Page 29 of Finding Basil (Foggy Basin Season Two)

Chapter Eighteen

The first few nights with Sage were interesting, to say the least. The little boy didn’t like sleep, it seemed. He slept only two hours at a time.

They were exhausted and still blissfully happy. Walking around in a fog while smiling the entire time made Herb feel like he was stoned.

The families had both stayed away so the little family could get into a routine, but on the fourth day, their mothers, Lila, and Abuela came to visit, and right away, saw what was happening.

“The little buster is kickin’ your keesters, huh?” Lila put so poetically.

Katherine and Michelle were in the nursery while Basil was falling asleep as he’d crossed his arms on the dining room table. Abuela pulled him away, whispering, “Let him sleep.”

“There?”

“Probably the most comfortable he’s been. Come.”

The nursery had been a gift from them, the four women. They designed it, and it was beautiful. The wallpaper was muted green with trees, grass and wildflowers growing up from the bottom.

The furniture was all light stained oak, and the knobs on the dressers and changing table were nickel plated flowers.

All over the room were tan and blue stuffed animals, and a tall oak lamp was topped with a thick rattan shade. In the corner was a gorgeous matching rocking chair with a green throw.

It was there that he found his mother, rocking little Sage as he cooed sweetly, as if he was talking to his grandmother.

“He’s been up a lot, I take it?” Michelle asked.

“Every two hours. It’s…a lot.”

Katherine moved from the rocker and ordered him to sit in it. “Go ahead. I’m going to change him, and you can get a little nap.”

He didn’t argue, and he took the seat, letting Abuela place the blanket throw over him.

He was asleep immediately.

When he woke with a start, he got up and rushed to the crib, and when Sage wasn’t there, his heart leaped into his throat.

He ran out of the room and found Basil still sleeping on the table.

He shook him awake, and then they both nearly had heart attacks as they ran through the house searching for their son.

They heard him out on the front porch, and they threw open the front door to see all the women making googly faces at Sage while he was in his bassinet stroller.

“Look at them,” Michelle said. “They forgot we were here.”

They sat on the porch together and saw their mothers and grandmother laugh at them, but their attention was soon back on the baby.

“Sage, your daddies are silly. They need some more sleep, is all, and your little butt needs to be getting into a routine! You may think you rule this house, but you don’t,” Michelle scolded the baby.

All Sage did was coo cutely.

“That doesn’t work on me.”

“You old liar,” Abuela accused. “Look at that face. Same face Basil would make at you. You never could scold him and let it stick.”

“I know. Good thing he was a good boy, or he’d have been hell.”

Basil laughed quietly. “Okay, we give. How do we get him on a schedule?”

“Start by not giving in to each little fuss,” Lila said.

“She’s right,” Abuela said. “Let him cry a little. I know it’s hard, and it breaks your heart, but you don’t have to pick him up every time he fusses. You’ll know the difference soon enough.”

“The difference?” Herb asked.

“His caca cry, his pee pee cry, his hungry cry, you know.”

Basil gasped, “There are different cries?”

“Of course,” Katherine said, and they all laughed at the two. “Herb was two months old, and he messed with me. He changed his cries. I was a basket case for a month.”

“Wait, are you trying to tell me you think I had that much mindfulness to fool you?”

“Babies learn quickly, and manipulation is their first real skill besides eating and drinking.”

Basil was angry. “Sage isn’t manipulative! Babies can’t help what they do.”

Abuela hushed him with a look. “Now, boy, I’ve seen more babies being born and growing up than you can imagine. Five of my own, and twenty grandkids! You don’t think I might know a little more than you?”

Basil deflated of his anger. Herb knew the feeling, though. His son was sweet and angelic, like Basil. There wasn’t a manipulative bone in his tiny body.

“They won’t believe it until they see it,” Katherine said.

Sage fussed, getting ready to cry, so Basil got to his feet and bent over to take him from the stroller.

Abuela slapped his hands away. “What did we just say?”

“He’s crying!”

“He’s not crying! He’s fussing a little because we weren’t paying attention to him. Instead of picking him up, try talking to him.”

Basil was frustrated, Herb could tell as he stood up and looked into the bassinet too.

Their little son had his face scrunched up like he was ready to scream bloody murder, but Basil talked to him, like he’d been told. “Hey, little man, it’s okay. Daddies are right here, along with your mean, cruel grandmothers.”

“Hush that, Basil,” Abuela warned.

Herb almost laughed at that, but he didn’t because he noticed something. When Basil was talking, Sage’s cry became a squeak and then he started sucking on his hand.

“See, he’s hungry.”

“We fed him half an hour ago.”

“Then he’s wet.”

The women were all staring at him like he’d lost his mind. “He’s not crying,” Herb whispered to Basil.

Sage was perfectly content sucking on his hand as long as the two men were looking in on him.

“Ladies, will you help make your point? Move away, so he can’t see you?”

They did, and Herb gripped Basil’s arm and moved him back, out of Sage’s sight.

Sure enough, a fuss started, and it wasn’t thirty seconds before he was full-on screaming.

The ladies all crossed their arms over their chests, smirking in sync as they stared. Their point was made.

“Okay, fine, I’ll give you that one, but that doesn’t help much. How are we supposed to get anything done while he needs to see us all the time?”

Herb wanted to know too, so they strolled the baby back inside the house, and they all sat around the living room to hear the good advice they should have been asking for all along.

Michelle said, “Those baby carriers that you can wear on you are one thing, or, if you’re cooking or cleaning the kitchen, set him in one of those bouncy seats, set him right on the island. He can see you moving around, know you’re right there.”

“Do that for a few days,” Katherine said.

“Keep him up as much as you can, letting him nap for only a couple of hours, then wake him, wait until he fusses to be fed, or fusses to be changed. Don’t just automatically feed or change him, so you can learn what each cry sounds like.

Soon, he’s going to be sleeping better at night. ”

“Unless he gets colic,” Abuela added. “But that’s a whole different thing. And we can help with that too.”

It was a week before Sage was straightened out, but at the end of that week, he was sleeping almost through the night. They took him everywhere with him, even into the greenhouse, which he seemed to love. They’d sit him in his bouncy seat, and he’d stare around at all the plants, just cooing away.

When they’d got some sleep, Herb and Basil were feeling more like themselves, and Sage, well, he was the most beloved child in the world, as far as they were concerned. They adored the little boy, and they each knew it. They wanted more. Many more.

Being a farmer had been Basil’s dream all his life.

Herb came to that dream much later, but that dream conquered, the new dream they both shared was their family.

Their growing family. That night, they saw on the sofa-the orange sofa that Herb brought over to the new place, whether Lila bitched about it or not-and Basil held Sage on his lap as they both spoke to him, telling him stories about the time Daddy Herb moved to Foggy Basin.

“He didn’t know anything,” Basil said, “but he learned fast. Just like you will. You’ll play in the dirt, grow things, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a farmer.”

“You can be anything you want,” Herb said. “As long as you never leave home.”

The End