Homeless Baby Chapter One It was a beautiful room, I spent thousands of dollars making the perfect nursery for the twins. I even bought an extra large hospital style crib so they could sleep together even when they got bigger, but not big enough for beds. The room was all decorated in pastel blues, with blocks and cars and other baby boy toys everywhere. It would have made a great nursery, if the twins hadn't of died at birth. I didn't have the heart to change the room, always hopeful that I would someday get the baby boy I dreamed of. But with my husband gone, gone off with his secretary, that seemed hopeless, until one morning. For some reason I still don't recall I went in the nursery and was shocked to fine a boy sleeping in the crib. He had to be at least 8 or 9, but the large size crib held him comfortably. The window was open and that was clear how he had gotten it. He looked harmless enough, so I went over to the crib. I gently shook him until he woke up. He was groggy at first but when he finally focused his eyes, he screamed and tried to run away. I grabbed him, and stopped his escape. "Wait, who are you?" He struggled to get loose but soon found I had to firm a grasp on him. Finally he stopped trying to escape and looked down at the ground. "Mark" he said shyly, barely audible. "Mark, what are you doing here." I saw a tear roll down his left cheek as he replied "I'm sorry, I just needed a place to sleep, and I was going by your house and I saw this crib was empty, I'm sorry, I won't do it again, please let me go" He was still talking softly and staring at the ground. Tears were slowly rolling down both cheeks, the sight of this poor boy made me want to cry. "Mark, where do you live, where are you parents" He started to cry harder now and I moved my arms from a firm grasp to a tight hug, holding him against me. "My mom's dead, don't know where my dad is" He said between his tears. "Where have you been living?" Mark was growing more upset with each question, but I had to keep pushing for answers. "No where, I don't have a home. My mom and me were living in our car, but we got in an accident and....well I ran away cause they would have put me in an orphanage. I tried to pull mom out of the car, but I couldn't she was stuck and she wasn't moving. The sirens were getting close so I ran into the woods, and then..." He stopped talking as he could no longer speak he was crying so hard. I waited a few minutes before asking "then what Mark?" He wiped the tears from his eyes and in a whisper said. "The car blew up. They think I did it in the car with her" I held him tight and let him cry into my shoulder. When he was calm enough to hear me I told him. "mark, do you want to stay here and live with me, I'm afraid this is the only bedroom I have for you, but I guess we could change it." Mark thought about it for a minute, and pulled back from me, sitting on the edge of the crib, staring at the floor again. "I kinda like it this way" he said as if he was ashamed of it. "So do I Mark, we won't touch it." I went to hug him again, and that's when I first noticed that the crib sheets were wet. I looked at Mark and his dirty jeans were also wet, and so was my shirt from holding him. Mark saw my looking at him and started to cry again. "I'm sorry, "I do that a lot, do you want me to leave?" I held him close unconcerned with his wetness at the time. "No, we can take care of that. Why don't you lay back down for a while okay?" He looked a little nervous, but he did lay back on the crib mattress and pulled one of the blankets over himself. "no, that's all wet Mark, Let me get you some dry ones. Why don't you take those dirty wet clothes off, I'll find something for you to wear. I left him to get some dry blankets and found an old night shirt of my X-husbands for him to wear, it was way to big for him and I had to use safety pins to make the neck smaller so it wouldn't slip right off him. I left him to rest wearing only the nightshirt. I had some calls to make. Chapter Two "Mark, Wake up honey." Mark sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he was still tired and hadn't slept in such a soft bed for as long as he could remember. "Mark, this is Dr. Ross, she's going to make sure your nice and healthy and give you some shots you need to stay that way. Mark jumped up in the crib and started to protest and cry. "No, I don't want any shots, Please no" I held him close to me and calmed him down. Rather than fight him to get the shots, I just held him tight and with my hand raised his nightshirt up exposing his bare bottom, and Dr. Ross quickly gave him the first shot. Mark started to cry louder and held me tighter, but didn't try to fight it. The other two shots he needed were given to him, and I held him a little longer until he was sure she was done, and wouldn't stick him again. I laid him down in the crib, and backed away so Dr. Ross could examine him. Mark was shaking and it was obvious it had been a long time since he had seen a doctor. Dr. Ross found that he was basically fine, but she noticed a scar on his tummy, about where his bladder would be. That's when I informed her of his earlier accident. She asked him about it more and found out that Mark had been wetting himself since the accident, and he was hurt in the accident, but never saw a doctor. It was then we learned that he must have torn his bladder in the car accident and would continue to have accidents forever. Dr. Ross and I discussed the options we had away from Mark, and it was clear we only had one option. I went in to talk to Mark about it. "Mark, I know this is hard, but your going to have to wear diapers to keep from wetting yourself." Mark just nodded like he had figured that out a long time ago and stared blankly at the floor. "Mark, do you have anything to say?" Mark thought for a minute, then looked right into my eyes as a fresh tear rolled down his cheek. "Will you be my new mommy" I hugged him as tight as I could and told him I would be happy to be his mommy. "And my first official act as your mommy is to get you in the tub, when was the last time you had a bath?" Mark didn't answer, which told me it had been a long time. I Carried him to the bathroom and sat him on the sink counter while I filled the tub and added some bubble bath for him. "Do you want me to leave you alone?" I asked him trying to respect his privacy. "Please don't...I...I uh.... I don't know what to do" he said as he started to cry from a feeling of helplessness. It was quite obvious it had been longer than I originally thought sine he had a bath, I figured that his mother most likely bathed him up until they had to live in the car so he had never bathed himself. I helped him into the tub and gave him a good scrubbing, before long his nervousness turned to playfulness as he splashed in the water and played with the bubbles. I spent a good fifteen minutes washing his long brown dirty tangled hair. He whined a little as I struggled to free some of the tangles. With his hair finally done, and most of his body clean I had to move to what I knew would be embarrassing to him. I had him stand and cleaned his backside well, and then turned him around to wash his front. Years of peeing his pants had caused him to have a fairly bad rash and he cried softly trying to be brave although I knew it stung rather bad. Finally done, I carefully dried him off, and took him to my room. I found some more clothes belonging to my X-husband and this time found a T-shirt for Mark to wear. At his small height the T-shirt came down to his ankles, which was goon seeing as I had no other clothes for him, his were worn and had holes, and were also dirty and smelled of urine. I threw them out not bothering to try to wash them. I took Mark out to the car so we could go to get him some clothes. Chapter Three Our first stop was at the local pharmacy, I consulted the pharmacist and he recommended a brand of diapers that were made in sizes for older kids. I bought two bags, and also some socks they had that would fit him. I paid for the purchases and opened the bag of socks. I sat Mark on the counter as I handed him a pair of clean white socks, and he put them on his bare feet. The look on his face showed that he was thrilled to have nice clean socks. I also opened one of the two bags of diapers and pulled one of the crisp disposables from the bag. "Do you..." The pharmacist pointed to a door and told me there was a couch in back I could use. I thanked him and left my bags on the counter, picked Mark up and carried him into the back room. I found the couch and laid Mark on it. He pulled his shirt up to his chest to make it easy for me, and also I think to tell me it was okay to diaper him. I had never actually diapered anyone before, but I managed to do a good job. I stood Mark up and he pulled his T-shirt down. You couldn't tell he was diapered, but you could certainly hear it when he walked. This didn't seem to bother Mark, and it seemed to me he had already accepted it as a fact of life. I grabbed our bags and went on our way to Wal Mart to get him some clothes that would fit. Mark was wide eyed as we walked through the boys section. He was quite happy and it was obviously like Christmas to him to be able to pick out nice new clothes. WE got at least a dozen shirts, and 6 or so pairs of pants and some play clothes as well. We got 2 dozen more pairs of socks and I let him pick out some PJ's to wear to bed. Much to my surprise he went right to the rack with footed sleepers on it. "My mommy used to put me in these" he said. I held one up I thought was cute and asked him what he thought. He said "I like it, but I think you should get this one" It looked the same to me so I asked him why. "Cause this one has buttons...see (pointing out the snaps in the crotch) so you can, you know" I realized what he meant and thanked him for thinking of it. We picked out 4 sleepers with snap crotches in different colors and then for an extra surprise I took him to the toy department and let him pick out a stuffed animal to sleep with and a few toys to play with. In just under two hours we had spent 400 dollars, but that was nothing really for a child's starting wardrobe. I would have to get him a lot more but at east he had something to wear now. I put the bags of clothes and toys in the trunk and decided to take mark next door to the grocery store as I had nothing I thought a kid would eat. We went down all the isles, he didn't seem interested in the candy or cookies or anything. We stopped in the baby isle to get some wipes and powder, and a thing of Desatin to treat his rash, that's when he started picking things off the shelf and putting them in the cart. "Baby food?" I asked him. He told me that baby food is all he has eaten since he's been on his own, because they are only 40cents a jar and no one asked any questions when he bought them. I told him he would have to start eating real food, and that I would be making real meals for him, but after some pleading I agreed to let him get some baby food to eat as snacks. He seemed to like the apple sauce and banana pudding, as he grabbed more of them than anything else. "Anything else?" I asked him. "Yeah, we need spoons" he told me. I told him I had spoons at the house. "No, we need those spoons" He said pointing to the Gerber rubber coated baby spoons. "Oh, the big ones won't fit in the jar will they?" Mark just smiled telling me I had guessed it, so I grabbed a couple spoons and we left the baby isle. I got a gallon of Milk and some things to make dinner from, and also returned to the cookie isle to get him some snacks for later. We paid for the items and were finally ready to go home. Chapter Four When we got back to the house I found that Mark had fallen asleep in the car on the way home. He must be very tired, he had slept so much already and he was sleeping again. I carefully carried him inside so as not to wake him and laid him in the crib. Then I returned to the car to bring in all the bags, and put away all his new clothes. When they were all put away I kept out one of the sleepers. I changed Mark's already wet diaper and managed to get the sleeper on him. I covered him up real good with a blanket and put a teddy bear under his arm, which he instinctively grasped tight close to him as he rolled over in bed. I stood there just looking at that poor, adorable kid, and said a silent prayer thanking god for my special gift. Expecting Mark to sleep for a while I decided to get some more errands done. Just to be sure he would be okay I raised the rail on the crib locking him in. I was going to leave him a note but I didn't know if he could read or not, so I got my mini-recorder and recorded the note and left the recorder next to him in bed. Mark had told me his last name earlier in the day and I had to check on some things before I told anyone about my "son". I went to the library and sure enough in the old news files I found the headline story "mother and Son die in car wreck" Right in the story it said that they had been living in their car to escape from Mark's father who was abusive to him and his mother. That took care of the only loose end, so I knew it was safe to see a lawyer about making Mark me legal son. The lawyer told me he was sure I could easily adopt Mark as he had no other family, he was presumed to be dead and he had for whatever reason ended up in my arms asking me to be his mommy. I did some more shopping to buy extra clothes for Mark and some new sheets and blankets for his crib. Not sure of what he likes, I got him some Bugs Bunny sheets, and also some solid colored ones. I was going to shop more, but I was anxious to get back to my boy and not leave him alone for too long. I got home and found Mark still in his crib asleep, I took the recorder away and checked his diaper, which was damp but not wet enough to change yet. It was getting late and I decided to go to bed myself as it had been a long day. Chapter Five I was awakened to the sound of Mark crying loudly in his room. I looked at the clock and saw it was one thirty in the morning. I put my robe on and went to check on him. he was laying in bed awake, crying into his pillow. He jumped when I touched his shoulder and then hoped into my arms for a hug. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me had a nightmare. I suggested he talk about it so it wouldn't bother him any more. He looked both embarrassed and scared. "Can I tell you anything?" he asked with a deep stare in my eyes. I assured him he could tell me anything he wanted to, and he suddenly just started to put his heart out about how he ended up in my house. He had been picked up by a business man passing through town. mark knew what the man wanted and out of hunger and a need for some quick cash he went with the man and allowed him to do sexual things to him. Mark hated every second of it, but it was something he had to do to survive. When the man was done, mark laid down in the back seat of the mans car and took a nap. When he woke he found he had wet himself and the mans car, and when the man saw what Mark had done, he threw him out of the car, without giving him the food and money he had promised him. Cold, tired and hungry he walked down the street looking in trash cans for food. My trash cans were right under the nursery window and that's when he saw the empty crib. Giving up on finding food, he climbed in the window and laid down for a nap. That's when I found him. I figured he must really be starved by now and suggested we go to the kitchen and get him something to eat. He followed behind me, holding my hand and then sat at the table. I fixed him a bowl of oatmeal and gave him a spoon to eat it with. He made a real mess of himself, having not had the chance to be taught how to eat properly. He was used to baby food, and before that it was mostly finger foods from drive through windows. Half way through I stopped him and cleaned his hands and face, and proceeded to feed him the rest of the oatmeal myself. He really enjoyed the attention and quickly ate the second half of the oatmeal. He had two more bowls that I fed to him before he was satisfied. It was then he said something I had suspected he wanted, but wasn't sure till he said it. "I need your help" he said as tears started to form in his eyes again." I don't know how to take care of myself." he started to get choked up and sob as he admitted his lack of knowledge. Teaching him hot to act and behave was something I had expected anyway so I assured him that wouldn't be a problem. We continued to talk for a while, and I learned that he can read and write, but that's about as far as he got. Also he has never been around other kids and is scared to death to go to school. I would have to home school him, which was fine with me as I wanted to spend as much time as possible with him. I cleaned up the kitchen while Mark sat still in his chair. He was still nervous about just moving around the house, no matter how many times I had told him it was his home now. I led him back to bed and before I had him tucked in he was asleep again. Chapter Six Mark slept for two and a half days before he woke up again. In that time I kept him dry and treated his rash. I fed him with a baby bottle just so he wouldn't be too hungry again. When he woke up he seemed to finally be well rested and seemed to be in a great mood. I changed his diaper for him and let him pick out his clothes to wear for the day. I sent him downstairs to play and watch TV while I made his bad and gathered his laundry to be washed. I found Mark sitting playing with a big pile of Lego blocks while watching Barney and friends. As much as a despise that demented purple dino, I said nothing and left him to his playing....... Things got better as time went on. Mark got up every morning at a more reasonable time, I started teaching him as he was afraid of school. Before long he was legally my son, and we loved each other very much. He still sleeps in the crib, he says it makes him feel better when he has a nightmare. Maybe he always will, I don't mind, I like having a baby boy to care for.