The Youngest Person I have ever met

I met a new-born baby on Sunday April 13. The youngest I have ever met.

Kayode and Jadesola’s baby was born at 4.40pm NZ time in the Auckland Hospital. We (Tope and I) visited at about 7pm.
He was swaddled in cloth, had very curly hair and was already looking around very sleepily at the huddle of adults making a fuss over him.

I was sort of expecting to have to stare at him from behind a glass partition like they do in the movies. Yes the movies. Other babies I have met have almost always been a few days (or weeks or months) old. The ones I could possibly have seen (my nephews) a mere 2 hours after they were born were all born in different countries from the one I resided in at the time.

Anyway… apparently Auckland hospital has a policy of not separating mother and child unless it is for medical reasons so we were all able to touch, coo directly in his face and even lift him up. (I didn’t attempt this last, what if he peeled in my hands!!!).

I have to confess that walking into that hospital was like entering into another world. There were terminologies and whole conversations that seemed almost alien to me. Epidurals, Induced labor etc. And there were all these posters on the walls promoting breast-feeding advantages and graphically showing techniques.

Its one thing to have a biology class on reproduction or even to attend a Nigerian style naming ceremony and its quite another thing to share the first few hours of a living breathing human with the amniotic fluid still unwashed off his body, mother looking radiant and exhausted all at the same time and the father unable to keep this idiotic satisfied smile from his face.

And then there was Iyin.

Iyin is the big sister. She is four years old and has the precociousness of her age and then some. She kept announcing to the nurse doing the half-hourly checks on her mum, “That’s my brother sleeping there” or “Wont you take my brother’s temperature too?” and when told to be careful and not poke him in the eye she replied rather tartly, “but he’s MY brother”. As if to say none of us could quite make that claim. Which we couldn't.

A baby is always a good reminder of the sublime miracle that life is. It is also a huge reminder of the responsibilities and experiences that I fully intend to be taking up within the next 2 years. Or three. Or lets make it a round five years! Hehehehehe. No hurry afterall.

Or is there?