The Sister Adventure: Day 1

My baby sister is here!  She and the most adorable baby boy in the world arrived yesterday.  I love, love, love having them here.  Our kids are absolutely enamored of each other.  On the way home from the airport Sebastian acted as Felix's tour guide, "This is a train.  These are signs.  That is a puddle."  It was adorable.  Jane and I spent the day drinking tea and laughing and talking a mile a minute with periodic breaks to go gaga over each others kids and watch them lavish each other with hugs and kisses and giggles.

Late last night when Jane and I had momentarily talked ourselves out we got into our comfies and took the laptop up to my bed to watch a movie together.  While we were watching the movie Jane suddenly startled, sure that she had heard Felix crying from two floors below.  We paused the movie, she went to check and he was sound asleep - she had just been hearing phantom baby cry.  If you have babies you know exactly what I mean by "phantom baby cry".  For me it used to happen every time I got in the shower.  Without fail, as soon as my head was immersed under the water, I'd hear a baby start to cry.  I'd shut the water off, jump out of the shower and run frantically into my twin babies' room to find my sweet babies fast asleep.  I'd stand there stark naked, shivering cold and dripping water all over the brand new carpet, my heart racing with adrenaline and stare at their peacefully sleeping faces in disbelief.  It got to the point that as soon as my head went under the water and I heard the cry I knew it was phantom, I knew it wasn't real and yet, I couldn't not check.  Just in case.

By the time my twins were about two I only heard the phantom cry occasionally and by the time they were three it was gone altogether.  Then I had a another baby and it happened all over again.  Though we are generally past the age of phantom baby cry Jane hearing Felix's phantom cry reminded me that just the other day it happened to me again.  I had slept in a bit so I dropped the big kids off at school and then came back home to shower.  As soon as my head was under the water I heard a baby cry.  I hadn't heard phantom baby cry for a long time and I thought,  I guess you really never do get away from it.  I didn't turn the water off though.  Three kids later I'm kind of a pro at phantom baby cry.  After the initial startled rush of adrenaline I talked myself back down and washed my hair ignoring the  crying baby in my head.  I shut the water off with a sense of impending relief.  Whether it's phantom or not, hearing a baby cry endlessly is wearing.  But when I shut water off the crying didn't stop and I realized phantom baby cry was actually Sebastian wailing uncontrollably outside my closed bathroom door.  In horror I flung open the door and rushed to my baby.  I picked him up and frantically examined him to make sure he hadn't cut off a limb or swallowed poison or something equally horrible.  Turns out he couldn't open the bathroom door because his hands were full of toys and he didn't want to put them down to turn the handle.  As I stood there stark naked, shivering cold and dripping water all over my carpet while my adrenaline surged I thought, now is this ironic or just Murphy's law?