Thus Commenced my Day

Another little Dube arrived early this morning. It was prearranged that, should Beth go into labor on an odd night, Teresa would watch Emma and Owen for them ("Because," quoth she "I'm the odd one."), leaving the even nights to me. Save Monday and Friday evenings, the first of which was to always by default fall to me and the second to her. We had a few good laughs over the oddity of the arrangement, but it fit well with our respective days off, and so was easily enough remembered.
In the wee hours of this morning, sometime between one and two o'clock, Teresa woke me up, "Beth's having the baby, and it's your night. Adam will be over to pick you up in ten minutes." I rolled out of bed, and tried to focus through the fuzziness. That only took a very few seconds, and I was soon stuffing a few random items into a bag, in the likely event that I wouldn't have the chance to return before work later that morning. That accomplished, I made my bed. This, unaccountably, I remember distinctly.
Adam arrived post-haste, whisked me over to their apartment, and then hauled Beth off to the hospital. I reset my alarm to 5:30, one half hour later than my usual waking time, then crashed on their bed. I lay there for an age, and was just beginning to doze off, when Owen began to whimper in the other room. I tiptoed in, and rubbed his back. He woke up from the dream that had been troubling him, "Mommy?" Well, not exactly, but I wasn't about to tell him that. "It's ok," I whispered, hoping that the softness of my voice, coupled with his sleepiness, would fool him. I stood there until his eyes closed again, then tiptoed back to bed.
Emma got up a few whiles later, to use the bathroom. She made more noise, and turned on more lights, than I've ever experienced in the middle of the night. I lay there silently, hoping that she wouldn't take it into her head to visit her parents room. Fortunately my fears were ill-founded, and she went to bed again about five minutes later. That was just long enough to rouse my mind to a state of alertness. I reset my alarm for six o'clock.
My thoughts just began to drift again when my cell phone buzzed. Adam had sent me a text: "Baby here. Healthy." "CONGRATULATIONS!!!" I responded, and had just enough thought space available to be amazed at what a very short labor it had been. Only between two and three hours. I again reset the alarm: 6:30.
Forty-five minutes later, an alarm clock somewhere in the room began to ring. Of course, my first reaction was to reach for my own. That effort feckless, I groped around a bit before finding the other. 5:15. Aargh.
Another forty-five minutes, and I heard the front door unlocking. I had been asleep, but my mind was in such a state of alertness by this point, that I was out of bed before the door was opened. Adam thanked me profusely, and gathered the kids out of bed. We all piled into the car in our PJs, and drove back to my apartment.
Thus commenced my day.