Baby Crib Quotes

What I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up in the stars.

You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car.

Leah: "That is easily the freakin’ grossest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Yuck. If there was anything in my stomach, it would be coming back." Seth: "They are vampires, I guess. I mean, it makes sense, and if it helps Bella, it’s a good thing, right?" Leah and Jake stare at Seth. Seth: "What?" Leah: "Mom dropped him a lot when he was a baby." Jake: "On his head apparently." Leah: "He used to gnaw on the crib bars, too." Jake: "Lead paint?" Leah: "Looks like it." Seth: "Funny. Why don’t you two shut up and sleep?

But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after - oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down.

Potential," I said, "doesn't mean a thing. You've got to do it. Almost every baby in a crib has more potential than I have.

I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead; men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideas. Kennedy himself was 9/10ths the way around the clock or he wouldn't have accepted such an enervating and enfeebling job -- meaning President of the United States of America. How can I be concerned with the murder of one man when almost all men, plus females, are taken from cribs as babies and almost immediately thrown into the masher?

Music is the one art we all have inside. We may not be able to play an instrument, but we can sing along or clap or tap our feet. Have you ever seen a baby bouncing up and down in the crib in time to some music? When you think of it, some of that baby's first messages from his or her parents may have been lullabies, or at least the music of their speaking voices. All of us have had the experience of hearing a tune from childhood and having that melody evoke a memory or a feeling. The music we hear early on tends to stay with us all our lives.

There is a child - a baby - who long since kicked off her blankets. Her skin is ashen and her mouth open in a perpetual yet silent scream. She isn't old enough to roll over, to sit up, to climb. So she lies there kicking her fat legs against the footboard of the crib, eternally calling for her mother. For food. For flesh.

I'd hoped the language might come on its own, the way it comes to babies, but people don't talk to foreigners the way they talk to babies. They don't hypnotize you with bright objects and repeat the same words over and over, handing out little treats when you finally say "potty" or "wawa." It got to the point where I'd see a baby in the bakery or grocery store and instinctively ball up my fists, jealous over how easy he had it. I wanted to lie in a French crib and start from scratch, learning the language from the ground floor up. I wanted to be a baby, but instead, I was an adult who talked like one, a spooky man-child demanding more than his fair share of attention. Rather than admit defeat, I decided to change my goals. I told myself that I'd never really cared about learning the language. My main priority was to get the house in shape. The verbs would come in due time, but until then I needed a comfortable place to hide.

A mother's body remembers her babies--the folds of soft flesh, the softly furred scalp against her nose. Each child has its own entreaties to body and soul. It's the last one, though, that overtakes you. I can't dare say I loved the others less, but my first three were all babies at once, and motherhood dismayed me entirely. . . . That's how it is with the firstborn, no matter what kind of mother you are--rich, poor, frazzled half to death or sweetly content. A first child is your own best food forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world. But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after--oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down.

Your baby doesn’t need a pillow for her head, and you should not use one. Likewise, it’s best to keep stuffed animals out of your baby’s crib or cradle; little babies don’t care much about them, and they may pose a suffocation

How many people today live in a language that is not their own? Or no longer, or not yet, even know their own and know poorly the major language that they are forced to serve? This is the problem of immigrants, and especially of their children, the problem of minorities, the problem of a minor literature but also a problem for all of us: how to tear a minor literature away from its own language, allowing it to challenge the language and making it follow a sober revolutionary path? How to become a nomad and an immigrant and a gypsy in relation to one's own language? Kafka answers: steal the baby from its crib, walk the tight rope.

Potential,” I said, “doesn’t mean a thing. You’ve got to do it. Almost every baby in a crib has more potential than I have.

He was a baby once. He must have been sweet and clean and his mother kissed his little pink toes. Maybe when it thundered at night she came to his crib and fixed his blanket better and whispered that he mustn't be afraid, that mother was here. Then she picked him up and put her cheek on his head and said that he was her own sweet baby. He might have been a boy like my brother, running in and out of the house and slamming the door. And while his mother scolded him she was thinking that maybe he'll be president some day. Then he was a young man, strong and happy. When he walked down the street, the girls smiled and turned to watch him. He smiled back and maybe he winked at the prettiest one. I guess he must have married and had children and they thought he was the most wonderful papa in the world the way he worked hard and bought them toys for Christmas. Now his children are getting old too, like him, and they have children and nobody wants the old man any more and they are waiting for him to die. But he don't want to die. He wants to keep living even though he's so old and there's nothing to be happy about anymore.

You could have mentioned that this kid never sleeps,” Tim calls from the living room. We go in to find him slumped in the easy chair next to the pulled-out sofa bed. Andy’s sprawled out on the bed, long tan legs in a V, George gathered in her arms. Duff, still in his clothes, lies across the bottom, Harry curled in a ball on the pillow under Andy’s outstretched leg. Safety, as much as could be found, must have lain in numbers.Patsy’s fingering Tim’s nose and pulling on his bottom lip, her eyes wide-blue open. “Sorry, man,” Jase says. “She’s usually good to go at bedtime.” “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to this kid? That is one fucked-up story. How is that a book for babies?” Jase laughs. “I thought it was about babysitting.” “Hell no, it’s addiction. That friggin’ mouse is never satisfied. You give him one thing, he wants something else, and then he asks for more and on and on and on. Fucked up. Patsy liked it, though. Fifty thousand times.” Tim yawns, and Patsy snuggles more comfortably onto his chest, grabbing a handful of shirt. “So what’s doin’?” We tell him what we know—nothing—then put the baby in her crib. She glowers, angry and bewildered for a moment, then grabs her five pacifiers, closes her eyes with a look of fierce concentration, and falls very deeply asleep.

Who had the biggest army in the ancient world? Caesar Augustus in Rome, and that is precisely how he was able to dominate that world. Nevertheless, his army is nothing compared to this angelic stratias that has lined up behind the new emperor. Remember Isaiah's prophesy that Yahweh would one day bare his mighty arm before all the nations. N.T. Wright has magnificently observed that the prophecy finds its fulfillment in the tiny arm of the baby Jesus coming out of his manger-crib.

What marvel-inspiring forces of nature mothers truly are; somehow everything always comes back to and down to them.

The land she tilled and worked had been Indian land. She knew the white men bragged about the efficiency of the massacres, where they killed women and babies, and strangled their futures in the crib. Stolen babies working stolen land. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood.

Once your baby starts to walk you’ll realize why cribs are designed like prisons from the early 1900s. This is clearly because toddlers are a danger to themselves. The main responsibility for a parent of a toddler is to stop them from accidentally hurting or killing themselves. They are superclumsy. If you don’t believe me, watch a two-year-old girl attempt to walk up stairs in a long dress. It looks like a Carol Burnett sketch. Also, toddler judgment is horrible. They don’t have any. Put a twelve-month-old on a bed, and they will immediately try and crawl off headfirst like a lemming on a mindless migration mission. But the toddler mission is never mindless. They have two goals: find poison and find something to destroy.

One year, on Yom Kippur eve, Salanter did not show up in synagogue for services. The congregation was extremely worried; they could only imagine that their rabbi had suddenly taken sick or been in an accident. In any case, they would not start the service without him. During the wait, a young woman in the congregation became agitated. She had left her infant child at home asleep in its crib; she was certain she would only be away a short while. Now, because of the delay, she slipped out to make sure that the infant was all right. When she reached her house, she found her child being rocked in the arms of Rabbi Salanter. He had heard the baby crying while walking to the synagogue and, realizing that the mother must have gone off to services, had gone into the house to calm him.

It seems to me that sometimes the worst parents make the best grandparents. I'm not sure why. Maybe because there is enough of a generational separation that they don't see their grandchildren as an extension of themselves, so their relationship isn't tainted by any self-loathing. And of course, just growing older seems to soften and relax people. Since so many people these days don't seem to start their families until around age forty, I predict there will be less child beating, but more slipped disks from lifting babies out of cribs. Even the father of advanced age who's not inclined to spare the rod is likely to suffer more than his victim: The first punch he throws might well be the last straw for his rotator cuff, reducing his disciplinary options to mere verbal abuse and napping. I'm excited about the next generation!

When the storm is over, the new growth, tiny and light, timid-green, starts edging our on the buses and three limbs. Then Nature brings April rain. It whispers down soft and lonesome, making mists in the hollows and on the trails where you walk under the drippings from hanging branches of trees. It's a good feeling, exciting--but sad too--in April rain. Granpa said he always got that kind of mixed-up feeling. He said it was exciting because something new was being born and it was sad, because you knowed you can't hold onto it. It will pass too quick. April wind is soft and warm as a baby's crib. It breathes on the crab apple tree until white blossoms open out, smeared with pink. The smell is sweeter than honeysuckle and brings bees swarming over the blossoms. Mountain laurel with pink-white blooms and purple centers grow everywhere, from the hollows to the top of the mountain, alongside of the dogtooth violet... Then, when April gets its warmest, all of a sudden the cold hits you. It stays cold for four or five days. This is to make the blackberries bloom and is called "blackberry winter." The blackberries will not bloom without it. That's why some years there are no blackberries. When it ends, that's when the dogwoods bloom out like snowballs over the mountainside in places you never suspicioned they grew: in a pine grove or stand of oak of a sudden there's a big burst of white.

History, of course, makes a president big news and the assassination of one more so. However, I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead: men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideals. Kennedy himself was 9/10ths the way around the clock or he wouldn't have accepted such an enervating and enfeebling job--meaning President of the United States of America. How can I be over concerned with the murder of one man when almost all men, plus females, are taken from cribs as babies and almost immediately thrown into the masher?

When the strong healthy boy, howling at the indignity of the birth process, was put to her breast, she felt a wild tenderness for him, The other baby, Francis, in the crib next her bed, began to whimper. Katie had a flash of contempt for the weak child she had borne a year ago, when she compared her to this new handsome son. She was quickly ashamed of hr contempt. She knew it wasn't the little girl's fault. "I must watch myself carefully," she thought. "I am going to love this boy more than the girl but I mustn't ever let her know. It is wrong to love one child more than the other but this is something that I cannot help.

there are girls lined along the street, girls in miniskirts, thigh-highs, and halter tops. The girls stand at the curbs as cars cruise by. Key-lime Cadillac's, fire-red Tornadoes, wide-mouthed, trolling Lincolns, all in perfect shape. Chrome glints. Hubcaps shine. Not a single rust spot anywhere. But now the gleaming cars are slowing. Windows are rolling down and girls are bending to chat with the drivers. There are calls back and forth, the lifting of already miniscule skirts, and sometimes a flash of breast or an obscene gesture, the girls working it, laughing, high enough by 5am to be numb to the rawness between their legs and the residues of men no amount of perfume can get rid of. It isn't easy to keep yourself clean on the street, and by this hour each of those young women smells in the places that count like a very ripe, soft French cheese…They're numb, too, to thoughts of babies left at home, six month olds with bad colds lying in used cribs, sucking on pacifiers, and having a hard time breathing…numb to the lingering taste of semen in their mouths along with peppermint gum, most of these girls, no more than 18, this curb on 12th street their first real place of employment, the most the country has to offer in the way of a vocation. Where are they going to go from here? They're numb to that, too, except for a couple who have dreams of singing backup or opening up a hair shop...

I don’t think religions are based on lies, but I don’t think they’re based on truths, either. I think they come about because of what people need at the time that they need them. Like the World Series player who won’t take off his lucky socks, or the mother of the sick child who believes that her baby can sleep only if she’s sitting by the crib – believers need, by definition, something to believe in.

The smell of things burning that aren’t meant to burn wafts across the city: shoe polish, rat poison, toothpaste, piano strings, hernia trusses, baby cribs, Indian clubs. And hair and skin. By this time, hair and skin.

The new father finally hangs up the phone, laughing at absolutely nothing. "Congratulations," I say, when what I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up in stars so that she never, ever does to him what I have done to my parents.

The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action.

When Carleton was three months old, Henry had realized that they’d misunderstood something. Babies weren’t babies—they were land mines; bear traps; wasp nests. They were a noise, which was sometimes even not a noise, but merely a listening for a noise; they were a damp, chalky smell; they were the heaving, jerky, sticky manifestation of not-sleep. Once Henry had stood and watched Carleton in his crib, sleeping peacefully. He had not done what he wanted to do. He had not bent over and yelled in Carleton’s ear. Henry still hadn’t forgiven Carleton, not yet, not entirely, not for making him feel that way.

Later that night, feeling restless, I get out of bed, creep into Linus’s room, and watch him sleeping in his crib. He’s lying on his back, wearing blue feety pajamas, one arm up over his head. I listen to his deep-sleep exhales. Even years past those fragile newborn months, it still gives my maternal ears relief and peace to hear the sounds of my children breathing when they’re asleep. His orange nukie is in his mouth, the silky edge of his favorite blanket is touching his cheek, and Bunny is lying limp across his chest. He’s surrounded by every kind of baby security paraphernalia imaginable, and yet none of it protected him from what could have happened today.

There’s good reason for such worries. About a year after Pole created his pregnancy prediction model, a man walked into a Minnesota Target and demanded to see the manager. He was clutching an advertisement. He was very angry. “My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?” The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture, and pictures of smiling infants gazing into their mothers’ eyes. The manager apologized profusely, and then called, a few days later, to apologize again. The father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of.” He took a deep breath. “She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.

Orin's special conscious horror, besides heights and the early morning, is roaches. There'd been parts of metro Boston near the Bay he'd refused to go to, as a child. Roaches give him the howling fantods. The parishes around N.O. had been having a spate or outbreak of a certain Latin-origin breed of sinister tropical flying roaches, that were small and timid but could fucking fly, and that kept being found swarming on New Orleans infants, at night, in their cribs, especially infants in like tenements or squalor, and that reportedly fed on the mucus in the babies' eyes, some special sort of optical-mucus — the stuff of fucking nightmares, mobile flying roaches that wanted to get at your eyes, as an infant — and were reportedly blinding them; parents'd come in in the ghastly A.M.-tenement light and find their infants blind, like a dozen blinded infants that last summer; and it was during this spate or nightmarish outbreak, plus July flooding that sent over a dozen nightmarish dead bodies from a hilltop graveyard sliding all gray-blue down the incline Orin and two teammates had their townhouse on, in suburban Chalmette, shedding limbs and innards all the way down the hillside's mud and one even one morning coming to rest against the post of their roadside mailbox, when Orin came out for the morning paper, that Orin had had his agent put out the trade feelers.

The gun jammed on the last shot and the baby stood holding the crib rail, eyes wild, bawling.

Never allow your child to go to sleep with milk/formula residue on their gums/teeth. This causes painful tooth decay. That means no bottles in the crib!

The most interesting thing about babies is that they are so enormously interested; the most wonderful thing about them is their infinite capacity for wonder.

For the small children, bedtime is come. Time for the babies to be packed into their beds and cribs by parents who smile at their cries to be let up a little longer, to leave the light on. The indulgently open closet doors to show there is nothing in there. And all around them, the bestiality of the night rises on tenebrous wings. The vampires time has come.

Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn’t understand the words, most of them at any rate, but created equal was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn’t understand it either, if all men did not truly mean all men. Not if they snatched away what belonged to other people, whether it was something you could hold in your hand, like dirt, or something you could not, like freedom. The land she tilled and worked had been Indian land. She knew the white men bragged about the efficiency of the massacres, where they killed women and babies, and strangled their futures in the crib. Stolen bodies working stolen land.

The whole issue was almost unbelievably meaningless and small. He thought about the word “meaning” and tried to summon up his baby’s face without looking at the photo, but all he could get was the heft of a full diaper and the plastic mobile over his crib turning in the breeze that the box fan in the doorway made. He imagined that the clock’s second hand possessed awareness and knew that it was a second hand and that its job was to go around and around inside a circle of numbers forever at the same slow, unvarying machinelike rate, going no place it hadn’t already been a million times before, and imagining the second hand was so awful it made his breath catch in his throat, and he looked quickly around to see if any of the examiners near him had heard it or were looking at him.

The psychic said I would have two children. This makes me shake my head. I know you are not supposed to leave a baby alone. Not even for a minute. But after a while I think, What could happen to a baby in the time it would take for me to run to the corner for a cappuccino on the go? So I do it, I run to the corner and get the cappuccino. And then I think how close the store is that is having the sale on leather gloves. Really, I think, it is only a couple of blocks. So I go to the store and buy the gloves. And it hits me--how long it has been since I have gone to a movie. A matinee! So I do that, too. I go to a movie. And when I come out of the theater it occurs to me that it has been years since I have been to Paris. Years. So I go to Paris, and come back three months later and find a skeleton in the crib.

Surely I'd give it for a nipple a rubber Tacitus For a rattle bag of broken Bach records Tack Della Francesca all over its crib Sew the Greek alphabet on its bib And build for its playpen a roofless Parthenon

even when the spotting finally stopped, I didn’t believe I was having a baby. Even when every ultrasound was normal. Even when I could feel the baby kicking and rolling, even when I was going to prenatal classes, choosing a crib, washing the baby clothes, and even when they were telling me, Okay, you can push now, I still didn’t believe I was having a baby. Not an actual baby. Until she cried. And I thought, That sounds like a real newborn baby. And

The current crop of experts claimed that baby girls stare at faces while baby boys watch the mobile over their cribs. They extrapolated from this to conclude that women are inherently interested in people and men are inherently interested in objects. ... Turner supposed they might be right in a statistical sense, but numbers don’t tell the whole story. If you have one foot in boiling water and one in a tub of dry ice, on the average you’re comfortable.

I got a P-touch labeler and labeled everything: places for diapers, bibs, onesies, pants, socks, crib sheets, binkies, pack ’n’ play sheets, baby wipes, changing table covers . . . Everything has a place, and that place was going to have a goddamn label on it.

You see Alexander was my weakness just as I was his. No one in the world had fought for me as relentlessly as he always had; ever since I was a just baby in the crib. Neither Father nor Mother when she lived, ever made him do it for me. It was entirely of his own volition.

Once your baby starts to walk you’ll realize why cribs are designed like prisons from the early 1900s. This is clearly because toddlers are a danger to themselves. The main responsibility for a parent of a toddler is to stop them from accidentally hurting or killing themselves.

I think bourgeois fathers – wing-collar workers in pencil-striped pants, dignified, office-tied fathers, so different from young American veterans of today or from a happy, jobless Russian-born expatriate of fifteen years ago – will not understand my attitude toward our child. Whenever you held him up, replete with his warm formula and grave as an idol, and waited for the postlactic all-clear signal before making a horizontal baby of the vertical one, I used to take part both in your wait and in the tightness of his surfeit, which I exaggerated, therefore rather resenting your cheerful faith in the speedy dissipation of what I felt to be a painful oppression; and when, at last, the blunt little bubble did rise and burst in his solemn mouth, I used to experience a lovely relief as you, with a congratulatory murmur, bent low to deposit him in the white-rimmed twilight of his crib.

A pack of coyotes set up a sudden racket near the house, yipping and howling, so close by they sounded like they had us surrounded. When a hunting pack corners a rabbit they go into a blood frenzy, making human-sounding screams. The baby sighed and stirred in his crib. At seven months, he was just the size of a big jackrabbit--the same amount of meat. The back of my scalp and neck prickled. It's an involuntary muscle contraction that causes that, setting the hair follicles on edge; if we had manes they would bristle like a growling dog's. We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.

I was told I resembled a cartoon chicken, which is still true, especially after a rough weekend. My parents tell stories about my staring at them from the crib at all hours of the night. Sounds pretty creepy, right? A pale, bald and tiny baby bird peering out through the slats of its cage, challenging the adults to an all-night staring contest?

Initially children use just a few names, mostly for familiar things and people. But when they are still just beginning to talk, many babies will suddenly start naming everything and asking for the names of everything they see. In fact, what’sat? is itself often one of the earliest words. An eighteen-month-old baby will go into a triumphant frenzy of pointing and naming: “What’sat! Dog! What’sat! Clock! What’sat juice, spoon, orange, high chair, clock! Clock! Clock!” Often this is the point at which even fondly attentive parents lose track of how many new words the baby has learned. It’s as if the baby discovers that everything has a name, and this discovery triggers a kind of naming explosion.

she remembers him as a colicky baby, wailing in her arms, heaving sobs in his crib, being bounced on Bruce’s shoulder. He barely slept those first three months, and that was the darkest time in Jane’s life. She was hormonal, with leaking breasts, and she was failing, every single minute of every single day. She was failing to provide significant comfort to her baby, and she was failing to be the mother that Jordan had always known. The three-year-old gazed at her nursing nightgown and uncombed hair with a combination of fear and sadness. She was also keenly aware that she was failing herself—she’d always believed that she could kick the butt of any situation, and this proved she couldn’t. She was not the woman she’d thought she was, nor the one she’d planned to be.

I miss the old days, and I mean the old old days when there were some really awesome birth stories. When Hercules was still in his crib, he was attacked by two snakes sent by Hera, the unhappy wife of his father. Wee Baby Hercules strangled those two snakes by himself with nothing but his bare hands. Yes, Wee Baby Hercules was more of a badass than most of us ever reach in our entire lifespan.

One time, when I was little more than a baby, I was taken to visit my grandmother, who was living in a cottage on a nearly uninhabited stretch of beach in northern Florida. All I remember of this visit is being picked up from my crib in what seemed the middle of the night and carried from my bedroom and out of doors, where I had my first look at the stars. “It must have been an unusually clear and beautiful night for someone to have said, “Let’s wake the baby and show her the stars.” The night sky, the constant rolling of the breakers against the shore, the stupendous light of the stars, all made an indelible impression on me. I was intuitively aware not only of a beauty I had never seen before but also that the world was far greater than the protected limits of the small child’s world which was all I had known thus far. I had a total, if not very conscious, moment of revelation: I saw creation bursting the bounds of daily restriction, and stretching out from dimension to dimension, beyond any human comprehension. I had been taught to say my prayers at night: Our Father, and a long string of God-blesses, and it was that first showing of the galaxies which gave me an awareness that the God I spoke to at bedtime was extraordinary and not just a bigger and better combination of the grownup powers of my father and mother. This early experience was freeing, rather than daunting, and since it was the first, it has been the foundation for all other such glimpses of glory. (The Irrational Season)

But the fire dodges him and races up into the house. From there it sweeps across an Oriental rug, marches out to the back porch, leaps nimbly up onto a laundry line, and tightrope-walks across to the house behind. It climbs in the window and pauses, as if shocked by its good fortune: because everything in this house is just made to burn, too— the damask sofa with its long fringe, the mahogany end tables and chintz lampshades. The heat pulls down wallpaper in sheets; and this is happening not only in this apartment but in ten or fifteen others, then twenty or twentyfive, each house setting fire to its neighbor until entire blocks are burning. The smell of things burning that aren’t meant to burn wafts across the city: shoe polish, rat poison, toothpaste, piano strings, hernia trusses, baby cribs, Indian clubs. And hair and skin. By this time, hair and skin. On the quay, Lefty and Desdemona stand up along with everyone else, with people too stunned to react, or still half asleep, or sick with typhus and cholera, or exhausted beyond caring.

In one corner of the square is a manger scene with two live sheep, a bed of hay, a couple of cows. The baby Jesus is a brown-faced doll lying in his crib, but Mary and Joseph are real and dressed in period garb. Joseph hoists a staff, Mary sports her virginal blue robes. As I walked by the other day, Joseph balanced on the crib, light bulb in hand, reaching toward an electrical socket. Mary, I guess, was taking a break. She sat on the edge of the crib. Her blue robes were hiked high enough to reveal Doc Marten boots beneath. She sipped a can of Coke and smoked.

He was sitting at his desk. He had to get some relief from seeing what he did not want to see. The factory was empty. There was only the night watchman who’d come on duty with his dogs. He was down in the parking lot, patrolling the perimeter of the double-thick chain-link fence, a fence topped off, after the riots, with supplemental scrolls of razor ribbon that were to admonish the boss each and every morning he pulled in and parked his car, “Leave! Leave! Leave!” He was sitting alone in the last factory left in the worst city in the world. And it was worse even than sitting there during the riots, Springfield Avenue in flames, South Orange Avenue in flames, Bergen Street under attack, sirens going off, weapons firing, snipers from rooftops blasting the street lights, looting crowds crazed in the street, kids carrying off radios and lamps and television sets, men toting armfuls of clothing, women pushing baby carriages heavily loaded with cartons of liquor and cases of beer, people pushing pieces of new furniture right down the center of the street, stealing sofas, cribs, kitchen tables, stealing washers and dryers and ovens—stealing not in the shadows but out in the open. Their strength is tremendous, their teamwork is flawless. The shattering of glass windows is thrilling. The not paying for things is intoxicating. The American appetite for ownership is dazzling to behold. This is shoplifting. Everything free that everyone craves, a wonton free-for-all free of charge, everyone uncontrollable with thinking, Here it is! Let it come! In Newark’s burning Mardi Gras streets, a force is released that feels redemptive, something purifying is happening, something spiritual and revolutionary perceptible to all. The surreal vision of household appliances out under the stars and agleam in the glow of the flames incinerating the Central Ward promises the liberation of all mankind. Yes, here it is, let it come, yes, the magnificent opportunity, one of human history’s rare transmogrifying moments: the old ways of suffering are burning blessedly away in the flames, never again to be resurrected, instead to be superseded, within only hours, by suffering that will be so gruesome, so monstrous, so unrelenting and abundant, that its abatement will take the next five hundred years. The fire this time—and next? After the fire? Nothing. Nothing in Newark ever again.

He could afford to do things right this time around, and he didn’t intend to settle for anything less. Colby knew he wasn’t doing it for the baby, who wouldn’t know the difference between a shiny new crib and a cardboard box. He was doing it for Diana. He wanted her to take pleasure in everything that had to do with the baby. She was a woman who appreciated nice things, and he was determined that she would be surrounded by them while she cared for their child. Colby finished adjusting the position of the crib and took one last look around the room. All was in order. This time he was ready. And so was Diana, he had decided

When the strong healthy boy, howling at the indignity of the birth process, was put to her breast, she felt a wild tenderness for him. The other baby, Francie, in the crib next her bed, began to whimper. Katie had a flash of comtempt for the weak child she had borne a year ago, when she compared her to this new handsome son. She was quickly ashamed of her contempt. She knew it wasn’t the little girl’s fault. “I must watch myself carefully,” she thought. “I am going to love this boy more than the girl but I mustn’t ever let her know. It is wrong to love one child more than the other but this is something that I cannot help.” Sissy

The Falcon of Central Park West On the highest parapet of that castle like building I reside at on Central Park West, a falcon nests. I've reported this to the slavic doorman, the ASPCA, and to the presiding coop board, to no avail. This raptor launches from my parapet at blinding speed, sailing over Central Park like a kite, picking up baby squirrels and d-CON resistant rats to regurgitate to her fledglings. A first I thought her a nuisance, a stowaway on a luxury liner. But now I'm quite fond of my falcon, my avatar, doing what she's 'gotta do' to survive in New York, and keep her lofty crib in the castle just like the rest of us.

Okay,” Jack said. “I’m not really sure what you want from me.” “I want you to stop trying to deny every feeling I ever have, Jack.  I want you to stop telling me not to feel bad when I already do. I want you to stop telling me I look fine when it’s so patently obvious that I don’t. I want you to stop being so uncomfortable when things aren’t perfect that you immediately start trying to pretend they are.” Even as the words were coming out of my mouth, I realized how unfair I was being. Yes, I wanted for him to accept my emotional reality. But only when it suited me. I also wanted him to tell me that the baby would be fine when it was what I needed to hear. At least Jack was consistent. I was a nut job.

Building of Unseen Cats" When I woke up, it was the middle of the night and my building was on fire. The hallway was not filled with smoke, and then quickly it was. I rescued a few older men from their bathtubs, a few babies from their cribs. Outside, the air was filled with hair. Everyone but me was holding a plastic cage with a cat in it. We weren't supposed to have cats in my building, but there they all were, an invisible nation suddenly uncurtained into a blinding and brutal world. Everyone looked at me with a face that said let's never speak o f this. Let's not look directly at what is meant to be loved in secret. Let's, for example, imagine the sea is always, constantly, and forever spilling toward us, that our screaming building is something worth escaping.

As excited as Jase and I were to have Mia home, we were both nervous about caring for an infant with special needs. We remembered the night we brought Reed home from the hospital--neither of us slept because we had never had a baby before and were afraid something might happen to him. We wanted to be awake and alert if he needed us. With only six feet separating our two bedroom doors at the time, we heard every coo and cough Reed made. One time during that first night, Reed sounded like he was choking. Jase flew out of bed and made it to Reed’s crib in two leaps--quite a feat from a waterbed! There was absolutely nothing wrong with Reed. We were two brand-new parents learning how to adjust to caring for another living, breathing human being who was now entirely our responsibility.

Sometimes at about 3 months of age, after the extreme fussiness/colic has dissipated, or in a baby who had common fussiness/crying, a child who had been sleeping well begins waking at night or crying at night and during the day. The parents also may note heightened activity with wild screaming spells. These children have accumulated a sleep debt and decided that they would rather play with their parents than be placed in a dark, quiet, and boring room. Parents who do not recognize the new sleep debt might believe that this new night waking represents hunger due to a “growth spurt” or insufficient breast milk. But when these parents begin to focus on establishing a healthy night-sleep schedule, when they put these babies in their cribs when the babies need to sleep, and when they shield their babies from overstimulation, the frequent night waking stops. If

Suenos. Dulces Suenos. He must be painting upstairs. I can feel it. I remember when his father was just a baby and I called her Mama for the first time and she became Mama for all of us; Mama de la casa and his father would wake up in the middle of the night and scream in his crib and nothing would make him stop, nada, and Mama would get so exhausted she would turn her back to me and cry in her pillow. I would smooth her hair-it was black, Basilio, as black as an olive-and I would turn on the radio (electricity, Basilio, in the middle of the night), to maybe calm the baby and listen to something besides the screaming. Mama liked the radio, Basilio, and we listened while your father cried-cantante negra, cantante de almas azules-and it made us feel a little better, helped us make it through. I had to get up early to catch the streetcar to the shipyard, but when the crying finally stopped sometimes the sun would be ready to pop and Mama's breathing would slow down and her shoulders would move like gentle waves, sleeping but still listening, like I can hear her now on this good bed, and Basilio-Mira, hombre, I will not tell you this again-if I moved very close and kissed her shoulders, she would turn to face me and we would have to be quiet Basilio, under the music, very, very quiet.... So this I want to know, Basilio. This, if you want to live on Macon Street for another minute. Can you paint an apple baked soft in the oven, an apple filled with cinnamon and raisins? Can you paint such a woman? Are you good enough yet with those brushes so that she will step out of your pictures to turn on the radio in the middle of the night? Will she visit an old man on his death bed? If you cannot do that, Basilio, there is no need for you to live here anymore.

On this particular night, Nick was leaving early the following morning for an important business trip. She’d just got back into bed after convincing Madison to go back to sleep (Why can’t I play outside now? Why is it the middle of the night?) when Tom began wailing. Her head swam as she bent over the crib to pick him up. She felt a wave of pure rage at this person who refused to let her sleep. Just what do you expect of me? Her arms tightened around the baby. You . . . need . . . to . . . be . . . quiet. She laid him back down with elaborate care. Tom was enraged, and screamed as though she’d just put him down on a bed of knives. Alice went back to the bedroom, switched on the light, and said to Nick, “You need to lock me up. I wanted to hurt the baby.” Nick sat up in bed, his eyes bleary and confused. “You hurt the baby?” Alice was trembling all over. “No. I wanted to. I wanted to squeeze him until he stopped crying.” “Right, then,” said Nick calmly, as if she’d just reported something perfectly normal. He got up and led her by the hand back to bed. “You need sleep.

13.   Baby’s waketimes are over-stimulating or too long. Explanation/Recommendation: When searching for the solution to naptime challenges, parents often overlook the quality of the waketime that preceded the nap. Remember, everything is connected. Waketimes affect naps just like naps affect waketimes. Over-tired and over-stimulated babies become hyper-alert, fighting off sleep through crying. If this is a regular problem, shortening your baby’s waketime by 15-minute increments might help. Also, be aware of the types of activities you and your baby are involved in. Are you having too many visitors drop by who have an irresistible urge to entertain your baby? Was your baby being exposed to Dad’s loud friends as they sat watching a sporting event? Might Mom be on the go too much? When Baby is along for the ride, the coming and going, the new sights and sounds, and the absence of predictability all work against good nap behavior. That is because catnaps in a car seat are no substitute for a full nap in the crib. An occasional nap in the car seat will not cause trouble, but it should not be the norm, especially during the first six months of your baby’s life.

You’ve probably heard of the “Romanian orphans.” It is likely that more than five hundred thousand children spent part of their early lives in the state-run institutional orphanages during the Ceauşescu regime in Romania; in 1989, when communism ended in the country, the public and press saw the horrible conditions these children had been subjected to. There were often forty to sixty babies or toddlers in a single large room, each in their own crib all day long, with only one or two caregivers rotating among them over the course of a twelve-hour shift. The children suffered deprivation, malnutrition, abuse, and more. Even after being removed from the institutions, they grew up with a range of deficits. Some had low IQs, others couldn’t walk, most had major problems forming and maintaining relationships. I worked with many children removed from these orphanages. In general, the longer the child was there, the longer the deprivation, the more serious the problems. Ironically, in some overcrowded institutions, children who had to share cribs ultimately did better. The Romanian orphans are now adults; for most of them, problems persist. As a group they are much more likely to be unemployed, have mental and physical health problems, and have difficulties with relationships.

Pure? What does it mean? The tongues of hell Are dull, dull as the triple Tongues of dull, fat Cerberus Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable Of licking clean The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin. The tinder cries. The indelible smell Of a snuffed candle! Love, love, the low smokes roll From me like Isadora’s scarves, I’m in a fright One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel, Such yellow sullen smokes Make their own element. They will not rise, But trundle round the globe Choking the aged and the meek, The weak Hothouse baby in its crib, The ghastly orchid Hanging its hanging garden in the air, Devilish leopard! Radiation turned it white And killed it in an hour. Greasing the bodies of adulterers Like Hiroshima ash and eating in. The sin. The sin. Darling, all night I have been flickering, off, on, off, on. The sheets grow heavy as a lecher’s kiss. Three days. Three nights. Lemon water, chicken Water, water make me retch. I am too pure for you or anyone. Your body Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern—— My head a moon Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive. Does not my heat astound you! And my light! All by myself I am a huge camellia Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush. I think I am going up, I think I may rise—— The beads of hot metal fly, and I love, I Am a pure acetylene Virgin Attended by roses, By kisses, by cherubim, By whatever these pink things mean! Not you, nor him Nor him, nor him (My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats)—— To Paradise.

A figure held his daughter in the rocker. In the dim light he couldn’t make out the features, but the sight of anyone he didn’t know sitting in Wendy’s rocker with their daughter was enough to scare the shit out of him. Judging by the shuddering movements of his daughter’s body it had frightened her too, had caused her to mewl. He wanted to charge forward and reclaim his daughter, but he didn’t know what would happen if he acted so quickly. What would he do if it hurt her? What would he do if it killed her? “What-what do you want? I’ll do anything just don’t take my daughter. She’s…all I have left.” The figure stopped rocking and slowly eased its way to its feet. There’s not much light in the room but as it moved closer to the bed and it settled the baby in her crib, he saw just enough of her face in the moonlight. “Wendy?” His voice is as full of horror as it is with awe. He can’t help but be horrified at the sight of her now, the way that death has changed her, making her a terrible figure indeed. Her eyes are strange; some depth, some dark and terrible nothing has swallowed up all of her light, and in this first moment he swears he can feel the awful cold of that operating room coming off of her flesh. She is so small and so hard to look at, as if his mind can’t quite focus on her form. Through the bars of the crib he can see her anger and hear the terrible, alien sound of her hiss. “What do you want?” She doesn’t answer him, staring cold and blank through those stark white bars, and then she was scrambling toward him across the floor, making him press flat against the wall to get away from her skittering shape.

No-knock entries are dangerous for everyone involved—cops, suspects, bystanders. The raids usually occur before dawn; the residents are usually asleep, and then disoriented by the sudden intrusion. There is no warning, and sleepy residents may not always understand that the men breaking down their door are police. At the same time, police procedures allow terribly little room for error. Stan Goff, a retired Special Forces sergeant and SWAT trainer, says that he teaches cops to “Look at hands. If there’s a weapon in their hands during a dynamic entry, it does not matter what that weapon is doing. If there’s a weapon in their hands, that person dies. It’s automatic.” On September 13, 2000, the DEA, FBI, and local police conducted a series of raids throughout Modesto, California. By the end of the day, they had shot and killed an eleven-year-old boy, Alberto Sepulveda, as he was lying facedown on the floor with his arms outstretched, as ordered by police. In January 2011, police in Farmington, Massachusetts similarly shot Eurie Stamp, a sixty-eight-year-old grandfather, as he lay motionless on the floor according to police instructions. In the course of a May 2014 raid in Cornelia, Georgia, a flash-bang grenade landed in the crib of a nineteen-month-old infant. The explosion blew a hole in the face and chest of Bounkham Phonesavanh (“Baby Bou Bou”), covering his body with third degree burns, and exposing part of his ribcage. No guns or drugs were found in the house, and no arrests were made. Sometimes these raids go wrong before they even begin. Walter and Rose Martin, a perfectly innocent couple, both in their eighties, had their home raided by New York Police more than fifty times between 2002 and 2010. It turned out that their address had been entered as the default in the police database.

You remember that documentary they showed us in sixth grade? The one about Hurricane Katrina?” “Yeah.” I shrug, remembering how we’d all piled into the media center to watch it on the big, pull-down screen. I don’t recall much about the movie itself, but I’m pretty sure Brad Pitt had narrated it. “What about it?” "I had nightmares for weeks. I have no idea why it affected me the way it did.” “Seriously?” He nods. “Ever since, well…let’s just say I don’t do well in storms. Especially hurricanes.” I just stare at him in stunned silence. “You’re going to have fun with this, aren’t you?” “No, I…of course not. Jeez.” How big of a bitch does he think I am? “I’m not going to tell a soul. I promise. Okay? What happens in the storm shelter stays in the storm shelter,” I quip, trying to lighten the mood. His whole body seems to relax then, as if I’ve taken a weight off him. “Did you seriously think I was going to rag on you for this? I mean, we’ve been friends forever.” He quirks one brow. “Friends?” “Well, okay, not friends, exactly. But you know what I mean. Our moms used to put us in a crib together. Back when we were babies.” He winces. “I know.” “When we were little, things were fine. But then…well, middle school. It was just…I don’t know…awkward. And then in eighth grade, I thought maybe…” I shake my head, obviously unable to form a complete sentence. “Never mind.” “You thought what? C’mon, don’t stop now. You’re doing a good job distracting me.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. Call it a public service. Or…pretend I’m just one of the pets.” “Poor babies,” I say, glancing over at the cats. Kirk and Spock are curled up together in the back of the crate, keeping the bromance alive. Sulu is sitting alone in the corner, just staring at us. “He’s a she, you know.” “Who?” “Sulu. Considering she’s a calico, you’d think Daddy would have figured it out.

While Mum was a busy working mother, helping my father in his constituency duties and beyond, Lara became my surrogate mum. She fed me almost every supper I ate--from when I was a baby up to about five years old. She changed my nappies, she taught me to speak, then to walk (which, with so much attention from her, of course happened ridiculously early). She taught me how to get dressed and to brush my teeth. In essence, she got me to do all the things that either she had been too scared to do herself or that just simply intrigued her, such as eating raw bacon or riding a tricycle down a steep hill with no brakes. I was the best rag doll of a baby brother that she could have ever dreamt of. It is why we have always been so close. To her, I am still her little baby brother. And I love her for that. But--and this is the big but--growing up with Lara, there was never a moment’s peace. Even from day one, as a newborn babe in the hospital’s maternity ward, I was paraded around, shown off to anyone and everyone--I was my sister’s new “toy.” And it never stopped. It makes me smile now, but I am sure it is why in later life I craved the peace and solitude that mountains and the sea bring. I didn’t want to perform for anyone, I just wanted space to grow and find myself among all the madness. It took a while to understand where this love of the wild came from, but in truth it probably developed from the intimacy found with my father on the shores of Northern Ireland and the will to escape a loving but bossy elder sister. (God bless her!) I can joke about this nowadays with Lara, and through it all she still remains my closest ally and friend; but she is always the extrovert, wishing she could be on the stage or on the chat show couch, where I tend just to long for quiet times with my friends and family. In short, Lara would be much better at being famous than me. She sums it up well, I think: Until Bear was born I hated being the only child--I complained to Mum and Dad that I was lonely. It felt weird not having a brother or sister when all my friends had them. Bear’s arrival was so exciting (once I’d got over the disappointment of him being a boy, because I’d always wanted a sister!). But the moment I set eyes on him, crying his eyes out in his crib, I thought: That’s my baby. I’m going to look after him. I picked him up, he stopped crying, and from then until he got too big, I dragged him around everywhere.

I've got the kids in my room," she explained, while Jubal strove to keep up with her, "so that Honey Bun can watch them." Jubal was mildly startled to see, a moment later, what Patricia meant by that. The boa was arranged on one of twin double beds in squared-off loops that formed a nest - a twin nest, as one bight of the snake had been pulled across to bisect the square, making two crib-sized pockets, each padded with a baby blanket and each containing a baby. The ophidian nursemaid raised her head inquiringly as they came in. Patty stroked it and said, "It's all right, dear. Father Jubal wants to see them. Pet her a little, and let her grok you, so that she will know you next time." First Jubal coochey-cooed at his favorite girl friend when she gurgled at him and kicked, then petted the snake. He decided that it was the handsomest specimen of Bojdae he had ever seen, as well as the biggest - longer, he estimated, than any other boa constrictor in captivity. Its cross bars were sharply marked and the brighter colors of the tail quite showy. He envied Patty her blue-ribbon pet and regretted that he would not have more time in which to get friendly with it. The snake rubbed her head against his hand like a cat. Patty picked up Abby and said, "Just as I thought. Honey Bun, why didn't you tell me?"- then explained, as she started to change diapers, "She tells me at once if one of them gets tangled up, or needs help, or anything, since she can't do much for them herself - no hands - except nudge them back if they try to crawl out and might fall. But she just can't seem to grok that a wet baby ought to be changed - Honey Bun doesn't see anything wrong about that. And neither does Abby." "I know. We call her 'Old Faithful.' Who's the other cutie pie?" "Huh? That's Fatima Michele, I thought you knew." "Are they here? I thought they were in Beirut!" "Why, I believe they did come from some one of those foreign parts. I don't know just where. Maybe Maryam told me but it wouldn't mean anything to me; I've never been anywhere. Not that it matters; I grok all places are alike - just people. There, do you want to hold Abigail Zenobia while I check Fatima?" Jubal did so and assured her that she was the most beautiful girl in the world, then shortly thereafter assured Fatima of the same thing. He was completely sincere each time and the girls believed him - Jubal had said the same thing on countless occasions starting in the Harding administration, had always meant it and had always been believed. It was a Higher Truth, not bound by mundane logic. Regretfully he left them, after again petting Honey Bun and telling her the same thing, and just as sincerely.

that everything that had ever happened to me had been a loving step in that process of my progression. every person, every circumstance, and every incident was custom created for me. It was as if the entire universe existed for my higher good and development. I felt so loved, so cherished, and so honored. I realized that not only was I being embraced by deity, but also that I myself was divine, and that we all are. I knew that there are no accidents in this life. That everything happens for a reason. yet we always get to choose how we will experience what happens to us here. I could exercise my will in everything, even in how I felt about the wreck and the death of my family members. God didn't want me to hurt and feel put upon as if my son and wife had been taken from me. He was simply there assisting me to decide how I was going to experience it. He was providing me with the opportunity, in perfect love, to exercise my personal agency in this entire situation. I knew my wife and son were gone. They had died months earlier, but time didn't exist where I was at that moment. rather than having them ripped away from me, I was being given the opportunity to actually hand them over to God. To let them go in peace, love, and gratitude. Everything suddenly made sense. Everything had divine order. I could give my son to God and not have him taken away from me. I felt my power as a creator and cocreator with God to literally let go of all that had happened to me. I held my baby son as God himself held me. I experienced the oneness of all of it. Time did not matter. Only love and order existed. Tamara and Griffin had come into my life as perfect teachers. And in leaving me in such a way, they continued as perfect teachers to bring me to that point of remembering who I was. remembering that I was created in God's image and actually came from Him. I was aware now that I could actually walk with God, empowered by what I was learning in my life. I felt the divine energy of the being behind me inviting me to let it all go and give Griffin to Him. In all that peace and knowledge, I hugged my little boy tightly one last time, kissed him on the cheek, and gently laid him back down in the crib. I willingly gave him up. No one would ever take him away from me again. He was mine. We were one, and I was one with God. As soon as I breathed in all that peace, I awoke, back into the pain and darkness of my hospital bed, but with greater perspective. I marveled at what I had just experienced. It was not just a dream. It felt too real. It was real to me, far more real than the pain, the grief, and my hospital bed. Griffin was alive in a place more real than anything here. And Tamara was there with him. I knew it. As the years have passed, I've often wondered how I could have put my son back in the crib the way I did. Maybe I should have held on and never let go. But in that place, it all made sense. I realized that no one ever really dies. We always live on. I had experienced a God as real and tangible as we are. He knows our every heartache, yet allows us to experience and endure them for our growth. His is the highest form of love; He allows us to become what we will. He watches as we create who we are. He allows us to experience life in a way that makes us more like Him, divine creators of our own destiny. My experience showed me purpose and order. I knew there was a master plan far greater than my limited earthly vision. I also learned that my choices were mine alone to make. I got to decide how I felt, and that made all the difference in the universe. even in this tragedy, I got to determine the outcome. I could choose to be a victim of what had happened or create something far greater.

Follow my lead," De murmured. "We will head for the hills to the west, as far from this battle as our horses can take us." He freed one of the horses from the chariot and guided it to Luce. The horse was stunning, black as coal, with a diamond-shaped white patch on its chest.De helped Luce into the saddle and held up the king's halberd in one hand and a crossbow in the other.Luce had never fired or even touched a crossbow in her life,and Lu Xin had only used one once,to scare a lynx away from her baby sister's crib.But the weapon felt light in Luce's hand,and she knew if it came down to it,she could fire it. De smiled at her choice and whistled for his horse. A beautiful brindle mare trotted over.He hopped onto its back. "De! What are you doing?" an alarmed voice called from the line of the horses. "You were to kill the king! Not mount him on one of our horses!" "Yes! Kill the king!" a chorus of angry voices called. "The king is dead!" Luce shouted, silencing the soldiers. The feminine voice behind the helmet brought gasps from all of them. They stood frozen, uncertain whether to raise their weapons. De drew his horse close to Luce's. He took her hands in his.They were warmer and stronger and more reassuring than anything she'd ever felt. "Whatever happens,I love you.Our love is worth everything to me." "And to me," Luce whispered back. De let out a battle cry,and their horses took off at a breakneck pace. The crossbow nearly slipped out of Luce's grasp as she lurched forward to clutch the reins. Then the rebel soldiers began to shout. "Traitors!" "Lu Xin!" De's voice rose above the shrillest cry,the heaviest horse's hoof. "Go!" He raised his arm high, pointing toward the hills.

Last night I slept like a baby. In a crib.

the September 1970 Supplement featured a "Birch Bark Crib."48 The walls of the crib were constructed of birch bark, into which the builders had inserted Plexiglas windows for the baby. The mattress was made of polystyrene. With its back-to-the-land allegiance to birch bark and its easy appropriation of industrial plastics, the crib neatly linked the world of the commune to the world of the high-technology factory.

Breastfeeding mothers, sleeping by their babies in three-sided cribs with the open side joined to the adult bed, respond quite differently from mothers whose babies are in four-sided cribs.

I think of my son. I remember him as a baby in my arms—the sweet smell of his soft head beneath my lips when I kissed him good night before setting him down in his crib.

After dinner Marlboro Man and I sat on the sofa in our dimly lit house and marveled at the new little life before us. Her sweet little grunts…her impossibly tiny ears…how peacefully she slept, wrinkled and warm, in front of us. We unwrapped her from her tight swaddle, then wrapped her again. Then we unwrapped her and changed her diaper, then wrapped her again. Then we put her in the crib for the night, patted her sweet belly, and went to bed ourselves, where we fell dead asleep in each other’s arms, blissful that the hard part was behind us. A full night’s sleep was all I needed, I reckoned, before I felt like myself again. The sun would come out tomorrow…I was sure of it. We were sleeping soundly when I heard the baby crying twenty minutes later. I shot out of bed and went to her room. She must be hungry, I thought, and fed her in the glider rocking chair before putting her in her crib and going back to bed myself. Forty-five minutes after my head hit the pillow, I was awakened again to the sound of crying. Looking at the clock, I was sure I was having a bad dream. Bleary-eyed, I stumbled to her room again and repeated the feeding ritual. Hmmm, I thought as I tried to keep from nodding off in the chair. This is strange. She must have some sort of problem, I imagined--maybe that cowlick or colic I’d heard about in a movie somewhere? Goiter or gouter or gout? Strange diagnoses pummeled my sleep-deprived brain. Before the sun came up, I’d gotten up six more times, each time thinking it had to be the last, and if it wasn’t, it might actually kill me. I woke up the next morning, the blinding sun shining in my eyes. Marlboro Man was walking in our room, holding our baby girl, who was crying hysterically in his arms. “I tried to let you sleep,” he said. “But she’s not having it.” He looked helpless, like a man completely out of options. My eyes would hardly open. “Here.” I reached out, motioning Marlboro Man to place the little suckling in the warm spot on the bed beside me. Eyes still closed, I went into autopilot mode, unbuttoning my pajama top and moving my breast toward her face, not caring one bit that Marlboro Man was standing there watching me. The baby found what she wanted and went to town. Marlboro Man sat on the bed and played with my hair. “You didn’t get much sleep,” he said. “Yeah,” I said, completely unaware that what had happened the night before had been completely normal…and was going to happen again every night for the next month at least. “She must not have been feeling great.

To her further surprise, she found a breakfast tray waiting for her on the table with bagels, cheese and an assortment of fruit. But what caught her eye was the tiny pair of yellow baby booties. She picked up the soft, fuzzy little booties, her throat knotting as she read the accompanying card. Because you said you didn’t have a pair yet. Love, Ryan. She sank into the seat, her eyes stinging with tears. She held the booties to her cheek and then touched the card, tracing the scrawl of his signature. “I shouldn’t love you this much,” she whispered. God, but she couldn’t help herself. She craved him. He was her other half. She didn’t feel whole without him. And so began a courting ritual that tugged on her heartstrings. Every morning when she crawled out of bed, there was a new present waiting for her from Ryan. There was a baby book that outlined everything she could expect from birth through the first year of life. One morning he left her two outfits. One for a boy and one for a girl. Just in case, he had written. On the fifth morning, he simply left her a note that told her a gift was waiting in the extra bedroom. Excited, she hurried toward the bedroom she’d once occupied and threw open the door to see not one present but a room full of baby things. A stroller. A crib that was already put together. A little bouncy thing. An assortment of toys. A changing table. She couldn’t take in all the stuff that was there. She didn’t even know what all of it was for. How on earth had he managed to sneak this in without her hearing? And there by the window was a rocking chair with a yellow afghan lying over the arm. She walked over and reverently touched the wood, giving the chair an experimental push. It creaked once and then swayed gently back and forth.

Motherhood, however, took her by surprise. She found herself so in love with her children that she felt a need to change and restructure her life to afford time with her two bundles of joy. It led to her next phase of entrepreneurship, starting a string of baby-and-mother-related businesses. CRIB is a platform for mothers and women to network, and Trehaus provides the space for working mothers to have a career and yet be there for the baby’s first moments.

Heather had invented the game, but Picket made it magic. She remembered the day it began. She had been out in the meadow behind their elm-tree home, lying on a blanket in the sun. Heather was little then. Her long furry ears bent slightly in the wind, and the bow she invariably wore over one ear was starting to come undone. That day Mother had done a carnation bow, an intricate weave of one long ribbon made to look like a large flower, and pinned it to one ear. Picket was little more than a baby then, sleeping in his crib.

The baby in her arms was silent: ensorceled, and there would be a simulacram left in the crib, a changeling. A fey mockery to die by sunrise, and leave the grieving family to wonder. Crib death. Elf-stroke. How little we remember.

Creation Myth I'm the great-grandson of a sheep farmer, child of sumacs, trash trees shedding their ancient scales. I'm drawn from fair grass on the north end, my molecules spat from coal and cattle, the Indiana dusk. I'm notes scrawled on freezer paper, the one looped oven mitt Aunt Bev crocheted while the baby lay feverish in its crib. I rise from a day gone thin as Cousin Ceily, who wore her cancer wigs to church. I come from boys unfastening in the 4-H bathroom, the stink of urinal cakes, dirty hands that scratched an itch. I breathe in arc welders and air compressors. I breathe out milk leaking from nurse cows, Uncle Jake's spoiled old bitches. I'm run through with moths and meth labs, a child of the KKK, men who lynched Tom Shipp from a split oak in Marion, August 1930. My cells carry his shadow swaying over uncut grass. They carry my second third cousin cheering in the back. I rise from aphids in honeysuckle, egg yolks flecked with blood. Born one humid summer night, my body hums like a black cricket, transmitting August across the fields. I sing till my throat bleeds. I smoke like a pan of scorched sugar. I'll never forget the miracle of firecrackers, freezer meat, murky gray lemonade. I'm born to thunder in the veins, a child of form, a rusted gasket ring, some disenchanted thing, the promise of a worm.

Woman?" he asked me. "Yeah, the woman you were kissing, the one in the little apartment with the baby boy in a crib-" The memories flashed to life all around me then and my heart began to race as I looked around at memory after memory of him and my mom. They'd met while she was working in The Sparkling Uranus and he'd become somewhat obsessed with her, paying for private dances night after night before finally plucking up the courage to ask her to be his. She'd been heart broken when they'd met after Gareth's father had left her for his Elysian Mate and she'd been left to raise a baby all alone, but then she'd slowly fallen in love with this man. A man who had the same golden hair as I had naturally. A man whose penetrating gaze was running all over me like he was noticing the same similarities I was.  "That woman is my mother," I breathed. "And my father disappeared before he ever even knew she was pregnant with me-

He hefted the drill. “Now let me do the guy stuff while you go to the kitchen. Trust me, it’s a perfect arrangement.” “Luke’s going to cry,” I said darkly. “No, he won’t. He’ll love it.” To my disgust Luke didn’t make a sound, watching contentedly as Jack built the crib. I heated a plate of spaghetti and sauce, and set a place for Jack at the kitchen island. “C’mon, Luke,” I said, picking up the baby and carrying him into the kitchen. “We’ll entertain Cro-Magnon while he has his dinner.” Jack dug into the steaming pasta with gusto, making appreciative noises and finishing at least a third of it before coming up for air. “This is great. What else can you cook?” “Just the basics. A few casseroles, pasta, stew. I can roast a chicken.” “Can you do meat loaf?” “Yep.” “Marry me, Ella.” I looked into his wicked dark eyes, and even though I knew he was joking, I felt a wild pulse inside, and my hands trembled. “Sure,” I said lightly. “Want some bread?” -Jack & Ella

No,” he said. “Go.” He snapped the last snap of Maya’s onesie and lifted her by her underarms, setting her on her freshly dry butt in her crib. Then he took me by both shoulders. “I’ll take tomorrow off work. I’ll call it in as a family emergency. I’ll put the baby’s car seat in my car, and Maya and I will drive out to Bakersfield and pick up your mom.

Wasn’t no broad about to be making my baby feel uncomfortable in my crib.

I have something for you, Harper.” “Really? What is it?” He took my hand and started walking me down the hall, “Promise me something, if you don’t like it, you have to tell me.” “I’m sure I’ll love it … you have it in the nursery?” I asked confused when we walked up to the door. “Promise.” “I promise.” I squeezed his hand tight and opened the door. I didn’t have to search around for it, or them should I say. “Oh my God. Brandon. Did you buy these?” Yes, I know that was a stupid question, but I couldn’t believe this. “Is that okay?” “No, I mean yes, it is. But Brandon, that’s a lot of money!” There was a dark cherry wood crib, dresser, changing table and a large leather glider chair. I remembered how much Brandon made from winning those fights, but I knew exactly how much these all cost since I was planning on buying them myself, and they definitely weren’t cheap. He shrugged, “I just need to know if you like them.” “I do, I absolutely love them.” He’d even put the bedding in the crib that I’d bought. “You shouldn’t be spending your money on this.” I walked over to touch everything and picked up one of the baby blankets Bree had bought and draped it back over the edge of the crib. Brandon came up behind me and turned me so I was facing him, “I wanted to do this for you.” “But that is really expensive Brandon.” “Harper,” he smiled softly at me, “please don’t worry about it.” I smiled and took a quick glance around me again, “Did you put them all together by yourself?” He nodded, “Bree texted me as soon as you guys left this morning. I had just finished when she said you guys were down the street.” “And you set up the bedding too?” “No,” he huffed a laugh, “I’m pretty sure I would have messed that up. They must have ran in to do it while we were talking.” That made more sense. “Thank you,” I reached up and kissed his cheek, “so much.” “You’re more than welcome Harper.

Nic walked to the end of the hallway and opened the door that led to the unfinished attic. She flipped on the light switch and gasped aloud. The attic wasn’t merely finished. It had been transformed. He’d chosen a mountain wildlife theme for the nursery that suited the space to a T, and he’d included two sets of everything—two cribs, two dressers, two changing tables, and even two full-size rocking chairs. Both rockers sported cushions that had been embroidered with two words: Mama Bear on one, Papa Bear on the other. “Oh, Gabe,” she said with a sigh. She sat in the Mama Bear rocker, rubbed her belly, and that’s when she saw the mural on the wall. Papa Bear, Mama Bear, two Baby Bears, and a crooked-tailed boxer sprawled at their feet. Papa Bear held a T-square. Mama Bear had a stethoscope draped around her neck. In the sky to the right, a happy-faced sun shined down upon them. In the sky to the left, two silhouettes with angel wings sat perched at the apex of a rainbow. Gabe

Oh, hell no, you’re not going anywhere,” Jack said. “My sister’s having a baby, her first, and this is the cheering section.” “Wait a minute here,” he said. “I’m not real big on babies. We’ve been over this—I have no idea what to do with them.” “Well, for God’s sake, we’re not going to make you do anything.” Jack laughed. “You know how to eat, raise a glass, smoke a cigar? The delivery team is taking care of the messy stuff.” “Shouldn’t it be real quiet around here? Fewer people?” “We’ll be quiet, we’ll stay out of the way.” Preacher handed Jack a bottle for David. “This guy’s going to break in the new crib. Say good-night, David.” The boy had the bottle in his mouth that fast, leaned his head against Jack’s shoulder sleepily and opened and closed the fingers of one pudgy little hand, holding his bottle with the other. “What if she…” Luke couldn’t go on. “What if she what?” “Screams or something,” he said squeamishly. Jack put his free arm around Luke’s shoulders. “See, you need to be here, buddy. It’s time you learn about the cycle of life. You never know, this could happen to you someday.” “This is not happening to me someday. I’m way past all this.” A few male heads came up. There was some subdued laughter. “Is that so?” Jack said. “Cry me a river, pal, I was over forty when Mel tripped me up. We’re all about the same age around here, except Preacher. He’s still a pup, even though he looks older than the rest of us.” Walt handed Luke a drink. “I was forty-four when Tom was born. I think I’m holding up all right, to tell the truth.” “You’re going to have to come up with a better excuse,” Jack said.

Really, I don’t know how to thank you. The day was wonderful, the evening was perfect. And you’re exceptionally well behaved.” She grinned at him. “Don’t give me too much credit. It’s all part of a devious plan.” “Oh?” “Absolutely. If I can show you a good time, make you feel safe and comfortable, then maybe when you’re ready, I’ll have a chance.” He smiled at her. She tilted her head and looked at him with a sweet smile and glowing eyes. “You’re absolutely wonderful.” He shied a bit at the compliment and dropped his gaze, laughing softly. “Well, I’ve never had an interest in a widow with a baby before and I’m finding it has its difficult points.” “Oh?” He threaded a hand under her hair and around her neck. “Oh, yeah. For one thing, you just smell so damn good. If your situation was different, you might have to beat me off with a club. I have a giant crush on you.” “Maybe I shouldn’t have done this,” she said, but she didn’t pull away from his hand. “I’d hate to lead you on….” “Come on, it’s not your fault if I have a crush and a desperate need to try to impress you. Don’t you have enough baggage without taking on mine?” “Well, I’m impressed,” she said softly. She leaned toward him and put a gentle kiss on his cheek. “I just don’t want to let you down.” Their eyes locked and for a moment they were suspended there. And then he slowly pulled her toward him. He was going to kiss her and she was going to let him. But then the baby started to snuffle in the crib and whimper. She pulled back with a smile. “That’s my call,” she said quietly. “Thank you for a lovely day. And for being such a dear man, for understanding so much.” “Sure,” he said, removing his hand. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.” “Good night, Cameron.” *

My husband and I collaborated on a novel and we didn’t fight. We fought more while “collaborating” on the assembly of an IKEA baby crib (that crib almost did require marriage counseling).

My mom won’t let him.” I sighed. “She’s starting to really get on my nerves, too.” Krysta’s eyes widened. “Why?” “Ever since Rose Marie came home, it’s been Rose Marie this or baby that. You should see the money my mom has spent. She already bought a crib and they’re painting dinosaurs all over my bedroom. They didn’t even ask me.” “I don’t think it’s your bedroom anymore, Sophie,” Krysta reminded me. AJ leaned forward and narrowed her gaze. “You sound jealous, Sophie.” “Jealous?” I snapped, ready to tear off AJ’s head. “How could you say that, AJ? Why would you think I’m jealous? They’ve just thrown their lives down the toilet and you think I’m jealous?” AJ leaned back and shrugged. “You don’t have to get so defensive. It was just an observation.” “I’m not jealous.” The pitch in my voice rose. “It just pisses me off that Rose Marie screws up and she gets the royal treatment. Mom wouldn’t do that for me.” “Yep.” AJ waved her finger at me. “That’s jealousy.” “You

When I found out Bree was pregnant with another nigga’s baby, I had my brother and mama kick her up outta my crib. I

My baby is four years old. I know that calling her a baby is really only a matter of semantics now. It’s true, she still sucks her thumb; I have a hard time discouraging this habit. John and I are finally confident that we already enjoy our full complement of children, so the crib is in the crawlspace, awaiting nieces, nephews, or future grandchildren. I cried when I took it down, removing the screws so slowly and feeling the maple pieces come apart in my hands. Before I dismantled it, I spent long vigils lingering in Annie’s darkened room, just watching her sleep, the length of her curled up small. What seems like permanence, the tide of daily life coming in and going out, over and over, is actually quite finite. It is hard to grasp this thought even as I ride the wave of this moment, but I will try. This time of tucking into bed and wiping up spilled milk is a brief interlude. Quick math proves it. Let me take eleven years - my oldest girl’s age - as an arbitrary endpoint to mothering as I know it now. Mary, for instance, reads her own stories. To her already I am becoming somewhat obsolete. That leaves me roughly 2.373 days, the six and half years until Annie’s eleventh birthday, to do this job. Now that is a big number, but not nearly as big as forever, which is how the current moment often seems. So I tuck Annie in every night. I check on Peter and Tommy, touch their crew-cut heads as they dream in their Star Wars pajamas, my twin boys who still need me. I steal into Mary’s room, awash with pink roses, and turn out the light she has left on, her fingers still curled around the pages of her book. She sleeps in the bed that was mine when I was a child. Who will she grow up to be? Who will I grow up to be? I think to myself, Be careful what you wish for. The solitude I have lost, the time and space I wish for myself, will come soon enough. I don’t want to be surprised by its return. Old English may be a dead language, but scholars still manage to find meaning and poetry in its fragments. And it is no small consolation that my lost letters still manage, after a thousand years, to find their way to an essay like this one. They have become part of my story, one I have only begun to write. - Essay 'Mother Tongue' from Brain, Child Magazine, Winter 2009

Why don’t we consider moving in together? While we head for this event?” She gulped. “What?” she asked weakly. “Let’s clear the debt, get Kid Crawford out of the picture, I’ll take on your upkeep rather than Vanni and Paul shouldering your food and board, and we’ll evolve into…” He cleared his throat. “We don’t have to explain anything. People will just say, ‘Dr. Michaels likes that nice pregnant girl.’ We’ll share a house. I’ll be your roommate. You’ll have your own room. But there will be late nights you’re worried about some belly pain or later, night crying from the babies. You don’t want to do that to Vanni and Paul and—” “I was just going to go home to Seattle. To my mom and dad’s.” “They have room for me?” he asked, lifting his fork and arching that brow. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, slamming down her fork. “You can’t mean to say you plan to just follow me and demand to live with the babies!” “Well, no,” he said. “That would be obsessive. But Jesus, Ab, I don’t want to miss out on anything. Do you know how much babies change from two to six weeks? It just kills me to think you’d take them that far away from me. I mean, they are—” “I know,” she said, frustrated. “Yours.” “Yeah, sweetheart. And they’re also yours. And I swear to God, I will never try to take them away from you. That would be cruel.” He had just aimed an arrow at her sense of justice. The shock of realization must have shown on her face, but he took another bite, had another drink of his beer, smiled. “Live together?” “Here’s how it’ll go if you stay with Vanni and Paul. Toward the end, when you’re sleepless, you’ll be up at night. You’ll be tired during the day, but there will be a toddler around, making noise and crying. And you’ll have all those late pregnancy complaints, worries. Then you’ll have a small guest room stuffed to the ceiling with paraphernalia. Then babies—and grandmothers as additional guests? Newborns, sometimes, cry for hours. They could have Vanni and Paul up all night, walking the floor with you. Nah, that wouldn’t be good. And besides, it’s not Paul’s job to help, it’s mine.” “Where do you suggest we live? Here?” “Here isn’t bad,” he said with a shrug. “But Mel and Jack offered us their cabin. It’s a nice cabin—two bedrooms and a loft, ten minutes from town. Ideally, we should hurry and look around for a place that can accommodate a man, a woman, two newborns, two grandmothers and… We don’t have to make room for the lawyers, do we?” “Very funny,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Abby, we have things to work out every single day. We have to buy cribs, car seats, swings, layette items, lots of stuff—it’s going to take more than one trip to the mall. We have to let the families know there will be babies coming—it’s only fair. We should have dinner together every day, just so we can communicate, catch up. If there’s anything you need or anything you’re worried about, I want to be close so I can help. If you think I’m going to molest you while you’re huge with my babies—” “You know, I’m getting sick of that word, huge.

The baby intern scaled the walls of her crib and spent most of the weekend getting up to speed on the negotiations with Senecorp so you’d have it first thing this morning. You’ll find her sucking her thumb at Alice’s desk.

If you saw a spider scuttering across the floor toward your baby’s crib, you might hesitate. You might even consider trapping it in a bottle and putting it out in the yard so it could go on living its little life. But if you were sure that spider was poisonous? A black