The little girl's cousin now starts her journey

[Reporter]

Over the seven years that the little girl had been arguing with me everywhere, her mom came to realize the little girl has had a good grasp of her homework assignments and loving school but also good at fishing.

So, her mom and the former boyfriend--now husband in both American and Hmong ways as we all know them to be--bought her a boat for that interest.

"But you must know--that's just a hobby, like something you do for fun now and then--and you must still go into more schooling for a career, okay?" I told her.

"I know. But I don't want to be an attorney," she said.  "I don't want to defend bad people."

I felt a tinge of insistence. But I didn't want to say anything because I would still have to let her choose what she likes the most. I'm not like those Chinese-American parents who make their children become doctors and then the doctors change career because they've done two things: 1. pleased their parents, and 2. learned that medicine wasn't for them.

Plus, I'm not her dad and have no right to insist so much.

"Sure. Something you really enjoy doing that makes lots of money," I said next.

But she's taken really good care of her youngest 8-month old cousin, whose been visiting me, too. We'll see how argumentative the cousin gets when she can repeat what we
have been teaching her. So far, she's been screaming if we don't hold her walking or if we leave her in the stroller for too long. We know that because after we've moved her into
some activity, she starts smiling.

[Reporter]

The cousin is only seven months old. But she already reacts to adult life.

I was babysitting them both this weekend. I carried the little cousin around to the backyard garden to see and learn the various plants we have there: apple tree and apples, pumpkin vines and pumpkin flowers and pumpkins, chards, lettuces, dills, cucumbers, onions that their other little cousin helped me plant just two weeks ago, etc. Once back inside, the little girl asked if I knew her cousin has shown some jealousy just that morning.

We demonstrated: the little girl's mom and the little girl hugged while I held the little cousin.

I pointed the cousin to them.

They smiled like they were loving each other.

A small crying sound began to come out of the cousin into louder "wah! wah! wah!"

I told them that was enough. I handed the cousin to the little girl's mother and all was happy again.

We all just laughed about it.

But it is interesting how such little baby already knew what many adults are killing one another over: jealousy.

[Reporter]

Two days ago--yes, exactly two days ago today--we heard the cousin say two words: the little girl's name and "mommy."

When the little girl and I noticed that, we both said we were happy she could do that.

But she just stopped there. The cousin didn't make anything more out of it. Nor did she make any other sounds.

There's delight in hearing a crawling infant utter sounds.

[Reporter]

The little girl's nuclear and distant families took a camping trip over the weekend to a beautiful lake up north. But they were able to show me just one picture of a fish.

Yet the adults all told me there were lots of fish and that they caught a lot and that I should go with them next time.

I took the little girl's third cousin--a 4-year-old toddler--to my backyard garden where we often would catch crickets and see butterflies. I asked her if they caught any fish this weekend.

"No," she said. "I only got three frogs."

[Reporter]

Cousin 2 is six years old.

They were at the little girl's house, so, after work, I went to pick them up to go home.

On the way home, this cousin asked, "Why did you pick up first? Why didn't you go out to jog and pick us up later?"

I got the impression that she still wanted to stay longer and didn't seem quite happy about me taking them back home so early.

"My work is closer to the little girl's house than the park is," I said.

"Oh, I see," she said.

I kept driving towards their house and we were just about two miles from it or so when she started speaking again.

"I don't think you should go to the park now. It's getting dark," she said.

"You mean it's not safe for me anymore?" I asked.

"Right," she said.

I had to comply. So, I promised her that I wouldn't jog until morning.

She seemed relieved. (Her four-year-old sister was leaning back on her car seat dozing away.)

[Reporter]

The 8-month-old cousin came back for another visit today.

She's cousin number 4.

The minute her mother brought her inside the house, she smiled at me and giggled. She pointed to the deck in the back of the building where the apple tree and other garden items were. We have learned to like the apple tree and the ten apples blooming on it now. (One has started to redden but got a tiny worm hole on top. It's surviving. That hole is sealing up. There's no worm inside. The rest are still green, and her aunt loves to dip them in salt because they are still a bit sour. That's why there are only ten left.)

So, I carried the cousin out to the deck and down the steps towards the backyard and the apple tree. She leaned forward and down to look at my foot steps as I was walking.

This cousin somehow knows not to touch the apple leaves and the apples. I told her it's ok to touch the leaves and branches. I even reached her towards the apples so that she might brush them. But she wouldn't. She just looked at them and smiled.

That brief moment of walk was enough to satisfy her. I turned back to go inside and she didn't cry for a longer time outside.

[Reporter]

Cousin number 3 is four years old. So, she's very happy about what's coming for her next year.

"I'm going to school," she said to me.

"Wow! Very nice!" I said. "Do you know what school is?"

Her eyes rolled around in their places, and I could tell she was confused.

"Yes," she said.

This lady speaks clear English and does not resort to baby language. So, she said, "Yes" instead of "yeah" or "aha!" She no longer says "chou-chou" for trains. She simply says "that train" when she sees one.

"What is school?" I asked.

"I have homework and I press A," she said.

I was satisfied with that definition. So, I said, "[V]ery good! Good job! You've got it! That's right!"

[Reporter]

Cousin 2 said she wanted to go to the park with me, too, when I said they all should stay home while I went out to jog.

"I want to jog, too," she said.

I agreed to let her tag along.

So, along also came Cousin 3--the four-year-old.

She did jog one round around the track with me. Then she turned to Cousin 3 and they both sat down on a bench.

After I had finished my round, they asked to go to the store to get some chips.

I am not a fan of chips. And I especially wanted to keep them away from chips. But I felt I have not bought them anything for a long time, so I took them to Cub Foods.

They didn't quite know the store. But I said it was big and had a lot to choose from. It would have what they have wanted, cheaper than where I was getting gas at, I told them.

I found three masks in the van and made us use them, despite that they weren't ours.

Cousin 2 put a purple one on. "This smells mommy," she said.

"That's mommy's mask," I said.

She then changed it and used a different one but insisted that we let Cousin 3 use the purple one.

"Why does this smell mommy?" Cousin 3 asked.

"Because that's mommy's," Cousin 2 said.

"Why do I have to put mommy's mask on?" she asked.

"Because we don't have any other one for you," I said.

"But why?" she asked again.

Cousin 2 went right in front of her and held her chest tight with two hands and shook her vibrantly. "Because you have to!" she said.

Cousin 3 asked no more and started walking along.

"Wow!" said the four-year-old once we were inside Cub Foods. "It's so big!"

I dragged them quickly from the area and towards where the crackers and chips were.

"Choose what you like and bring to me," I told them.

Cousin 2 insisted that we buy something for the little girl, too, since the little girl was going to be waiting for us at home.

"We don't know what she likes," I said.

"I do," Cousin 2 said.

'But let's just get what you want and you all can just share," I said.

"No, we can't share, because we like different kinds," she said.

She grabbed something and insisted that little girl would love that. I put it back. "I'm not sure. The only thing I know she loves most is this," I said. And I picked a different kind of chips and put that into the basket on my other hand.

Cousin 2 didn't say anything more.

At home, little girl was already waiting for us. She had not been there when we were still there. Her mom just dropped her off after we had taken off. She asked why we didn't buy her anything. I said we didn't know exactly what she wanted, and so I bought a kind I felt she might like. She said that was fine. Then I asked if she liked what Cousin 2 had picked up. She said, "Yes. I like those, too. I would eat them."

[Reporter]

The little girl's mother brought her and Cousin 3 to me last night after their one-hour-drive trip to an auntie's farm. They each had a chicken hatchling in their hands. There was another one in a brown bag, too.

"They wanted you to help them raise these," her mother said. "I can't have them at my place. I told them I don't want the messes and I also don't know how to raise them. They said you would help them and that you wouldn't mind."

Who said I wanted to raise chickens here? And how long before we could slaughter them for boiling? Not in just one week or two. Not overnight.

As her mother was stepping out the door, little girl and Cousin 3 took the three little chicks into the bathroom.

They then closed the door.

"This way, they won't run all over the places," little girl said.

I told them we could put them in a cage I had that I had been using to trap squirrels to get rid of squirrel nuisances.

"No," she said. "They can't go outside. It's too cold. They'll die."

I told them we'd keep the cage inside the house but by the deck door so they won't get in the way.

"What does 'get in the way' mean?" asked Cousin 3.

I explained to her that it meant so that they won't block us around.

I rushed to the garage and brought the cage back to the house. I told them to put the chicks inside the cage.

"They'll get cold; we need to put a blanket in there," little girl said.

That would be hard to do. So, I said we could put a cloth on the ground and set the cage over it.

All agreed, although Cousin 3 just followed along.

"I know your mommy does not want the chicken at your place," I told the little girl that.

"I want you to take pictures and videos for me every week," she said.

"Why don't you just come visit them every week?" I asked.

She must have realized how tough it would be to have her mother bring her over every week. Little girl said after a long pause, "Maybe. If I can..."

Night came and everyone had to sleep. I put two kid beds out in the livingroom for them. Blankets, pillows--all there.

But the chicks kept clucking.

"Don't you think they miss their mommies?" I asked little girl.

"They don't...um...." she said and stopped saying more.

"Do they miss their mommies?" Cousin 3 repeated my question.

"Right. Do they miss their mommies?" I asked again. "I think they do. That's why they are crying."

If anyone knew what that's like, little girl would be the first. She had cried incessantly in the past about missing her mom and dad, and especially her dad who has not contacted her for a year or so now.

She looked away into her phone to avoid talking to us.

I covered the cage with a sheet and the chicks quieted down.

The next morning, I said I wanted to release the chicks from the cage.

"They can't go outside," said little girl. "It's cold out there. They'll die."

"They have to eat," I said. "We have to put them out there and feed them. We don't want them to mess up the house."

"But they'll get wet and get cold," she said.

"They are animals. They know how to handle nature," I said.

She quieted down. Cousin 3 was just listening and following along.

So, I sat down with little girl and Cousin 3 on the sofa. I didn't want them to be hurt or feel that I wasn't helping them or that they weren't welcome at my place.

I softly explained that the chicks needed to be with their mommies and that we should return them to auntie and that the two can go back there to see them some times. I promised I would drive them there every week on Saturdays.

Cousin 3 agreed, too.

"Okay," said little girl. "But can we keep them for a few days?"

I said we could keep them for a few days.

Suddenly, this afternoon, Cousin 2 arrived with her parents after a trip to the grocery store.

"I'm staying over tonight," she told us. She took hold of the third chicken and wouldn't let go.

[Reporter]

I came home at 10:00 p.m. and Cousin 3 greeted me at the door with her infant chick in her hands.

"Let them sleep!" I said.

"They don't sleep," she said.

"If you hold onto them like that, they won't sleep," I said.

"Do you want to pat it?" Cousin 3 said. "Here! Touch its head!"

"Yes, they will," said little girl from the living room. "Look! This one is sleeping!"

I looked at the little chick in her faced-up palms and it was blinking tiredlessly.

"Look at those eyes!" I said. "They aren't closing."

I advised them to put the chicks in the cage and cover it up to darken their bed spot.

"Where is the other one?" I asked.

"In the box!" said Cousin 3.

I checked and there were two. Now we have four chicks.

"How come there's one more?" I asked.

"I brought mine, too," said Cousin 2.

Some times in between the time she first got here and the time I came back from work today, she had her dad take her to pick hers up from home.

I can see that neither the kids nor the chicks will sleep early tonight. Nor I if that's the case.

[Reporter]

By 11:10 p.m. last night, things began to wind down: it was bed time for everyone.

The girls jointly showered, put their pajamas on, and grabbed their stuff--one backpack each, their baby blankets--and went downstairs to bed.

The chicks stayed in a brown cart board box near the deck door.

As I looked around the living room to put things in place, I saw little girl's phone that she had just left behind on the sofa. I could still see the texts between her and her mother, because the phone had not closed off yet.

"I'm not coming back home, mommy," she wrote. "You won't let my chicken come with me. I'm leaving your house."

"Where will you go live, baby? Mommy loves you!" the mother texted back.

"Let me think. Auntie. I'll go live with Auntie U..."

"Have you talked to Auntie about that?"

"No."

"What if you need clothes, foods?"

"I haven't thought about that yet," little girl texted.

[Reporter]

Apparently, little girl didn't make my place a choice for her to run off to because I had told her I would return the baby chickens to her auntie after a few days.

But she couldn't go anywhere else, so she ended up returning home to her mother but without her baby chicken that she already gave a name to.

Cousin 2's father agreed to care for the baby chickens for the few days, but the little ones would carry them to places with them--to my place, to another auntie's, and to Cousin 2's, too.

Whatever went on between little girl and her mother could only be guessed at from little girl's statements to Cousin 2.

On the phone when Cousin 2 told little girl to go to Reporter's so that they could play together, little girl said, "[M]aybe; I don't know if I can go out anymore."

"We are going to take the baby chickens there," Cousin 2 said.

"I might not have mine anymore," little girl said.

Little girl's mother has also called the auntie who originally gave the girls the chickens and orally screamed at her for having done so.

"I have three dogs I'm taking care of everyday and three caterpillars I can't even find milkweeds for," her mother has been quoted. "How do you expect me to take care of a chicken for her?"

The auntie shut her mother up by saying simply: "[Y]ou have all those and you won't let her have any pet?"

But at an event today, Cousin 2's father brought all four baby chickens to my place inside a cart board box covered with a piece of cut-up carpet.

Little girl and her mother appeared for the event with little girl looking all sad.

"Have the chickens grown big now?" she asked.

"No," I said. "They are only two days more older. Can't have grown much yet."

Surprisingly, her mother brought along some baby chicken foods that she has secretly bought from the pet shop where she always buys foods for her three dogs.

The 8-month-old cousin, now Cousin 4, also came to the event with her parents. I showed her the baby chickens, but her right hand fingers have pointed only to the apple tree in my backyard. So, I had to carry her there a few times during the ceremony.

This Cousin 4 is able to stand on her feet now but can't step forward or backyard yet. She's grown more powerful now as she was able to grab a few things in my house that she used to only brush but now yank them off onto the ground. She does not care to play with her older cousins. She just wants to sightsee around the house in almost every room and outside and be told what things are.

[Reporter]

As we were passing through Como Zoo on Lexington Parkway the other day, Cousin 3 told us she remembered seeing animals there.  I tried to teach them not to accept things from strangers.

"What do you do when a stranger gives you candy?" I asked.

"I'll take it and walk off," said little girl.

"No. You don't take it and you run," I said.

We turned to the four-year-old Cousin 3. I asked the same thing.

She paused for a long time, which meant she was thinking of an answer and probably didn't like what I had just told little girl. Then she said, "I eat it."

[Reporter]

I have not confronted either the aunt or the little girl's mother about all of this. But I have talked to the aunt about returning the baby chickens to their mothers for further nurturing. I tested the chicks and realize that they, too, need company. More so their mothers' companies than anyone else's. The aunt did say these chicks weren't brought by electrical incubations of eggs but they were incubated by their mothers on her farm.

The little girl and the rest of the cousins know this. When I asked them if they felt the chicks missed their mothers, they all turned away and didn't quite respond directly to the question.

The other day, Cousin 2's family said they wanted to take the chicks with them. But two were left with little girl. I asked why they didn't take all or three and leave just one for the little girl. Obviously, she was too attached to the littlest of them all. But she said it could not be alone. "It'll be too lonely," she said.

True enough, two tests proved they needed company. Under little girl's instructions, we first put both of the chicks in the garden. They quickly disappeared under the tall chards and herb plants and seemed to start looking for bugs all over.

The next day, after finding out that the foods I bought from the pet shop just wouldn't work for them (nor the rice I had moistened up for them), I decided to put them back into the garden. But this time I took only one while letting little girl play with hers. The chick I threw into what the four-year-old Cousin 3 calls "jungle" quickly came back out of the thick land of chards and herbs--crying. It wouldn't disappear into looking for bugs.

I told the little girl to add hers to the "jungle" as I put the other chick back there. They both disappeared into the thick again.

The aunt related the story to me about how the little girl and the other cousins took the chicks home instead of leaving them at her place.

After going around the aunt's chicken coop during their visit, little girl and the cousins said they wanted to take some just-hatched babies home. The aunt's son--who has been raising and caring for the chickens in this rural home--said those babies wouldn't survive if taken from the farm, since they were still too small. Little girl took one in her hands and ran inside her mother's car. She sat there crying, not letting the baby chick go.

The aunt's son then said he could see if there were bigger ones for them. They said the bigger ones weren't cute like those babies and they didn't want any that's bigger.

Inside the coop were a few just slightly bigger with more developed wings.

Little girl said she wanted one that was the same color as hers.

Their auntie's son took out a few brown plummage ones and the other cousins accepted those without issues. But little girl insisted on having a black one like the little baby she had just taken into her mother's car.

Brought to her now was another black-plummaged one but slightly older. Little girl already took a picture of the one she had been holding in her mother's car and shone out its picture for a comparison. She looked at the new chick and the one on her phone side-by-side. They somehow matched except this one just had better feathers and more developed wings. She accepted that and took it home.

After all these awkward situations, Cousin 2's father and I talked and decided that the chicks be returned to the children's aunts. Little girl returned home to her mother yesterday while leaving the baby chicks with me. So, I turned them over to Cousin 2's father with the dried grubs that I bought from the pet shop the other day. He has agreed to feed them and then send them to the aunt later on in the week.

I'm going to have to explain to the little girl why all that happened. I've decided not to lie to her about the return, because I knew she would eventually find out from her aunt about them. So, I've told her mother I would tell little girl that they just needed to be raised by their mothers or they will die.

"That's enough reason," her mother said. "She will understand."

[Reporter]

Cousin 4's journey hasn't been as I thought it was. But that's beyond my control.

Beyond my control in two ways: 1. I'm not her legal parent and so I have no decision in her upbringing, and 2. when the information came to me, what happened to her was already just a story, not a future plan.

I am still disappointed by what I've heard in the story.

So, her mother called me and said Cousin 4 was crying non-stop last night around 10:00 p.m. She had been crying since 5:00 p.m. and the mother's brother has said he had never seen a child cry so much.

What happened was her mother had let Cousin 4's uncle take her overnight without either of Cousin 4's parents sleeping overnight with her at the uncle's place that's one hour's drive away.

I quickly spoke against that when Cousin 4 just wouldn't stop crying. "She's too young to be put overnight at a stranger's place," I said.

"That's my brother," her mother said. "He asked for her to sleep overnight. I didn't want him to feel bad. And I also have one good night of sleep at home without her. She already did that with her aunt a few times. I can't treat her uncle differently."

Despite what I said about her being only nine months old and that she has refused to go into the uncle's arms each time he raised them to her, her mother said it was okay.

I wanted to drive out to pick her up and return her to her mother. But the uncle insisted that I not do that. I told her mother that if she also said "no", then I won't go.  After all, I didn't want to have the cops called on me by the uncle or even the mother.

I actually wanted to call the cops on them. But I was also afraid Child Protection in their county  might take over the child and then it would be even more difficult for Cousin 4 to be partially raised by me.

Good thing I'm not a mandated reporter.

So, now, it's not just Cousin 4 who might have nightmares. I have them, too. I couldn't sleep with just thinking that she's in a strange house in fear.  When they had her on the phone, she was crying. Then they sent me a picture of her in someone's arms and her eyes were red and puffy.

I told her mother that they can't tire her out and claim that they've calmed her down. I know she does not feel safe. Just because she can't speak yet and can't tell them what she feels doesn't mean she's not afraid.

But this isn't my child and so there's nothing I can do beyond Cousin 4's parents' acts or permissions.

They've planned to leave her there the entire weekend.