News I Thought I'd Never Hear

A few weeks ago, I received a message on my cell phone from Baby A's grandmother.

That was a surprise, for sure. Such a surprise, frankly, that it took me a few days to wrap my head around calling her back.

Then, she called me back, and we talked.

She needed a little bit of information about A's welfare status while he was with us, in order for him to qualify up there in the hinterlands of AZ.

We briefly discussed the issue at hand. And I didn't know how to act. I didn't know what to say. But I wanted to know. A lot of different things. Like--Is he eating? Is he happy? Does he miss us?

So I asked a general question: How is he doing? And she responded, quite happily. He's doing really well. He loves to read and sing and watch TV. And he especially loves to eat. One thing he's doing there is helping his grandma feed the animals. He loves animals, she said. I couldn't muster up much to say except, "Good. I'm glad." And we left it at that.

It's been almost three months since he left our family. And how do I feel now?

Well, it's hard to answer that question. So much has happened to our family since he left that I haven't had much time to dwell on the hole he left. We still talk about him occasionally. For example, Tuesday night I had Micah and Hyrum in the bath and his name came up. Hyrum said, "Jell-o is gone to his grandma's." But there were no tears and no further comment.

I must admit that life is easier with only one toddler in the house. And quieter. But since he left, Hyrum has become more reclusive and less willing to leave me. Hates nursery, where he used to love it. Doesn't want to go anywhere without me. This could just be a two-year-old's stage, but the timing was a little too close for me to just assume that it's a stage.

I don't know how I'd be recovering from the new baby with twins underfoot. Maybe they'd be hard. Maybe they'd entertain each other more.

Everyone else seems to have moved on.

Now the question posed is this: Will we foster again? I don't know. With my life in a constant state of upheaval right now, I can't imagine adding another wild card into the mix. A wild card that could bring not only commotion and behavioral problems, but could also bring disease (that has happened to us before). I forced my own kids to get the H1N1 vaccine (judge me or judge me not--if I hadn't had a brand-new baby I would still be on the fence on this issue). Let's leave it at that. For now, the answer is: not now.

And I never got an answer to one of my questions. I'll never know if he ever missed us. But that's okay. Really.

And, on a completely unrelated note, last night's Survivor may go down in history as the best episode ever. That's all I'm going to say about it.