As the day wore on, Jim tried to think of a way to make Michael and Dwight both vying for the role of Godfather a little more tolerable. He lunch time he thought he'd finally found a way to make it not only tolerable, but highly entertaining...

PHalpert: Do you think he'll want to?

JHalpert: I don't know...maybe. HeTTTT needs something, right?

PHalpert: HeTTT needs something? What does that mean? Who's HeTTT?

JHalpert: Jill is learning to type.

PHalpert: Oh. Jim do you really think it's wise that you be the one to teach her that? I mean...you're kinda slow.

JHalpert: Wow.

PHalpert: J You're right though. Toby totally needs something new in his life... And I think Sasha would love having a baby to play with.

JHalpert: Yeah...maybe I'll ask him about it.

PHalpert: But what about Michael and Dwight?

JHalpert: What about theWOAURm?

PHalpert: You're gonna have to put her down if you want to get any work done.

JHalpert: No, I'm not putting her down. Everybody here wants to snatch her...I'd feel safer letting her wander around the mall by herself.

PHalpert: Ok, so what about Michael and Dwight though?

JHalpert: What about them? Pam...the idea of either one of them being her godfather is completelyAORUY ludicrous. Yesterday we weren't even thinking about this...and now it's like a topic of conversation. LLLLU

PHalpert: Well...I mean...just for them - we could.

JHalpert: Pam, do you realize what you're suggesting? You're suggesting that Michael or Dwight be in Jill's life - in our lives...forever...and...ever.

PHalpert: You're totally right. Forget it. Just talk to Toby.

JHalpert: Thank you for seeing WAJO reason.

PHalpert: Don't gloat or I'll ask Stanley.

JHalpert: I do not think THAT is funny.

Jim stood up and turned towards Pam's desk. "Tag in," he said passing Jill back to her.

Pam smiled smugly as he walked back towards Toby's cubical completely Jill-less. He stopped behind the divider when he heard Michael's voice.

"And you know what Toby...I don't even think you like Jill....so just do us all a favor and bow out of the race."

"I like Jill just fine," Toby retorted quietly.

"Oh really? Well, you sure don't act like it...where were you when she was born?"

"I thought Jim and Pam might have wanted privacy...my wife and I wanted it that way..."

"And where were you," Michael said steamrolling right over Toby's response. "When Jill came in here today!...You didn't even come to see her!"

"I was...working...we had a new applicant..."

"Oh really? Working?...Uhuh....When it comes to Jill, I would never be working..."

"That's because you never work," Toby muttered under his breath.

"What..."

"Oh hey guys," Jim said making his presence known before a fight broke out. "Um, can I talk to Toby for a minute Michael?"

Michael pursed his lips. "Sure...yeah...not sure why you'd want to talk to someone who doesn't even care about kids...but...sure...I'll just be going to update my online dating profile...Littlekidlover," Michael said emphasizing the words for Jim's sake.

Jim's eyes went wide before the camera as Michael walked away.

"Hey Jim..."

"Hey Toby....Well um...Pam and I kind of wanted to ask you ourselves...but I guess the cat's out of the bag..." Jim gestured towards where Michael had been standing.

"Yeah," Toby said smiling. "I...I'm a little surprised, but yeah."

"Really?...Come on man, we think you'd be great."

"Thanks...I just," Toby shook his head bashfully.... "I mean I'm honored...I just...I don't know...I thought it might be weird for Pam...or something," he said grinning a little and looking down.

It was more smiling then Jim could remember having seen him do in quite some time. "Uh, why...would it be weird for Pam?"

Toby stared at him for a moment, as if he expected him to know something.

Jim repeated with a crooked smile, "Why would it be weird for her?"

"Oh...nothing...she doesn't..." Toby glanced at the camera, his smile dissipated. "No reason," he said as his voice cracked.

Jim licked his lips and scratched the back of his head. "Well...alright then, expect an application on your desk tomorrow....but you know," he said shrugging. "It's pretty much just a formality. You've got the job locked if you want it....Oh, and try and get some letters of rec...make it look official."

Toby smiled. "Ok."

~~~~~~~

"I'm waiting for a letter of recommendation from Ira...but this should do for now," Dwight said placing his resume on Pam's desk. "This is the most updated version...it includes the time I searched the perimeter of your apartment and the time I installed child safety precautions because Jill's parents were too inept to install them."

Pam looked up at him in disbelief. "Dwight...Jim and I are the interviewers."

"I know that...and...thank you for the opportunity."

Dwight looked down at Jill who was asleep in Pam's arms. "She's cute like that...I wasn't a very good sleeper when I was her age. My mother had to put a shot of whiskey in my baba every day for years in order for me to fall asleep."

Pam nodded. "That's...I'll remember that tip."

"Oh there's more where that came from," Dwight said leaning forward. "Does she cry when she's getting a new tooth?"

"She can be a little fussy...yeah," Pam lied. Fussy was an understatement.

"A warm blanket fresh from the dryer....works like a charm."

"Really?"

"Yeah...try it...My grandmother's home remedy."

Pam smiled. "Ok...I will."

"Yeah, let me know how it goes," Dwight said before turning to head back to his seat. He stopped once more, "Oh, by the way...if I'm chosen, please don't assume that her Laser Tag lessons will be free, alright? Family or no family, I'm a trained professional Pam...and I expect to be compensated as such."

Pam nodded solemnly. "Ok."

~~~~~~~

Pam yawned against Jim's shoulder in bed. It felt like she'd been up forever. A day that had started with her mother getting sick, had ended with a ridiculously boring lecture from a guest professor.

"No. Pam...come on...don't fall asleep. You have to stay sitting up long enough to finish reading these with me...they are literally the best things ever...Michael didn't even bother to update his resume," Jim said barely able to speak, he was laughing so hard.

"Just...read them to me..." Pam said settling down against her pillow, a soft smile on her lips. Her eyes felt so incredibly heavy...

"Jeez Beesly..." Jim muttered, sliding down as well, but keeping the light on. He wrapped one arm around Pam, and lifted Michael's resume above their heads. "My God, he's got everything in here...lemonade stand, selling rocks...oh...oh Pam...He's got fourth grade lunch room monitor on here!"

Pam snuggled in against him, her eyes closed. "Halpert...I'm just getting really sleepy...can we do this tomorrow?"

"Pam there won't be any time tomorrow...We haven't even come up with the application questions yet," Jim said imploring her. Their faces were so close he could smell the soft whiff of Colgate. "Stay. Up. For. Just. 15. More. Minutes," he said punctuating each word with a quick kiss to different areas of her face. "Please."

She nodded silently, but nestled in under his chin. That wasn't a good sign. Whenever she burrowed it basically meant she was 2 seconds away from hibernation.

Jim cleared his throat, which roused her a little. "Ok....just...First question. I think it should be something that -

The sound of Jill's piercing cry was enough to shake them both out of the dimly lit quiet of their bedroom. Pam slowly shifted to get up, but Jim pulled her back.

"I got it...she's been like this on and off all night...I think she's getting another tooth," he said pushing out of bed. "Don't fall asleep though," he said jogging out of their room and down to Jill's.

Pam nodded and blinked a few times to clear the haze. Something about ‘the dryer' was trying to make its way to the surface of consciousness.

Just down the hall, Jim was entering Jill's room. She was trying to pull herself up to a standing position, but having trouble. Her face as red as a tomato, she was way too upset to concentrate on the mechanics of standing up.

"Ssh-ssh-ssh...what's the problem, huh?" Jim said, lifting her up under the arms. He put his lips to her forehead. "I hope it's just teeth...hope you didn't catch anything from G-Ma B......Uh, you feel warm...Don't be sick ok...you are so not fun when you're sick...Sssh-sssh...I didn't mean that in a bad way..."

Jim turned to find Pam standing at the nursery door. "Bees you coulda stayed in bed..."

"...Dwight said to try like a towel or blanket out of the dryer," Pam said putting her hand against Jill's jaw, as the baby continued to cry.

"What?" Jim asked, frowning. "I know...sssh," he said kissing Jill again. "You're thinking we should take parenting advice from Dwight?"

"Well...Dwight has bottle fed a baby goat."

"Well then..."

Jim passed Jill to Pam, and grabbed Jill's blankie from her crib. Quickly moving down the hall to the kitchen where they had a small stackable washer and dryer unit. He dropped it inside.

Pam slumped against the door jam and yawned with Jill still in her arms. "So this should be one of the questions...I guess...what to do when you're babysitting your God daughter and she starts doing her impression of a police siren."

Jim smiled and suddenly felt more than a little tired him self, watching Pam try and comfort Jill.

"Sssh...I know...I know...pesky teeth...you'll appreciate them so much one day I promise...in a couple of weeks you'll be having birthday cake - won't that be -....Oh crap!"

"What?" Jim said, walking towards them.

"Mamamamama..." It was less of a word, more a repetitious imploring from Jill. Imploring someone to do something about the horrible, wretched teeth.

"I know..." Pam said again, shaking her head, rubbing Jill's back... "Bad, BAD, teeth....Damn it, I forgot the invitations. I was supposed to address her invitations today."

"Pam...come on."

Jill was wailing away. It was interesting how once upon a time that would have stopped them both completely in their tracks. These days, having a conversation over the sounds of a crying or babbling baby was a completely normal occurrence.

"No, I mean nobody's going to come if they don't have enough notice. Two weeks is like barely enough notice to give. I'm already behind...I just didn't remember..." Pam said shaking her head again.

Jim licked his lips and closed the distance between them, taking Jill from her and positioning her high on his chest. Jill laid her head on his shoulder, but continued to cry.

"Let's just send an evite tomorrow..."

Pam made a face. "We can't send an Evite ...Jim it's a party for a 1 year old."

"Right...so I'm pretty sure a computer screen isn't going to be any harder for her to read than something printed on rosewood cardstock."

Pam paused against the door jam. "Nice...Well I guess I was just thinking I wanted our daughter's first birthday to be....I don't know - special? But you know...maybe that's a dumb idea."

"Never said it was a dumb idea," Jim said sighing as he paced with Jill. "Come on," he said to Jill then, his patience slipping a bit. "Jill...just stop."

He'd been dealing with this all night long on his own and all he'd been looking forward to was Pam coming home and them getting to work on the freaking godfather applications together.

She was tired...he knew that...he got that...

"I just wanted it to be something nice...not some evite..."

"Did I...oh yeah I think I proposed to you via evite," Jim said chuckling a little under his breath...didn't know it was so stupid."

Jill screamed.

"That's not -

"Pam!" Jim said losing it a little. "I'm just saying you've got enough on your plate...we've both got enough going on...send an evite and be done with it...it's a silly thing to worry about...it's not a priority."

Pam shook her head. "Wow...and coming up with godfather applications is so much higher on the list....silly me..."

The dryer Jim had set for only 5 minutes, buzzed loudly through their small apartment.

Jim mumbled something she couldn't hear under his breath and moved towards the kitchen, yanking the blankie out of the dryer...it was just warm enough...

"Ok.......sssh," he said sitting down on the couch with his little one. "Let's just try it...."

He heard the bedroom door click shut behind him. Well...that was just...great.

The door hadn't slammed...no he'd heard a very deliberate ‘click'. The deliberateness of it was the Beesly symbol for ‘fuck off'. Even her rudeness was astonishingly polite.

It was a freaking silly thing to be fighting about! Seriously?!

He placed the blankie between his chest and Jill's cheek. She snuggled in tight against him.

"That feel good?"

Whether she'd tired herself out from all the crying, or it was the magic of Dwight's warm blanket he couldn't be sure....but Jill stopped crying and was out like a light in minutes.

~~~~~~~

When the phone rang at 5 a.m., Jim thought he was dreaming. But Pam sprang to a sitting position, so he figured he wasn't. He felt around with his eyes still half shut. A barely there sliver of light filtered through their blinds.

The phone had to be somewhere....it was on his side...the nightstand...He knocked over a glass of water...opening his eyes in time to see it darken the carpet.

"What...what," he spat. "Yeah...hello?"

"Jimbo! How's it hangin'....that's what she said."

"What the hell...Michael?"

"No, I know...I know, you're wondering what I'm doing up so early, right?...I know....but I know that people with kids do not sleep and are up way earlier than swingin' singles like myself...so in an effort to show you and Pam how serious I am about all of this Godfather business, I have decided to get up every morning earlier than I normally would...in a show of sodi...solitary...solitarity."

Jim pressed the phone into the pillow for a moment so that he could mutter a few expletives.

"Jim, who is it?" Pam mumbled. "Is my mom ok?"

"No...it's Michael...He's..." He pulled the phone back to his ear. "Michael, I can't talk right now...Pam and I are -

"Oh-ho!....Wow, I am impressed....a newborn and you two are still doin' it regular?....Watch out there Wilt Chamberlain...Pam doesn't have any more maternity time to be taking off if you know what I mean."

"Yeah - pretty sure I know exactly what you mean. You were very, very clear Michael."

"Anyway," Michael said finally. "I'm just finishing up my bacon...wondering if there's anything I can do for you guys since I'm up? Need me to pick Jill up? Take her to school?"

"Michael, Jill doesn't go to school. She's not even a year old yet."

Just the words brought last night crashing back in on Jim....not a year old yet...birthday soon...invitations...evites...

He glanced at Pam, and felt his throat close up a little bit. Her eyes were a little puffy this morning, but she was still the most beautiful first thing in the morning sight he'd ever seen. Her hair a mass of curls against the pillow...her hands tucked beneath her head.

Jim covered the mouthpiece of the phone and whispered, "Michael is offering to pick Jill up and take her to my mom's today...I'm pretty sure we should let him," Jim said smiling softly at her.

Pam frowned. "Why exactly?"

"As part of his application process...and it'll give us some more time this morning to get those invitations done...and then I can mail them at lunch."

Pam smiled softly and leaned in close, kissing him gently...lingering for a long moment.

"I love you," Jim said, mouthing the words against her lips.

Michael's voice cut them off. "That's...Jimbo, that's so nice....I love you too.....D - do you still want me to come get Jill?"