There is Nick in his pajamas: his fists curled over the coated teething bar of his cot, jerking it back and forth, squeaking the wheels and making the whole wooden cage buckle alarmingly. He stands more steadily in his crib than on the floor; at just under eleven months he’s such a swift crawler Sylvia doesn’t know if he quite has the incentive to walk. A grave look as he yells for his mother, and then he sees her coming across the threshold: his sleepy face blooms like a loose pink rose. Frieda, in her crib beside his, is amazingly still asleep, her sweaty fringe pasted to her forehead, her body stretched diagonally across the mattress, flannel-sleeved arms flung above her head. Suddenly, she looks so grown, her legs, her torso long and elegant, her babyhood evaporating. One of her hands has fallen outside of the cot rails. Before she goes to Nick, Sylvia gingerly weaves Frieda’s small, flushed hand gently through the bars, back into the cot, and folds it over her chest; if she were to turn over, she could have broken her wrist. Sylvia’s moved silently, not to wake her daughter, but no use: Nick continues to bellow, cheerfully now, and his sister is stirring. “Hey there, Pooker,” Sylvia whispers to her little girl. Frieda stretches, eyes fluttering, moans. Nick’s arms are out, welcoming his mother, and he is beaming.

He is also soaking wet, and so are his blankets and sheet. With Nicholas mouthing her sharp jawbone, his fat arms around her neck, Sylvia unbuttons his jammies and peels the bottoms off, down to the crackly acrylic feet, then pulls down his thick rubber pants. His diaper and soaker are both drenched, and he only stops bouncing, arms clenched at her chin, long enough to let her slip the wet nappies out between his knees. Urine sour, and perfumed with the powder of sleep: Sylvia breathes in her baby, his faint breath and soft mouth on her face.

Frieda is weeping, sitting up in her cot in a tangle of blankets, blinking, rosy with the heat of her own body. It’s too cold to set Nick down on the rugless floor without so much as a diaper; Frieda will have to wait a moment longer. Sylvia pulls the catches on Nick’s cot and the front panel drops. She hoists him bare bottomed onto her hip and with her other hand pulls the wet crib sheet off the mattress, kneading it into a ball.

“Frieda no,” Frieda sobs, her mouth a red O. “Frieda up time,” she pleads, her baby teeth opaline in her mouth.