Baby Chicken, Part I

When the girls left in August 2020, it was just the four of us - me and Darryl, Rhys, and Waverly.  Life was good. 

In early June 2021, we were at a dinosaur theme park in Lake George  (which I highly recommend if you have kids under eight), when I saw a mom with two little infant twin babies. 

"I want those!" I told Darryl.

"Bite your tongue," he answered.  (This from the man who, when I would mention any older-than-30-year-old who became a dad for the first time would answer, "good for him," essentially telling me to shut up, we weren't having kids.  I've since made him eat his words.

I like babies. This is no secret.  It isn't that I don't love my now 26, 4, and 3 year old children.  I do.  I just really, really like babies.  

And I wanted one.

Waverly had grown out of her chubby infant cuteness and now was in her gangly but still cute toddler/preschooler phase.  I figured the Agency would call... someday.

In mid-July, I was working at Upward Bound, my regular summer teaching/mentoring gig, when my friend Karen texted me, "we just got a call for a baby."  Whenever a foster friend tells me about a new baby, I am simultaneously happy for them and jealous.  Why didn't they call me???  I get it when it's a newly born sibling to kids they already have in care, but I knew that Karen and her wife Heather didn't have a child in care who had a pregnant mom.  

I always feel like the Agency has its favorites.  It seems that the same people get called for newborns.  Are they somehow considered better foster parents than we are?  Am I not maternal enough?  What's wrong with MEEEE?  

"Are you taking it?"  (I didn't know if it was a boy or a girl... I know, IT sounds like "congratulations, it's
Pennywise!"

"Oh goodness no," she said, "too much baggage."

She then filled me in.  Friends of theirs (also fosters) had her (it was a her) but the bio mom was a LOT.  She was so much, in fact, that they were closing their home and not fostering anymore.  Damn.  

"She's like ours 2.0," she said, referring to her foster son's bio mom who has harassed them repeatedly for the four years they've had him.  "Should I tell the Agency to call you?"

I would like to tell you that I called Darryl and discussed it with him... but I would be lying.  

Twenty minutes later, the Agency called.  

She was "a little on the small side," three weeks old, and would be a short-term placement because the bio mom was doing everything she was supposed to and the baby would be home soon.

How could Darryl object to that?