The Birth

So what happened? Apart from getting word from Peter.

Well, the birth was something...Man, that is something....

Don wisely advised me to be there as did Poppy, Our Man in Colombo. And thanks for the tip about staying at the head end. Yay, it was a Cesarean and when I saw the smoking blade I focused on Oi. She was a dream as always, and the Chinese lady doctors were, predictably, super and very lovely.

...and then you hear the cry as the newborn is whisked out and around the side, wrapped in swaddling clothes and a little face presented to Oi. That is a truly magical sound and feeling.

Then, just as efficiently, I was whisked away to another room.

Grace was presented in an incubator by a window that leads to the Baby Department for all to see. They all want to see a white baby here. There I took some snaps and hung about with Oi's mum.

Eventually, Oi was ready to go to her room in the hospital.

She got out of there a day early and came home. Then you see Oi's mum (I think I will call her Grandma from now on) transform into MegaMum. With skilled, agricultured hands she calmly nursed our baby with the love only a Thai can give.

Oi said she will be so sad when her mum eventually goes home. I said we can all go and live on the farm. I'm quite happy to do that.

Obviously, heroes like Gee and Phit and Pee Dtoi have all been super and everyone is very excited to see Grace. They all say she looks like me.

Grandma has been using highly developed Jedi Mind Trick on me to bond with the baby, which like a bug in a Venus Fly Trap I have happily followed. She says things like Grace will be following me everywhere when she grows up and that I can give her a calmness that others cannot. I know I must follow that path. When the Black Rabbit calls your name, you have to go. Except this is a fluffy, pink rabbit.

It will be bad when Grandma goes home. I told Oi to look and learn, though she is obviously still in much pain.

Mosquitoes have never had it so bad in our house. Death comes within seconds if you stray into view of The Dangerous J. Special soapy hands immobilise them in a perfumed lather before being washed down the plughole, to die in a lemon-scented mass of bubbles.

I remain modest and stern at the school and bow appreciately when congrates are bestowed on me by the Thai teachers.

I awoke on the first night that Grace was home with Oi and Grandma in a panic. We called an ambulance and sped off to a nearby hospital. False alarm and I relayed them back on the bike at 3 in the morning. Pee Dtoi paniked when she found out and that I had gone to school a few hours later, but it was really no trouble. Like buddy, Karl, said I am strangely elated when I have a task to do for the baby.

For once in my life I have something significant to do.