Unexpected Changes

Once the proper paperwork had been filled out, JD was permitted to go home with Ezra. And so, with JD strapped into a booster seat (a contraption which Ezra hadn't even known existed until he was told that JD was required to have one to ride in the car) the two set off for home. It didn't really hit Ezra until they stepped inside the door and he turned on the lights that he was in no way prepared to take care of a child. He glanced around the room, taking in the white couch, glass figurines, and expensive carpets. Then, he glanced down at his young charge who was sleeping in his arms. He carried him into the guest bedroom and tucked him in. Looking down at the small figure, he realized that his life was about to change--drastically.

The next morning, Ezra awoke to someone calling his name, or at least he thought it was his name.
"Mr. Stan-ish? Mr. Stan-ish are you awake? Mr. Staaaan-ish, Mr. Stan-ish?"
Blearily he opened one eye and saw a small boy standing beside his bed. His brow furrowed in puzzlement till he remembered the previous day's events. Then both of his eyes shot open, and he sat up in bed.
"Good morning, Mr. Stan-ish," JD said happily.
"Please, call me Ezra," he answered absently as he blurrily squinted at the clock. 6 am. Good lord, even the birds weren't up at this hour. He needed a shower, and coffee lots and lots of coffee. His scrambled for something to keep JD occupied. TV-- children enjoyed television. "How about you find something on the television that suits your interest while I get prepared for the day?"
"K," JD responded and wandered into the living room to do just that.
"JD--you don't always get up this early do you?" Ezra called.
"No..."Ezra sighed in relief, till...
"Sometimes I get up earlier."

After showering and dressing, Ezra made his way to the kitchen to put on some coffee and to see what he could make the two of them for breakfast. After searching both the refrigerator and the cupboards, he came to the realization that he did not have any food fit for a child. With growing panic he realized that he didn't even know what children of JD's age ate. Or even what JD's age was. "Tell me, JD, how old are you?"
"Four," JD answered holding up the corresponding amount of fingers.
"And what is it that 4-year-olds eat?"
"Milk, cereal, bread, hot dogs, samiches, cookies, sp'sketti, peanutbutter n' jelleee ..." JD listed.
"Ah yes, thank you," Ezra said, cutting him off and adding grocery shopping to the list of things that they needed to do that day.

After having breakfast at a nearby diner, the two set off for a day of shopping.
Their first stop was to find items for the interior of the house: carpets, slipcovers, and items for JD's room. The trip was a success and buoyed Ezra's confidence that the others would be as well. The next stop was clothes shopping and while Ezra had never bought clothing for a child before, he figured that it couldn't be too different from buying clothing of any other kind. He was wrong.

He found the boy's section easy enough, but was at a loss of where to go from there. He asked JD if he knew what size he wore, but all he got was a shrug. He tried holding up the clothing in front of JD, but many of the sizes looked the same to him. While pausing to contemplate this problem, he noticed JD turning in odd half circles presumably to look at something on his back.
"What on earth are you doing?" Ezra asked puzzled by this odd behavior.
"My tag has a number on it," JD answered.
Ezra groaned inwardly, how could he have missed such a simple solution? With the size problem solved, they started their search only to discover that they had two very different tastes. Ezra liked the more conservative clothes, and JD was drawn to brightly colored ones. Ezra decided to compromise and thus ended up buying a wide and rather large assortment of clothing. He was astounded at the price for such small articles of clothing, but handed over his credit card nonetheless.

Next was shoe shopping, and if Ezra had thought that clothes shopping was bad, shoe shopping was even worse. Learning from past experience, Ezra first checked the size of JD's shoe. That was the easy part. Finding shoes proved more difficult than he had thought. All he wanted was to find JD one pair of dress shoes and one pair of sneakers. The majority of the dress shoes, JD dubbed uncomfortable but finally after what seemed like 1,000 pairs, he found a pair that they could both agree on. They had the opposite problem with the sneakers in that JD liked pretty much all of them and deciding on a pair took over an hour.

The exhausted pair then stopped for lunch, wherein JD informed him that he usually took a nap after lunch. So, afterwards the two stopped back at the house where both took a much needed nap. Then, feeling a bit more refreshed the two set off to finish their shopping.
Grocery shopping proved to be a very interesting experience. Ezra decided to let JD pick out the foods that he liked and Ezra discovered foods that he never knew existed- -such as spaghetti in a can and macaroni and cheese in box. He expressed his horror at both and at the cereal which contained more sugar than anything else. JD patiently explained to him that that was the kind of stuff that kids ate. He was relieved that the rest of the food that JD picked was relatively normal.

The last stop was the toy store and Ezra was amazed at the wide assortment available and was at a total loss as to what to purchase. Once again, he turned the shopping over to JD who was in absolute awe when Ezra told him he could pick anything that he wanted. At a loss at where to begin, JD hesitantly picked out a couple of matchbox cars. When this met with Ezra's approval and he was told he could pick out more, two action figures, a teddybear, a board game, a couple of books, a couple of videos, a box of crayons, a pack of construction paper, a set of plastic horses, and a set of cowboys and indians were added to the cart. JD announced that he was finished, and the two headed back to the house.

Once inside the house, Ezra collapsed on a chair exhausted while JD plopped in front of the tv to watch one of his new videos. Glancing at the vast amount of bags that they had accumulated during the day, Ezra shook his head in bewilderment as he hadn't thought that they had bought quite that much stuff. Once again, he thought about how much his life was going to change. But, that night when JD gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and a hug and thanked him for all that he had done, he found that he didn't really mind.

Note: FYI, in my mind little JD looks like the kid in the Frosted Flakes commercial (you know the one with the 50 less sugar ad)