A Blanket For Baby

It was, perhaps, lucky for little Kay McKay that there were new nurses at the hospital at the time of her birth.

"Ah, these young upstarts, they don't know she has the McKay genes in her," her grandma Kay (whom she had been named after) protested. "This couldn't have harmed her, this couldn't, and now they've made me break tradition."

'This' referred to a blanket. A blanket made of wool. A blanket made of so many bright hues of wool that it dazzled the eyes. And the new nurses hadn't let Grandma Kay bring it into the birthing room to wrap Little Kay in.

"Listen, young lady," Grandma Kay protested. "This is the sixth grandchild of mine to be born here, not to mention my twin girls and my son. And every one of them has been wrapped in a blanket made by my own hands, they have. It's tradition in our family."

Tradition or not, it was not allowed -- and, as stated, Little Kay was perhaps lucky.

You see, just this time, Grandma Kay had lost track of the months passing by. As her children had announced each pregnancy, she had counted nine months to make a colourful blanket, and set herself diligent deadlines so that it would be done in time to receive the newborn.

Somehow, this time, Grandma Kay's timekeeping had gone awry, and, when the phone-call came that her daughter-in-law's water had broken and her son was driving to hospital, she had gasped, "Nine months already?"

Her son chuckled and hung up, and Grandma Kay went frantically to the cupboard where she stashed her knitting.

The blanket was nowhere near ready.

Her twin daughters, her son, and the five grandkids so far had all been born into a blanket she had knitted. The doctors and nurses knew her and knew how clean and hygienic she was, and broke all sorts of rules to smuggle the blanket in.

The new nurses wouldn't do it. She had managed to bring a blanket, a blanket she had knitted, in time to hospital, and the baby named for her was to be denied it.

"Ma," her son said, when she fumed at him about this. "Ma, it's okay, you can wrap her in it when we bring her home."

"No, I can't," Grandma Kay grumbled. "I can't. I'll have to finish knitting the one I'd started. Why didn't someone warn me the nine months were going to be up and my deadline was approaching?"

"Ma, I'm not sure what you mean ..."

"I mean, I can't wrap Baby Kay in this blanket when she gets home. I borrowed it from Rover's basket, and he's going to want it back ..."