Everyone Wants To Meet The New Baby

My new son, baby Jake was born on June 13th, 2009, and is now 3 and half weeks old. He's had many visitors but none as strange as the 3 that turned up the other day...

Now that Jake is growing and becoming more aware of the world, it's not just a matter of feeding him, changing him and putting him to sleep, so getting him settled is becoming a bit more difficult. I've taken to reading to him after he's had a feed and a nappy change but still doesn't feel like sleeping.

Being born in winter, I chose a story book entitled, "the winter child", a fairy story by Terri Windling and illustrated by Wendy Froud. It's one of my favorites and quirky enough to read to a boy, being a fairy tale and all.

So I had little Jakey in his bassinet as I sat on the end of my bed, which I had JUST made, and read to him. Sneezle, the main character and his friend twig, had just escaped from the goblins and their evil master Malagan the sorcerer, in a flying shoe... Of course.

I'd like to think I'm a lively story teller, and Jake being so young he probably doesn't understand the words I'm saying, but at least appreciates the tone variance in my voice as I read to him.

Anyways, I'm reading away and Jake's starting to settle when I start to feel movement behind me. I ignored it at first but then thought, "Hey, it feels like someone's settling into my bed". I kept reading and shifted my position and shortly felt movement again. Realizing that it was very different from my own, the way the bed moved and all, I glanced over my shoulder and was quite shocked to see a heavy indentation of what looked like a bum print on my partner's side of the bed! I thought then, "oh dear... We have company..."

I kept reading some more thinking OK, they just want to hear the story too, and being a strong believer in fairies and spirits too, I didn't want to offend them. I don't want keys and socks to start going missing around the house!

When I got to the end of the chapter, I closed the book and stood up saying, "that's all for today. Jake's asleep now and I don't want him to miss the rest of the story". I left the book on the bed and wheeled Jake's bassinet out into the lounge, then came back into my room to inspect my bed.

To my surprise, I noticed there was not 1, but 3 indentations, all different sizes! The first one was about the size of a small child, toddler even. The second, about half that, and the third was even smaller, maybe even smaller than Jake! Remember, I had just made the bed and nothing had been on it, and these were heavy indentations, as though someone was sitting there, only I couldn't see anything, just dents in the doona.

I' didn't want to panic or fret so I just calmly said, "I hope you enjoyed the story, and I really hope your intentions are good because if anything happens to my son, I will find you".

I then left the room and went about my business. I decided to leave 3 biscuits in front of the dents, just in case they were fairies, I hear they like sweet gifts. Coming back into the room again later, the biscuits were still there, as were the dents, but they weren't so deep now, as if who ever was sitting there had left. The pressure of their weight was no longer pushing down into the bed. I felt the air above the dents with my hands, and it was warm and tingly and sent shivers up my spine. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it all so later that day I had my 2 best friends come over to see.

They both felt a tingling sensation as soon as they entered the room, saw the indentations and felt them the way I had done before. They both felt something although one said it was warm and tingly, the other said it was cold and clammy. They both had constant shivers up their spines as did I the whole time we were in there.

That happened two days ago now and for the record, there were no drugs or alcohol involved, but I did want to share this story with others to maybe get an opinion on who or what was listening in on my son's story time. I don't think it was a bad thing but regardless, I slept in the lounge room that night with Jake curled up beside me and the dog asleep on the couch next to us... Just to be on the safe side.