I don't really see him much

Gary that is. He is out of his room to enjoy the amount of time he is allowed to play on electronic games, and he shows for meals. He comes right up and does a chore whenever asked. When he is with one of us he is friendly and engaging. It is easy to get him talking about his life.

But if you don't put any energy into it he will drift off to his room to read, sleep, and drain the batteries on the cell phone. I checked our usage this morning and then again a bit ago, just to see. He has put 100 minutes on the phone this afternoon. Over the weekend he has sent or received almost 80 text/pix messages.

I almost told him, when he came to the kitchen to get a piece of pizza, that I would like for him to spend some more time out of his room -- other than meals and gaming time. I didn't though. He started talking first telling me how cool it was to be able to talk to his girlfriend for the first time in eleven months, laughingly complained that his thumbs were sore from texting. He said he had been up most of the night finishing Eragon and now he is trying to get through Antwoine Fisher. And "I'm leaving most of my stuff here. I'm just going to take my whites back because I won't have enough otherwise."

He was so happy.

Kids isolating themselves can be an indicator of depression or other problems, but I think he is just having a ball. He loves being able to go to his room (his own room!) in the middle of the afternoon. He loves being able to talk to his friend, having a cell phone.

This morning he told me that he called his dad last night ("because I can!") and that his dad was really sad, he might have even been crying. "All of this," meaning the divorce and separation from his kids is "so hard on him. I think he was crying. I haven't ever heard him cry before." Gary told me that it has always been hard on his dad to not be able to live with all his kids. "Most people are really critical of him for not living with me." I told him that I wasn't, that I had a lot of sympathy for his dad. Having to choose which of your kids to live with has to be the worst decision that a parent can make.

We talked about it a little. I think that Gary knows, or at least part of him knows, that if his father can make up with Gary's stepmother he will, and he will stay there. I think Gary has even begun to allow himself to imagine that his father won't move at all. When he spoke of when he was going to move in with his father he gave me an anxious look. It was just a second, but he seemed to be wondering if I was going to tell him that that might not happen. I didn't.