By Joel Magalnick, JTNews Correspondent
Maybe it was the Thai food, or perhaps the baby knew what was at stake. Either way, Ezra Asher Leyton Mason wins the prize for the very first baby of the New Year. Little Ezra, at just a week old, has already won the hearts of his parents, Kim Leyton and David Mason of Sammamish, not to mention his two sisters, Sophie, 3, and Zelda, 9, and brother McCoy, 11.
Ezra’s official birth date and time are 1:19 p.m. on Thurs., Jan. 1, 2004. He weighed in at 7.5 pounds and was 19 inches long.
So far, everyone’s having a nice time with Ezra. Still, things have gotten a bit overwhelming.
“We have a sick toddler in the house, so it’s been kind of hectic,” says new mom Kim about Sophie, but “she’s pretty excited so far.”
Both parents were aware of the meaning of being the first baby of the New Year. They also knew it took months of preparation, getting ready for the possibility of disappointment in case someone else took the prize, and getting the timing just right. In their case, they didn’t have a problem. Everything worked like clockwork, and now here they are.
Kim says being the first Jewish baby of the year was something they had thought about months in advance. “It’s funny,” she says, “because we joked about it when we found out the due date, but didn’t really think it would happen.”
She even contacted the Transcript in December to keep us updated on what was happening. Regardless, Ezra’s position as first baby was precarious from the start. His original due date, Jan. 5, meant any number of Jewish babies could have slipped in right before him, but he was having none of that.
At 2 a.m. on the first, after Mom had brought in 2004 with a few sips of champagne, she says she woke up and knew it was the real thing.
“Luckily we were sleeping at my parents’ house, which is five minutes away from [Overlake] hospital,” Kim says.
Presumably because they had the other youngsters and a baby on the way in what they thought was a couple days, they had decided to have a quiet New Year’s Eve. For the most part, the evening was uneventful.
“I started to have a couple contractions on New Year’s Eve, but I didn’t really think anything of it,” Kim says, adding it didn’t keep the family from celebrating. “I had a couple sips of champagne.”
This is where the plot thickens, however. Though she might be loathe to admit it, she appears to have had a plan — however sketchy — to get that baby to the finish line before anyone else.
“I ate some spicy Thai food,” she says. “Maybe that’s what did it.”
It seems some mothers will do anything for their children.
Though the world now knows about his first place entry, his family is also celebrating Ezra as a victory of sorts. “He took a while to conceive, so he was a special baby,” Kim says.
Now that he’s been introduced to his brother and sisters, Ezra has become star of the household. Kim says all of the kids are having a good time.
“They’re good, they’re having fun, they’re excited about it,” she says. She does note one challenge, however: “Trying to keep everyone’s hands washed.”
From everyone here at the Transcript, we wish the Leyton-Mason family a hearty mazel tov and many exciting memories with Ezra and his prize of first Jewish baby of 2004.