in the middle of the night

Syd got up in the middle of the night when Evan started to cry. Eric was so out of it. She thought he needed the rest.

It was all so new to her. So many things. But it felt like going up in a balloon somehow and seeing everything differently, now. Even if she was well planted on the ground.

Anyway, Evan wasn't terribly fussy. He needed a diaper change. She felt as if everything she did was so slow and carefully. Syd hadn't been around a newborn like this since she was probably middle school. She'd gone to the library for babysitting classes that summer and ended up having to watch an infant of a professional golfer. It sounds so exciting. Of course, the baby cried the entire time the couple was gone. But she held the baby, rocked it, sang to it. She never gave up. The baby finally went to sleep about fifteen minutes before the couple got home. She got an extra twenty out of it. After that. She thought older kids would be better. Of course, they tied her up during some game and well, she decided she might not be the babysitter for them, even if their mother kept bugging her to take them to movies all summer long. It felt like the hardest time to enjoy making a living. She hoped it wouldn't always be this hard.

Syd got the diaper changed and went to get a bottle ready. When she got back she noticed Eric was up holding him.

"You should be asleep." She told him quietly. Standing there in her flannel pants and his baggy sweater.

"No, no, its fine." He almost smiled.

"But I want to feed him." She did have the bottle.

"OK." He handed the baby over to her, and she got situated with him in the rocking chair. Eric yawned and stood there with his eyes closed.

"Go back to sleep." She smiled.

"I couldn't." But he yawned again. "I wish he was with us. He should really be in our room."

"All right." There was a bassinet that his Mom had brought over. At the moment it was loaded down with Pampers.

"I mean, its not like I want to sleep with him. Even if I do have dreams that I do. God, I just don't want anything to happen to him." He sighed as he went to unload the bassinet.

Syd just smiled as Evan took the bottle with ease. He was back to sleep in no time.

"Maybe he had colic. I guess, that's what the doctor said. But we changed his formula to low-iron. He's better, don't you think?" Eric nodded.

"Yeah, he's been a sweetie." She sensed he did like being held, and she didn't mind spoiling him, either. "He has your mouth."

"What?" He cracked up then.

"Shhh, you'll wake him."

Eric went over to touch his light strands of hair.

"I dunno. Every-time, I look at him, I see Amanda. I don't see myself in him, at all." Eric told him. "And I know I'm suppose to care about where Amanda is, but I don't."

Syd knew he was still mad at Amanda. Maybe he wouldn't be a week from now. A year.

"I can't believe Amanda hates me that much. How could she do this to her baby? Do you think its my fault?"

"No." Syd shook her head and got up with Evan. "She's got a lot on her mind..she's just not thinking clearly."

Eric pushed the bassinet to their room while she got a bit of burp out of Evan. Finally, everyone got back to bed.