you’re your body not to move, so, sometimes, people talk, and walk, and do other things when they’re dreaming in Stage 4. I’ve even heard of people going to the kitchen and eating food during Stage 4 dreams.”
“Really?” I giggled. That sounded really funny.
“Yep,” he confirmed. “When you have a nightmare during Stage 4 sometimes you sit-up and start screaming and struggling like you’re fighting someone or something in the dream. That’s called a night terror. You almost always can’t remember having night terrors because you’re sleeping so deeply when they happen and the parts of your brain that controls your memory are asleep.”
“And you think that’s what happened to me last night?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said. “We tried to wake you up, but you just wouldn’t. In Stage 4 sleep, you’re sleeping so soundly that it’s almost impossible to wake you up. You were even fighting Mommy as she tried to hold you.”
“Really?” I asked yet again.
“Uh huh,” he said. “So, that’s why I think you were having night terrors.”
“So, what does that mean?” I asked.
“Well, not a whole lot,” he said. “You were just having bad dreams and you didn’t know it. You’ve been through so many bad things that it’s not surprising that you’re having night terrors. What we’ll do is start talking later this afternoon about stuff, and we’ll see if we can’t make those night terrors go away.”
I just nodded.
“But, right now, it’s time for you to go to school, mister,” he said.
He got up and picked me up off the couch. He carried me back to the kitchen. Instead of putting me in the highchair he sat me down at a chair at the table. He left the room for a second and came back with a file box. He set the box on the table, removed its lid, and started to take out books, binders, folders, and school supplies. I frowned sadly looking at all the stuff. I hadn’t been in school in nearly two weeks, and I really wasn’t looking forward to doing more schoolwork. I knew school was important and I had to go, but I didn’t like school anymore than any other normal ten-year-old.
He went through everything and got it organized, and then he started me on a math lesson. He had a lesson plan that the school had given him to follow. The stuff I was working on was actually below the fifth-grade level. I knew that because I could remember doing it before. I hadn’t done too well in math in the fourth grade, though, so I guess I didn’t mind doing it again.
We spent the rest of the morning working on schoolwork. We did math, science, reading, writing, and social studies. I thought it would be boring, but Daddy actually kept it kind of fun and interesting. I found out that Daddy was really smart, but I guess he had to be to be a doctor, especially a psychiatrist. Halfway through the morning, Daddy checked my diapers. I was still only wet, and I wasn’t uncomfortable, so he decided not to change me, yet. He also got me a bottle to drink. Over the weekend I had figured out how to drink from a bottle on my own. Since baby bottles were tall and skinny, I could grip one with both hands at the very bottom and hold the nipple to my mouth if I leaned my head forward just a little. Still, everyone liked to feed me my bottles, so mostly I let them. Daddy put me in his lap and held my bottle of grape juice to my mouth as we continued my lessons.
For lunch, Ms. Rosie made us some sandwiches and Daddy fed me. While I sat in the highchair eating my little bites of sandwich and chips as Daddy fed them to me I shifted my butt around slightly and I pushed a pretty big load of poop into my already soaking wet diapers. It was a silent bowel movement accompanied by no flatulence, so Daddy didn’t even notice when I did it. I just continued eating my lunch as I sat there in my now messy diapers.
About the time Daddy finished feeding me, he started to sniff the air.
“Did you just fill up your diapers, stinky boy?” he asked me accusatorily.
I just smiled but didn’t say anything.
“I guess I’ll just have to check myself,” he said.
He took my plate and empty bottle to the sink and returned a second later. He wiped my face with my bib before removing it. He then unstrapped me and picked me up. He gave my butt a squeeze, which squished my poop around a little.
“Yep,” he said. “You’re a poopy little guy. Let’s go get you changed.”
He put me on his hip and carried me through the house up the stairs. We went down the hall to the nursery. We found Ms. Rosie in there emptying the diaper pail that was full of dirty, stinky cloth diapers.
“We sure are doing a lot more laundry around here with two babies filling up diapers, now,” she commented as she dumped the contents of the pail.
She emptied all of the yucky diapers into a plastic laundry bin that she could carry down the stairs. The room always kind of stank from Billy’s and my dirty diapers, but now it really stunk badly. I had already gotten to the point that my poopy diapers smells didn’t bother me all that much, but those nasty diapers that had been sitting in the diaper pail for a few days smelled really, really bad as she carried them by me and out of the room.
“Yucky,” I said as Daddy carried me over to the changing table.
“Yucky?” replied Daddy. “Half that yucky is yours, mister.”
I just giggled at that as he laid me down on the table.
He pushed my t-shirt up and out of the way a little bit. He unlocked my plastic pants and pulled them off before he began to unpin my diapers. He pulled the four, soaked, filthy diapers off of me, bundled them up, and deposited them in the diaper pail. There was a solid, wet “thunk” as the diapers collided with the bottom of the empty pail. Daddy then got some wet wipes out and used them to clean me up. My poop had been pretty soft and squishy, so it had left a pretty big mess for him to take care of. When I was clean and dry, he pulled out clean diapers and stacked them under me. He sprinkled baby powder all over my diaper area and rubbed it into my skin. As always, I giggled and squirmed just a little when he did that. He then began pinning my diapers into place. A few minutes later I was in a new pair of plastic pants.
He picked me up and we headed downstairs. We went to his study again for some reason. He set me down on the floor and then went to one of the bookshelves in the room.
“How about we work on a puzzle?” he suggested, showing me a box he picked up from the shelf.
“Okay,” I shrugged.
He brought the puzzle over to me and sat down on the floor with me. He opened the box, which was actually a metal tin, and dumped out hundreds of little, cut up pieces of cardboard. I looked at the picture on the front of the tin and saw that this was a Snoopy puzzle. It was Snoopy dressed as the WWI pilot flying his doghouse. The tin also said it was a 500-piece puzzle, which I thought was a lot. We spread the pieces out on the floor and began putting the puzzle together.
As we sat for the next couple of hours working on the puzzle Daddy and I talked about stuff. He asked how I liked living here, to which I naturally responded that I loved it. He asked me a bunch of other questions, too. He asked what I thought about my old foster dad being arrested. He asked how I liked the food we ate here and what kinds of things I had eaten at other foster homes. He even asked if I thought I might like to try any sports when I got my casts off. He also asked how liked wearing diapers and being treated like a baby. Eventually, I asked him why he thought Billy and me being treated like babies helped us.
“Well, Taddy,” he said. “A lot of kids go through very traumatic experiences when they’re young. Do you know what traumatic means?”
“Um, it means bad, right?” I replied.
“That’s right,” he nodded. “Anyway, a lot of kids go through bad things, and I don’t necessarily mean just things like you’ve been through. Maybe they go through a bad divorce, or the death of a very closed loved one. Maybe they spend a lot of time being sick, like kids that have cancer, or maybe they were in a bad accident and got hurt really bad, and had to spend a lot of time in hospitals because of that. Whatever the experiences kids have, they remember them for a long time, and sometimes when they get older they get mad and upset that they didn’t have the same, happy childhood that a lot of other people have. They get bitter. Do you know what bitter means?”
I shook my head.
“Well you know what a bitter taste is, right? Like when something tastes bad.”
“Like Brussels sprouts?” I asked. We had had those the other day, and I didn’t really like them at all. They were kind of nasty.
“Like Brussels sprouts,” he chuckled. “That’s bitter. Well, just like some things taste bad, some experiences can leave kids feeling bad and angry. But, if they get to be treated like babies and little kids when they’re older, they can still have some good memories about what it’s like being little. It doesn’t directly help with all the problems they have from the things they went through, but it gives them some happy memories. I’ve also found that it helps them talk about the bad things they’ve been through so they can get over them. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I think so,” I said.
“You and Billy aren’t the only big babies, either,” he said. “I’ve had quite a few other families do it with their children before. I started it several years ago, in fact. Long before Billy came to live with us.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yep,” he nodded. “Some of the kids I helped turn into babies again are all grown up. One or two of them even have kids of their own, now.”
“Hmm,” was all I said.
“The only thing I’ve found strange about it is that it doesn’t really seem to work with girls,” he said. “I’ve only ever tried it with a few female patients, and it never has worked. Diapers and baby treatment only seems to work with boys.”
“Why?” I asked.
He just shrugged and smiled thinly. “I don’t know, Taddy. I’ve just about come to the professional, scientific conclusion that diapers are for boys, at least once girls get past normal potty-training age.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. I thought that was pretty funny.
“Well, guess what,” he said next. “It’s time to go pick up your brother from school. Do you want to come with me?”
“Don’t I have to take my nap?” I asked.
“Well,” he said. “Since you’re officially in school, now, and since you did really good, today, I think we can go ahead and make your naptime the same as Billy’s.”
“Cool,” I said.
“Let’s go get you dressed,” he said. “You could go in what you’re wearing, but it’s still just a little chilly today.”
He took me upstairs to the nursery and dressed me in a red t-shirt and a pair of my denim, “big boy” overalls. I was barely able to squeeze into the overalls, and the seat and lower abdomen of the garment was completely stuffed with my bulging diapers. He put a sock on my right foot and another over the toes on my left foot, but he didn’t bother putting a shoe on my good foot, since we wouldn’t be getting out anywhere. He took me downstairs again where we told Ms. Rosie goodbye and headed out to the garage. Daddy buckled me into my new car seat, which was in the backseat of his big SUV. A minute later we were headed down the driveway.
It was only a ten-minute drive to Billy’s school. As I’ve already said, it was a private school. The building looked pretty old, like it had been there a long time, but it was relatively small compared to the schools I was used to. Billy had told me that less than five hundred students went there. I had also found out that Celli and Andy went to the same private school, but the high school was at a different campus down the street. They didn’t get out of school until a half-hour after Billy.
We pulled up in front of the school, and I noticed kids were already coming out of the front entrance to the building, so I guess school had already been dismissed. Everyone was dressed exactly alike. They all wore khaki slacks and white polo shirts that had the school emblem on them. Some of the girls wore khaki skirts, but that was the only variation in the uniform.
Daddy parked in front of the school in a queue with several other cars with waiting parents. He rolled the windows down so I could get a little fresh air, and then he shut the engine off and got out of the car. He went around to the passenger side, which was by the curb, and waited. I kept my eyes glued to the doors of the school waiting to see Billy come out.
As I sat there I wondered silently if I would be going to school here in January. It looked like a nice enough school, and I actually thought I’d like to go here. However, I really didn’t think I’d be here until January. By then I was sure that Mommy and Daddy would get rid of me, or the foster care people would take me away for whatever reason. Even though I really did think that Mommy and Daddy and everyone else here loved me, they’d eventually get tired of me; that was what always happened. After a while everyone got tired of me. I never really knew why. I suppose parents had enough trouble taking care of their own kids, so why would they want to deal with a kid that wasn’t even theirs forever? Even, if by some miracle, I were still here when January rolled around, I’d probably just go to a public school. It looked like this school was pretty expensive, and I doubt Mommy and Daddy would pay for me to go here. I was just a foster kid, after all. I wasn’t like Billy or the girls.
I came out of my musings as I saw Billy come out of the school. He was walking with some other boy that looked about his age. I wondered if that was his best friend, Matt, that was Ms. Molly’s son. Billy had only told me a little bit about him, but they seemed like really good friends. I hoped maybe I could have a friend like that one day. I had never really had a best friend. I was kind of shy and it took me a long time to get close to other kids, and I moved around so much that I just never had time to develop any close relationships. I think I came close to having a best friend once or twice, but then I was moved to other foster homes, and I hardly ever even got a chance to say goodbye to what friends I had. By the time I was eight, I had just started to not even try to make new friends.
I saw Billy and his friend wave goodbye to each other and part ways as they approached Daddy’s car. Daddy greeted Billy’s friend briefly, which told that he was Matt, because Daddy called him “Matty.” Billy came up and gave Daddy a hug, and then Daddy opened the back door so Billy could climb into the back seat.
“Hey, Taddy!” Billy greeted me happily.
“Hi, Billy!” I replied.
“You got to stay up to come get me?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Daddy said since I’m in school now, I get to have the same naptime as you.”
“Cool,” responded Billy.
Billy tossed his book bag into the seat between us, and then he plopped down into his car seat. As he sat down I noticed the plainly audible crinkle of the disposable diaper he was wearing underneath his school clothes. As he had been walking towards the SUV, I had been able to clearly see the bulge of his diaper under his khaki slacks. Mommy told me his disposables were hardly noticeable under his clothes, but I sure thought otherwise. There was an obvious bulge in front of his groin and down around his crotch. When looking at him from the rear, I could plainly see that the seat of his slacks was completely filled by the diaper. Sure, it wasn’t as obvious as the prominent bulge of my cloth diapers, but I could still definitely tell Billy had a diaper on. The fact that he had to tuck his shirt into his pants only made it more obvious that he was diapered.
Daddy got Billy buckled into his car seat, and then we were ready to go. He got back into the driver’s seat, and then we were off. After Daddy rolled the windows back up, I could smell that Billy’s diaper was more than just wet. It seemed he was always poopy after school.
Billy spent the next few minutes telling us how his day had gone at school. It seemed like it had been a pretty normal day. Billy asked how my day had gone, and I told him about me starting home school and how that had gone.
Soon enough, Daddy pulled into our driveway and parked in the garage. He got out of the car and went around to Billy’s side of the car, first. He let Billy out of his car seat, and then he came to get me. He unbuckled me and pulled me out of the car seat. I was carried inside as Billy tagged along behind us. Billy said hi to Ms. Rosie, who was in the kitchen. He said several things to her in Spanish that I couldn’t understand, and she responded back to him in Spanish. I wished I knew as much Spanish as Billy did, but maybe I would learn. I wondered if Daddy even understood all of what they were saying.
Daddy then took Billy and me up to the nursery to put us down for our naps. Billy pulled his school clothes off and put a plain t-shirt on that was green. Daddy set me on the changing table and pulled my socks off and then my overalls, leaving me in just my red t-shirt and diapers. He then carried me over to my crib and laid me down in it. He tucked me in and pulled my glasses off my face. He leaned over and gave me kiss and told me goodnight. He closed my crib and went over to Billy to tuck him in, as well. I didn’t think I was really tired, but I drifted off to sleep very quickly.
I woke up probably twenty minutes or so later. I sat up in my crib yawning as I did so. I looked over and saw that Billy was already awake and sitting up against the wall in his crib. He smiled and waved at me when he saw me. I grabbed Squeaker and clutched him to my chest as I scooted back up against the wall in my crib.
“Billy, how many times do you go in your diapers, every day?” I asked when I again noticed the stench coming from his diaper.
“You mean poop?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Well, I normally go a couple of hours after breakfast,” he said. “Then I go again a couple of hours after lunch, and I usually poop again sometime during the night.”
“Why so much?” I asked.
“Well, I asked that once, and Mommy told me that real babies go a little while after every meal because eating gets their digestive system going and makes them need to poop,” he explained. “Most people that are potty-trained only go once or so a day because they know how to hold it until it’s convenient for them to go to the bathroom, and eventually their digestive systems get adjusted to that routine. Since I’ve been in diapers for so long I guess I’ve forgotten how to hold it, and I pretty much just go like a real baby does. A lot of times I barely even notice when I’m pooping. It just comes out all of a sudden. I don’t notice at all when I’m peeing anymore.”
“So, you have to sit in class in poopy diapers?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got nowhere else to go. I just wait until lunchtime to go to the nurse’s office, and then I wait until I get home in the afternoon for another change.”
“But can’t everyone in your class smell you?”
“Probably, yeah,” he said with a shrug. “Everyone knows I wear diapers, so I guess they expect it. If it gets too bad Mrs. Kutching will send me to the nurse’s office early to get changed, but that’s not too often. I can ask to go get changed whenever I want, but I never do that.”
“Aren’t you embarrassed, though?” I asked.
“Nah,” he said. “Like I said, everyone knows, and I just stopped caring what everyone thinks of me a long time ago. If they have a problem with it, it’s their problem, not mine. Although if someone told me I stunk really bad, or they asked me nicely to change, I’d probably go get changed just to be nice. I don’t care what anyone thinks, but I don’t want to get them mad at me, either.”
I hoped I could be like that. I was already dreading having to wear diapers to school, even though part of me didn’t think I’d ever get the chance because I’d probably be leaving here before then.
Not too long after that Andy came into the room to get us up. She got us both out of our cribs, and she changed Billy’s diaper. We went downstairs, where we were fed a snack. After that, Billy had to do homework, and I spent some time in my baby walker. I had gotten pretty good at getting around in the walker over the past few days, and I could get around pretty well on my own even using just my right leg. Earlier, Daddy had told me that they’d probably start letting me walk around some just a little by Friday, because the doctor said I could put some weight on my broken ankle after two weeks. I was glad for that because I was getting tired of not being able to walk. At least I could say that my walker was a lot of fun. Squeaker usually rode around with me stuffed down in the seat in front of me.
Mommy got home at 6:00, by which time Daddy had nearly finished supper. We ate dinner as a family like we always did, and then Mommy gave Billy and I our baths so she could spend some time with us.
Celli and Andy put us to bed tonight after Celli read us a bedtime story. Overall, it had been a great day. I actually liked doing my home school stuff, and I really liked spending so much time with Daddy. As I went to sleep in my nice, thick diapers I couldn’t wait for the next new day.