Oh man.

I had one of the best conversations with Scooter last night. Typically, we talk for 10 minutes or so, and then she gets bored or wants to read or wants to watch TV or wants to play or whatever. Last night, I called her at my usual time, and she called me back a little before 8 (her time). We talked non-stop until it was time for her to go to bed at 8:30.

We talked about Bubba's diaper adventures. She was SOO grossed out, I told her about her own adventures at that age. At one point, as a joke, I told her that her penguin pillow pet was in Bubba's crib when he started experimenting. Her reaction was, "you. No..." And then silence. Dead silence. I told her I was joking, and that we don't let Bubba play with her stuff when she's not here. Relief. Huge relief. I was surprised. We tease Scooter all the time by telling her that Ben's been riding her bike or that he disassembled it and put it in a box in the closet, etc. She never falls for it completely. She did this time, and it almost gave her a heart attack.

She also had some sad news. Her dad and "Vicky" lost their baby. Or zygote, I guess, would be a better term for it. She was only a month and a half pregnant. This was the very reason why I was a little unhappy that they told Scooter about it so early. I mean, I wasn't out of my first trimester, but I was well over 2 months along when we told Scooter about Bubba. And my family has a rep for being good little incubators.

And of course, "Vicky" and Scooter's dad aren't exactly the greatest communicators in the world. In Scooter's words, "Oh. They never talk to me about anything." I believe it, too, since she generally doesn't know about dentist or doctor appointments until after she gets back from one. So who was stuck explaining babies and why zygotes sometimes don't make it? Me. Over the phone. Scooter's summary of the situation...

Scooter:  Well...we had to make ANOTHER stop after school. (a little background: she HATES stopping or running errands on her way home from school. she prefers to just drive straight home).
Me: Yeah?
Scooter: Yeah. [Vicky] was at the Dr. because the baby's dead.
Me: Oh dear! I'm really sorry to hear that. That's too bad.
Scooter: Yeah. [Vicky] had an appointment to look at pictures of it, but there wasn't a heart-beat.
Me: That is sad.
Scooter: It grew to be the size of a raspberry. That's small. Maybe [Vicky] didn't feed it enough.
Me: Oh, honey. Sometimes the babies don't grow correctly, or the mom's body isn't quite ready to have a baby or sometimes it's just random. But it's nobody's fault. Sometimes the baby just can't grow.
Scooter: Oh. It was a raspberry. There are pictures, but there was no heartbeat.
Me: I'm really sorry to hear that.
Scooter: Was [Bubba] ever that small?
Me: Yep. But he was able to grow.

All in all, I do think it's sad. It's sad how quickly her dad tells her stuff that maybe he should hold onto (like...back in the day, new girlfriends would be introduced mere moments before a break up). It's sad that Scooter has to deal with living apart from her family, that she has to deal with her dad potentially moving, that she has to deal with a pregnancy, and now the death of a raspberry. And it's up to me to take the time to talk to her about it.

I'll also admit that I'm a little selfishly sad about all of this. I was kind of hoping that when this baby came along, Vicky wouldn't be so intent on playing house with my daughter since she would have a child of her own. At this point, I'm just hoping that I don't have to keep having dead zygote conversations with Scooter every few months until one of the pregnancies takes, like I did with the ex-girlfriends a few years ago.