Title: The Moro Reflex
Summary: Richard demonstrates his surprising knowledge of babies…but also demonstrate some distinct gaps.
A/N: You may want to look up Moro reflex on wiki. The video of the baby doing it whilst asleep is particularly cute.
Oh God, he was being handed the baby again.
Technically, like other police officers, Fidel was not entitled to paternity leave – but he had annual leave and Richard signed off with no qualms for him to take two weeks once Rosie arrived. That leave was nearly over, but before it did end Fidel and Juliet had come into the centre of Honore to register the child's birth. Apparently, whilst filling out the paperwork, Rosie had become fussy and required a feed. Juliet had come to Catherine's to do so, and Richard had stayed as far away as possible. He fully supported a woman's right to breast feed in public, but he still rather wished they wouldn't do so in front of him. Catherine and Camille sat with her and chatted away like the woman was not practically half naked in front of them.
After everything was put away, and the baby burped, Juliet and Camille approached his table. He stood and smiled politely at the baby, making some vague but appropriate comment about how beautiful she was. Then Juliet's phone had rung and, unable to retrieve it from her pocket whilst holding the child, she had practically dumped the tiny thing into his arms. His heart rate skyrocketed, but once he felt that her weight was quite secure he calmed down a bit. He was pretty certain he could manage not to drop her for a minute or so. Camille wasn't bothering to hide her amusement at his discomfit at being left literally holding the baby. Rosie was practically comatose after her feed, and completely oblivious to the fact she had changed hands.
"That was Fidel," Juliet told them both as she hung up. "I forgot to give him our marriage certificate, it's in my bag. You can hold her for ten minutes whilst I run over there, right?"
Ten minutes was about 9 minutes longer than Richard expected to have to hold Rosie. However, she was fast asleep, and he was pretty certain from the way Camille cooed over Rosie that she would willingly take over responsibility if he asked her, so he just nodded mutely. Juliet stooped to kiss her daughter on the forehead and then hurried out of the door. Richard gently lowered himself back down into his seat, watching the baby's face, but Rosie remained asleep. He looked up to find Camille was smiling at him.
"What?" He asked, a little uncomfortable by the attention she was paying him.
"You looked so scared when she passed you the baby," Camille said. "But look at you now, you're fine!"
"Yes, it's strange, both times I've been terrified of dropping her. I mean, I don't think that would make me very popular with Fidel and Juliet, would it?" Camille just smiled at his confession. "But then once I actually have her it's sort of like some switch turns on in my brain and I realise I'm not going to drop her."
"Well it appears you have some paternal instinct, who would have thought?" Camille teased him.
Richard chose to ignore her. Whilst examining Rosie again to see if she was still fine, he had noticed something odd. Frowning, he asked, "Why has she got socks on her hands?"
Camille sighed, "What was I saying about paternal instinct? They aren't socks, Richard, they are scratch mittens."
"Scratch mittens? Why on earth would she need those? Do new-borns attack people?"
"There nails are quite sharp, they are largely to stop the baby accidentally scratching herself," Camille explained patiently. Richard found it hard to believe a baby would be born with sharp nails, and so gently removed a mitten to investigate further whilst Camille sat back and looked at him disbelievingly. The nails were in fact rather sharp.
"Hmm," He said, replacing the mitten. "Well I suppose you learn something new every day."
Rosie's face wrinkled up in her sleep suddenly, but then relaxed again. This caused Camille to laugh at the funny face, "Do you think she dreams?"
"Up to 80% of new born sleep is R.E.M so yes, she dreams," Richard informed her. Camille looked a little surprised by the fact.
"Well what do you think she dreams about?"
"That I don't know." However at the moment Rosie suddenly threw both arms out to the side, before drawing them back in, which did provide him with a clue about what she was dreaming about. "Or perhaps she is dreaming about falling?"
Camille had caught the actions of the baby, but Richard's conclusion rather confused her, "Falling?"
"Yes, that thing she did with her arms, it's called the Moro reflex. When a baby is startled or feels they are dropping they will throw out both arms, palms spread, and then draw them back in. It is presumed to be left over from an earlier stage of our evolution, to allow a baby to grab on to a branch or something if they fell. Here, I'll show you again." He stood and carefully shifted Rosie so she was perpendicular to his chest. He then proceed to bend over very quickly, causing her again to flail her arms out. This time she woke, giving him a look that could only be described as startled. It was quite cute actually, and Richard found himself smiling down at her.
"Richard!" Camille protested. She was trying to give him a disapproving look, and he supposed it wasn't really his place to demonstrate neonatal reflexes with his colleague's baby. He was pretty certain she was less annoyed then she was letting on though, because of the giggle she had inadvertently let out when Rosie had obliged them with a second performance of the reflex and the fact that she could barely suppress a smile now. "I wouldn't let Juliet see you doing that, she'll never let you hold Rosie again."
"I'm sure I'll cope," he told her, though actually he thought he wasn't doing too badly…
"How can you know about Moro reflexes and R.E.M in babies and not know what scratch mittens are?" Camille asked, shaking her head in disbelief.
He would have thought the answer was obvious, "The Central Nervous System is interesting, whereas babies' apparel is not." She laughed at that.
"You know, as well as interesting, it's pretty funny…" She tailed off, just looking at him, and Richard had a pretty good idea what she was after.
"You want me to get her to do it again?" Camille looked around, probably to confirm there was no sign of Fidel and Juliet, and then nodded enthusiastically.
He stood again, and the now awake (but still not crying, thankfully) baby gave him an almost suspicious look. "You ready?" He said to her, though it was more for Camille's benefit, he doubted Rosie could understand the warning. He dipped her down quickly again and achieved another perfect Moro reflex. When he stood back up though, he realised he and Camille were no longer alone.
"What are you doing?" Juliet cried, walking briskly over and firmly removing her baby from his arms.
"Um," Richard said, looking at Camille who too was busy biting her lip and looking guilty to help him out. "Just testing her reflexes?"
"I think we can leave that to the paediatricians!" Juliet cried, clearly angry with him. Richard was pretty sure that, as Camille had predicted, he had just held Rosie for the last time. Without any sort of farewell, Juliet turned and stormed from the restaurant.
Fidel hesitated though, and checking Juliet was out of ear shot said hurriedly, "Don't worry, Sir, I do that all the time when Juliet isn't looking. It is really funny." He then ran off after his wife.
Well, at least only one of Rosie's parents hated him…
"That was your fault!" He said sharply to Camille.
She gave him a sympathetic look. "I'll put in a good word with Juliet, I'm sure I can bring her round," she promised. "I bet she'll even let you babysit one day!"
Richard made a face, just because he didn't mind holding a baby for ten minutes didn't mean he wanted to look after them for a whole evening. Camille read his thoughts, "Not ready for nappy changes yet?"
"I think I'll leave that to the professionals."