W. BRUCE CAMERON - Wake up, It’s a New Baby

I don’t have a newborn baby in my house — if I did, I think I’d know. But my friend Tom is expecting a baby — or rather, he’s expecting his wife to give him a baby.

“What’s it like?” Tom asked. “Having a new baby.”

I think back to the sleeplessness surrounding the initial few weeks in the life of my first child. (I’ve always said that having a baby presents a great chance to catch up on your awake.) “Picture enemy artillery,” I advise.

My basic position on newborns is that they are like car alarms going off in the middle of the night, and only the mother knows the code to reset them. Look, I’v...