Picking our way through the East Village bar crowds, we walk through a cloud of Marajuana smoke. I almost asked them to give my wife a hit.
Screaming up the West Side Highway (literally, my wife was screaming), trying to get to St. Luke's while avoiding drunk drivers, passing a stone's throw from Times Square about 20 minutes before the ball was going to drop. I tried to make Faith laugh by telling her that we'd probably hit gridlock and the whole thing would end up like a Very Special Episode of some terrible sit-com: I'd wind up delivering the baby myself on 42nd Street at the stroke of midnight, perhaps assisted by a tart-tongued but lovable hobo, or a gruff kebab vendor who, it turns out, used to be an obstetrician in his native Pakistan. Laughter and tears abound, followed by slaps on the back and confetti from a Greek chorus of drunken frat boys.
Edie was at home under the care of her Russian babysitter. Zina is the kind of neighbor who usually only does exist on TV. I don't know what we would do without her. I called her at 11pm New Years Eve, and she toddled up the stairs in her bathrobe with a stack of magazines, thrilled to be able to help.
I called Zina from the hospital the next day and she told me that they had been having a roaring good time as always, but that Edie had fallen asleep exhausted because of "tension in my apartment". I don't always track Zina's use of English and I figured she meant that there had been some kind of drama with her adult son who lives in her apartment with her. "Tension?" I asked. "Yes, my God, she is tense like a professional." Okay, I thought, no doubt a trait she inherited from her mother, but I still asked her to clarify. "She tense! You know, I put on Ukranian music in my apartment, and she tense all over the room!"
Faith came through like a champ once again, powering the baby out through some difficulty, without the benefit of drugs. She has since announced her intention to retire from the sport while at the top of her game.
I have discovered that the second child's birth is every bit as meaningful, but perhaps not the same pan-dimensional spiritual mind-blast that the first one is. The first time around, we laid there all night in the loudest silence you ever heard, completely existing in another dimension. This time, after the nurses finished up and left the room, I dug my laptop out of my bag and we finished watching the episode of Lost we had been partway through when she went into labor.
We read some dopey book that says you should let the older kid discover the baby in its bassonet. Edie knew something was up, but was too young to really understand our explanations. She had been using the new co-sleeper as a play house. When she caught sight of the new occupant, she froze. She turned around, sank to her knees and stared into the middle distance. I don't know how to convince her to be excited about not ruling the roost anymore. I just held her for the longest time and told her how much we love her.
