Baby Time

Miss Baby Cleo and/or Naomi Wachtel arrived at 7 this morning. We were number two on the watch-the-boys-while-we-race-to-the-hospital list, the idea being that we topped the weekend roster but that others -- perhaps better known henceforward until the end of time as The Layabouts -- would step up during the week.

The Layabouts, however, had turned off their phone or otherwise shirked their responsibility, so we got the call at 1 a.m. -- today? it seems like days ago.

E. stayed with O. -- kitty still needing some tending -- and I put on my fuzzy track suit and answered the call. The moon was low in the sky and half full, and it pleased me to think it was waxing, not waning.

After sitting on the Wachtel sofa for a while, attentive to any restlessness on the part of the boys slumbering nearby, I concluded that they, at 3 and 6, were probably capable of getting up for a glass of water -- indeed, I had no idea where the water glasses were and would probably cut myself -- so I went upstairs and lay down on the comfy bed and fell sleep, rumpled and fuzzy.

About 6:30 a thump-thump on the stairs woke me and thus arrived little Oliver (person, not cat) who had been prepared more than once to find an interloper in the parental bedroom but had, in fact, forgotten all that preparation and was about to slide from wonder to distress when Eliot came thump-thumping-thumping (a little louder and a little quicker) and greeted his godfather with a howl of pleasure, and much trampolining on said godfather ensued.

About 7:30 we got the call. Mom, baby, world doing well. And after a while Seth came home from Kaiser Hospital Oakland to pick up the boys for their first view of the new wonder.

And I yawned and came home, feeling privileged to have helped when help was needed, which is the sweet spot on the Louisville Slugger of life.