The baby project.

Part two

Everyone's be assigned a home funded by the school and various donors for this project. It's an apartment building owned by the school which teaches the student more about raising families. We pay a small small amount for rent and water electricity and all of the essentials but it's not nearly as much as if would cost for a real house. Each person has also chosen a job so to speak that they will work. It's all from the school which makes the process easier and more fun I think. It's generally a career that they have interest in pursuing in the future. I suggested being a stay at home mom after we found our babies but the school is calling it maternity leave so I have six weeks at home before I have to start attending my job. It'll be a lot of work but that's the point of the assignment. "Both are asleep in their cribs and we have time to set up our new apartment." He smiles at me. I groan at the knock on the door and walk over.

"Andy just put our babies to bed! I wanted to come over and see your place." Summer smiles looking around.

"I had the same idea." Brooke giggles walking in through the open door. "So where are your kids?" She giggles looking around. She carries her three year old on her hip.

"Asleep. We picked babies." I giggle opening the door only once Jericho says it's allowed. I smile at the group and peek in. "They're so precious." I smile leading my friends back out where Jericho has started unpacking boxes. "Here I'll help." I chuckle while a couple of his friends pop in with their kids.

"She hates me." I can hear one whisper I've never met him before so I don't know who he is.

"This is Colton. Colton this is Zody." He rolls his eyes while his little girl waddles around.

"Hi sweetheart what's your name?" I smile at the little one.

"I'm Jamie!" She giggles hugging my leg.

"Colton I found her." I laugh lifting her up.

"Oh my goodness Jamie you need to stop wandering off." He sighs lifting her out of my arms. I'm glad we picked babies. Leah is one and Caleb is a month and a half. I feel really lucky to have the two I do.

"I've got it." I smile walking into the bedroom. I lift Leah but Caleb starts crying too so I bring them both. Caleb leans against my shoulder and Leah holds me tight. "Look who wanted to visit." I smile showing my friends the babies. While everyone crowds Jericho grabs the little boy and shows him off. He's adorable.

"Okay I should go, there's someone coming to talk to us. We got an Addict baby. Ethans watching him." Brooke explains waving as does the little girl she then takes away.

"Oh yeah we have someone coming too about Caleb." Jericho nods at me.

"I forgot about that." I pout kissing Caleb's cheek. "The poor thing." I sigh looking back at Leah.

"Yeah. He'll be a little extra work but I'm excited." He smiles sending his friends off. Most of us chose addict babies. Not on purpose but we all ended up with them.

"Me too." I smile cuddling Leah closer. "Why don't you play with some toys?" I hum setting her down in her playpen with a couple of stuffed animals and some other little toys.

"Okay!" She giggles cuddling the stuffed animals and playing with the toys I left for her.

"They aren't so bad." I chuckle unpacking more boxes while Jericho works to get our baby boy to bed. "I'll make dinner." Both of our parents gave us groceries as a gift for this whole arrangement and we have pots and pans that we snagged from one of the earlier sales at school. They sold us lots for very cheap.

"Thank you." He mumbles with a soother between his teeth. As he hushes our child there's a knock on the door that I go to answer.

"Hi! Come on in." I smile at the social worker. I walk back towards the kitchen. We set most of our stuff up before we got our kids and now all I have left to do is put our dishes and such away. "We're still fixing the place up but take a seat. Leahs just playing and Jericho is putting Caleb down for bed." I explain walking back towards the vegetables I wanted to cut up. I figured we could promote healthy eating and such so that eventually our kids could learn the same. I know it's a stretch but I feel like I could see him and I staying together and raising these digests as our own. I don't want to get my hopes up but I do want there to be a future for us.

"I'm back sorry about the wait. He was fighting me." He chuckles introducing himself to the woman in our home.

"I figure I'll just get right into it." She nods. I set my vegetables aside and walk towards where she sits. Jericho moves next to me and we wait for what she needs to tell us. "He's got more issues than the poor kid should ever have to deal with. The mom did heroin and was an alcoholic. There's more but those are the worst. Now he's still little but I've written you out a list of the things we fear he might deal with as he grows up. I don't know what your plan is with him but we do hope that you would adopt him in the end. We think it would be best for him to have a stable environment and growing up with you guys would be good for him. You're both very skilled with kids and your applications made that very clear. With that I will give you a few pamphlets and some phone numbers but that I guess is all." Jericho collects everything from her while I move back to our dinner and the kids food. Leah is just playing and I know she's gonna want food soon. I'll get her a bowl of puréed beans ready. Apparently those are her favourites.

"Thank you so much." Jericho nods shutting the door and sticking the phone number to the fridge with a magnet. "She gave us like eight pamphlets." He sighs putting them on the counter.

"We're gonna have our work cut out for us with our little guy but I'm excited. He's gonna be great." I smile sautéing the vegetables.

"Whatcha making?" He hums wrapping his arms around my waist. I can feel myself melting under his touch.

"Stir fry?" I chuckle adding a single chicken breast which I've chopped into much smaller pieces and a bunch of little shrimp.

"Can I help?" He chuckles. We've been really close for years now this kind of behaviour is normal for us.

"Wanna put some plates out?" I chuckle and he nods reaching into the playpen for our little girl. I put the food onto the table so we can each serve our own. "Hi baby girl. Are you hungry?"