"Please hold her for some minutes, I didn't have time for myself all day, so at least I want to have a quick shower now, before we go to bed!" Amy had told him, before she had disappeared in the bathroom. Now she had been in there for almost half an hour. What took her so long? Normally she had finished her cleaning routine after 10 minutes.

Why did she need so much time right now for taking a shower, when Rosalind had been crying all day and distracting him from his work? He was exhausted and he couldn't bear all of this right now. Apologetical he looked at his daughter in his lap, that he just wasn't able to soothe.

"I'm sorry, we'll have to wait for Mommy!" he said to Rosalind, shrugged his shoulders and laid his head on the backrest of the couch. How could he calm the baby when breastfeeding was the only thing that helped?

He had tried everything. He had sung to her. He had told her about his work (what Penny always found slumberous), he had walked with her back and forth in the living room, he had tried rocking her in his arms. Nothing had helped. He really was frustrated right now.

Rosalind boxed and kicked him with her furious little arms and legs. Ouch, that hurt! So, he laid her on his bent knees, as far away from his stomach as possible, rubbed her belly with one hand (maybe she was aching there?) and with the other one he tried to keep a pacifier in her mouth.

"What the hell are you doing there?" He suddenly heard his wife's voice behind him.

"Holding her and trying to soothe her, as she was crying." He explained the obvious.

"You don't hold her, you're balancing her on your knees. Oh my poor baby, come to Mommy…" With that she took Rosalind from Sheldon's knees and hold her in her arms. Immediately, the baby stopped crying.

"She must have been afraid of falling down, that's not how you're supposed to hold a baby," Amy reprimanded him. "And furthermore, I've told you a thousand times, she doesn't like pacifiers! Our baby is able to tell silicone apart from nature. You're such a clever girl, aren't you?" With that, she softly tickled her daughter's belly, and Rosy smiled at her.

"I don't think that recognizing the difference between a natural breast and silicone is that hard, so, as sad as I am to say this, this is not an evidence of her intelligence."

"You think every baby is able to tell silicone and natural breast apart?"

"Sure!"

"What about Penny?"

"What do you mean? What has she to do with pacifiers?" Sheldon was confused.

Amy sighed. "Penny told me she got a breast job when she was 18."

"A breast job? What's that? Was she working at a table dance bar?"

"No! I don't know… Maybe… That's not what I meant. I meant she got plastic surgery for her breasts!" Amy made a meaningful face.

Sheldon's jaw dropped and his eyes widened.

"It's true, her boobs are false. Those babies on the contrary" she pointed on both on her breasts and raised her eyebrows in a seductive manner "are 100% real."

"Which is a good thing for breastfeeding, I guess. Speaking of which… I don't think I will be able to look after Rosy again, as long she's so dependent on you. She was crying all the time because I clearly couldn't give her what she wanted. Milk."

"What? I think the problem is that she feels unfamiliar with you because you don't hold her as often as I do."

"Because always when I hold her she's crying."

"Then you have to take her more often so that she can get used to you!"

"So that she cries even more?"

"I don't know how to solve this, Sheldon. But I cannot raise this child alone. I need some help."

Some days later: Amy rubbed her hands in joyful anticipation. After weeks of doing nothing than household and looking for her daughter, she finally had a task that would stimulate her grey cells at least a tiny bit: paperwork for their health insurances and filling in some forms that the authorities needed because of Rosalind's birth. She had had a bitter fight with her husband about that, because originally, he had planned to do it and he had been really looking forward to it. But in the end, Sheldon had given in. He had realized that sometimes you have to give away a cherished task in order to make your loved one happy. *

Amy had just filled in the first form fields, when somebody knocked cautiously at the apartment door. Who was that? They didn't expect visitors and Penny and Leonard never knocked, they just came in. They also hadn't ordered any pizza or something…
Damn. She still was in her nightgown. Yeah, she knew you normally should have dressed yourself at eleven o'clock in the morning, but the nightgown was so practical for breastfeeding with its buttons in the front…

"One moment, please! " she shouted and speeded into the bedroom for fetching her robe. She tried to arrange her hair with her fingers at least a little bit and then went to open the door.

"Mom?! What a surprise? What are you doing here? I'm so sorry for looking like that, I didn't expect you… Come in!"

After having scrutinized her daughter's appearance critically, Mrs. Fowler went cautiously into the apartment, and stood in front of the couch.

"Please, sit down. Would you like to have a tea or a coffee? A water?"

"Nothing, thank you! I've brought my basket with me." The essential basket, of course, Amy thought. Her mother always used to carry this around, because a purse was not big enough for all the things she needed when she was not at home.

"Would you excuse me for a moment? I just want to put on something more… appropriate for your visit."

"Sure, I suppose we both would feel much more comfortable then." Mrs. Fowler sat down on the couch and looked around the apartment.

Amy had just gone to the bedroom and closed the door, when there was another knock at the front door. What the hell…?

"Mom, would you be so kind and answer the door for me?" Amy asked from inside the bedroom.

"Amy, this is your apartment, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to open your door..."

Amy rolled her eyes, opened the bedroom door, again and went straight to the apartment door. She never would have expected the guest that stood in front of it.

"MARY?!"

"Hello, my dear!" Mary didn't bother to explain why she was here, she just pulled Amy into a tight embrace for some seconds and then looked at her with an excited smile on her face.

"Wow, you look good, darling. How are you? How's Rosy? She's such a cutie, isn't she? I can't wait to cuddle her… Oh, I didn't see, you have another guest!" Mary had just noticed Mrs. Fowler who had silently sat on the couch all the time. She loosened herself from Amy and went to greet her mother, that she hadn't met before.

"Hello, I'm Mary Cooper, Sheldon's mother!"

"Patricia Fowler, Amy's mother, very pleased to meet you."

"Oh, I'm excited to meet you, too. Sheldon has told me so much about you. But he hasn't told me you would be here today." She shot a questioning look at Amy.

"He neither told me you would be here when he invited me to come." Mrs. Fowler now shot a questioning look at Amy, too.

"Wait, wait, wait, what? Sheldon invited you both to visit us?"

"Yes!" they both answered at the same time.

"He didn't tell me a word…"

"Maybe he wanted to surprise you?" Mary suggested.

"If he wanted to surprise me he could buy me flowers, or candy, or give me a massage, but inviting my Mom and my Mom in law at the same time without telling me? What's going on?" Amy stared at both of them in confusion. "I will text him! And then I will put on some clothes!"

"Don't worry, dear, it's perfectly normal to look like this with a newborn. I don't mind and I'm sure your Mom doesn't, either."

"You don't know my Mom," Amy mumbled, went into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

She looked after Rosalind, who still was sleeping peacefully in her crib, then she took her phone from her nightstand and texted a short message for Sheldon. "What is going on here? You'll come home immediately and explain to me what our mothers are doing in our apartment!"

After that, she took a shower and put on the outfit, that her mother liked most at her, including her new blue orthopedic shoes.

When she just had fixed her hairclip, Rosalind woke up and started whining. Amy took her out of the crib and soothed her by whispering: "You won't believe who's in the living room, darling. Both of your grannies. What a coincidence, isn't it?" You could never start early enough getting a child of Sheldon's used to irony, Amy thought with a grin and then went back into the living room with Rosy lying on her shoulder.

Both of her guests were sitting on the couch now, trying to bring off a conversation. When they heard Amy's footsteps, Mary turned around immediately and jumped to her feet.

"Oh my… How cute! May I hold her? Oh, come to your Granny, my little one!"

"Mary, you haven't disinfected your hands yet!" Patricia Fowler interfered with a small voice, but Mary didn't hear her. She kissed Rosalind's cheeks a dozen times, put her nose into her hair and patted her back. Then she brought her to Patricia, who still was sitting on her couch and just had put the little bottle of Purell back into her basket. "Would you like to hold her, too?" Mary asked, already taking Rosalind off her shoulder and stretching her arms in Patricia's direction.

"Oh, the head, take care of the head, it's falling back!" Amy's mother called out with a silent, but slightly frightened voice.

"Don't worry, I've raised three children, a baby is not as fragile as some may think", Mary said, while lying Rosalind into Patricia's arms, who took her cautiously and with a hint of insecurity. "It's been a while since I've held a baby", Patricia said with a shy smile, "I hope I won't do anything wrong."

"No, you won't do anything wrong, God has given us women all the maternal instincts that we need", Mary tried to calm her.

"That's true, but honestly, I'd prefer some direct instructions for raising a child written in the Bible, just like the Ten Commandments. That would give me much more confidence than those constantly changing advices in the education books..."

"Oh, the education books. I've never read them!"

"Really? Oh, I read a lot of them, back then when Amy was a little, vulnerable baby." She looked at her daughter with a sentimental smile. "But they told me a lot of things I hadn't known before. For example, that you have to weigh you child before and after breastfeeding, so that you know if it has drunken enough." **

"What? You really did this with me?" Amy was shaking her head in disbelief. "Well, I'm not an expert of the Bible, but I'm pretty sure if there were some "Ten Commandments for raising a child" that the "put-your-baby-on-a-scale-nonsense" wouldn't be part of it!"

"How can you be so sure? Don't be presumptuous, Amy, the ways of the Lord are inscrutable!"

"So very true!" Mary chimed in, nodding heavily.

"Sure, 3000 years ago in the middle East the women would have had the time for doing that. They probably didn't even know what a scale is!"

"Who doesn't know what a scale is? Show me this person and I'll tell them, I love every kind of scales!"

"Shelly!" Mary jumped from the couch and hugged her son, who just had entered the living room, tightly. "Oh, my little baby, I had never dared to hope that you would have your own little baby one day. And now it's true, it really is true. Praise the Lord!"

"Amen." A soft voice could be heard from the couch.

"Patricia, what a pleasure to meet you again!" Sheldon greeted his mother in law.

"Sheldon, it's so good to see you, I'd like to stand up, as the decency demands, but I don't know how to do this with Rosalind on my lap, I'm afraid she could fall down…"

"Don't worry, just stay where you are. You're doing a great job. Isn't that what a grandma is supposed to do, to help her daughter with the newborn baby?"

Amy got an idea what all of this was about. "Can we have a talk in the bedroom, Sheldon?"

"Sure."

Having arrived in the bedroom and closed the door, Amy couldn't control herself anymore. "What's wrong with you?"

"I don't understand…"

"You call my mother and my mother in law to help me with the baby without my consent, because "that's what a grandma is supposed to do"?"

"Yes. You said you need help. You said you cannot raise this child alone."

"I meant you, Sheldon, I need your help!"

"But Amy, I'm not good at this, I'm unexperienced and I am a man. I don't have all those maternal instincts you have. But my Mom and your mother, they are women, they have those instincts and they have experience. They can help you."

"Sheldon, I decided to get this child with you, not with your mother or my mother. And therefore, I want to raise it with your help, and not with theirs."

"But in all traditional cultures it is usual, that the mothers care for the children with the help of the elder women, no man cares for the babies…"

"Sorry, since when are we living in a traditional culture?"

"I didn't say we did, but from an evolutionary point of view…"

"Sheldon, stop this!"

"But the natural way of raising kids…"

"Is it natural for a kid to wear nappies? Is it natural to sleep in a crib with a high-tech baby monitor above? Is it natural to wear fancy little superhero t-shirts? Is it natural to be carried around in a super safe car seat or buggy?"

There was an awkward silence. Then, suddenly, they heard voices coming from the living room.

"Do you really think this plastic cup of water works properly, Mary?"

"I do. Have you put the towel under her head? We shouldn't risk to spill water on the couch."

"I have. Are you sure we're doing the right thing?"

"Absolutely!

„If you say so…

„Don't worry, It's not the first time, I'm doing this." There was a short pause. Then, Mary spoke again: "Rosalind, I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit..."

WHAT? Amy was silently forming the word with her lips.

"Oh no, I totally forgot about this." Sheldon whispered "In all Christian churches, there's the possibility of an emergency baptism, when the child is in danger. You don't need a chaplain for it, it can be done by any Christian person."

"But Rosy is not in danger."

"In my mother's opinion she is, as long as she's not baptized."

"Your mother is crazy!"

"And your mother is helping her!"

"Damn. What shall we do? We explicitly said we don't want our kids to get baptized. They shall decide this on their own, we don't want to influence them. Can we undo this somehow?"

Sheldon thought for a brief moment. "I don't think that's necessary. Our mothers have their peace of mind now, but they never will be able to tell anybody about their little secret ritual. So Rosy will never know she got this baptism, which means she still can decide it on her own later. Everyone will be happy."

Amy sighed. "I guess you're right. But I'm really angry about the way they interfere in our education and disobey our will."

"Me, too. Maybe my idea of letting them help you with the baby wasn't the best. I'm sorry!" He looked at her apologetical.

"No, it's alright. I guess in general a grandmother's advice can be very useful!"

"So we go back and pretend that nothing has happened?"

Amy smiled at him, took his hand and opened the door.

Some hours later when the grandmothers had gone, Sheldon was sitting on the couch, holding Rosalind tightly in his left arm, close to his heart, just as Patricia had shown him (after she had taken a look on an educational website, just to be sure).
When the baby started crying because of the exhausting day, he used a trick from his mother's and let her suck on his little finger, what calmed her down immediately.

"Are you alright?" Amy asked, as she sat down next to her husband and put an arm around his shoulders.

"I am. I am confident now that I can learn to be a good and helpful father."

Amy laid her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. She was sure that Sheldon could become the best father in the world.

* I'm not sure which kind of paperwork is necessary after giving birth to a child in the US, but I'm pretty sure there's some bureaucratic things you have to do.

** I don't know if that way of breastfeeding was fashionable in the US, too, but apparently, this was common in Germany in the 80's (at least my neighbor told me so).

You're maybe wondering why I let Mary and Patricia "get away" with their behavior. Well, it's my own experience with fundamental Christian people. They are genuinely worried about the soul of every person in the world and want to "save" them. Sheldon knows that for his mother it must be a real torture to have her granddaughter not baptized, because she's afraid of her soul's wellbeing. He would like to help her, because he truly loves his mother, but this is a fear he cannot take away from her without getting Rosalind baptized. But he just doesn't want Rosalind to get through the psychological problems that he suffered from as a child (religious vs. scientific view of the world), therefore he doesn't want her to get a religious education. So this is a serious dilemma for him (therefore he cried at the end of the chapter when he called his mom). This dilemma kind of gets solved with Mary's and Patricia's secret little ritual: the ritual itself is meaningless for Sheldon and Amy, for them it's important what you tell the child about the world, but for the grandmothers it's very, very important. So he decides to let them get their way, although their actions surely have crossed a border, which is not okay at all under "normal" circumstances.