LAWRENCE — Jaytom Xavier Paris is sitting in his mother's lap, offering up a loving smile that shows off his new teeth.
The baby turned 6 months old yesterday. That means in a span of three days Yaina Paris, and her husband, Tomas, will mark two milestones.
The first is the joyous celebration of their healthy boy's half-year birthday. The second is the six-month anniversary of a darker day, Jan. 21, when they lost their home and all of their possessions in the blaze that ravaged a full city block in Lawrence.
"It was a dream because I had a baby," Yaina said in their tidy new apartment on Prospect Hill. "And a nightmare because I had no home."
The house that the couple lived in at 10 Springfield St. still is standing, albeit heavily damaged by water and smoke, and boarded up. They never moved back, and thankfully, she says, weren't there when the fire broke out.
Jaytom was born just two days earlier, on the 19th, and they were at the hospital.
"He saved us," she says, holding tightly to the boy who was born a month early at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Boston, weighing just 4 pounds.
He's a pudgy 16 pounds today.
The new place is sunny, and it's clear that Yaina, 21, who teaches drug and alcohol awareness to middle school students in Lawrence and Lowell, and Tomas, 25, a customer service representative at TD BankNorth in Lawrence, are getting their lives back.
"I still miss (the old apartment) because it was our first place, where I spent most of my pregnancy," she said. "And I got emotionally attached to it."
Before the baby gained enough weight to go home, he and his mother were transferred to Caritas Holy Family Hospital in Methuen. After that, the family spent more than a week in a Haverhill hotel while trying to find a place to live.
They found the apartment on Prospect Hill soon after. When they moved in, they had little more than a crib for the baby and a mattress for the floor.
Gradually, nurses and fellow patients from the hospital, charitable organizations, friends, family, their church and even strangers donated money, furniture, pots, pans, dishes, baby clothes and enough diapers to last six months.
"There are no words to describe how I felt thanks to people's generosity," she said. "I was so moved. I didn't cry because I had cried so much already, but I had tears of happiness inside."
For a while after moving, Yaina would accidentally write Springfield Street as her address and find herself on her way to her old South Lawrence neighborhood when coming home from work.
Not long after the fire, Yaina and Tomas drove by the scene, but it was too painful to stop. Months later, they were able to return to their apartment for a short while to retrieve whatever they could.
"When I walked through the back door I had a creepy feeling because all the buildings I used to see were not there. Everything was empty and a chill came over me," she says.
Their Christmas tree still was up, as were pictures taken on New Year's Eve and at events with the youth group they lead at Christian Center Walk of Salvation Church on Essex Street.
Yaina was elated when she found her wedding band and a gold necklace Tomas gave her for Christmas. She had accidentally left the necklace home when she rushed to the hospital. She'd thought it was gone forever.
"I was so happy because it was my husband's proof of his love. It felt like a piece of me missing," she says.
She also retrieved her Lawrence High School diploma off the wall.
"Those are memories you can't forget," she says.
On Prospect Hill, she has decorated Jaytom's room with stars, which she learned to appreciate as a child when her grandfather would take her out at night to view them.
This and other touches are helping the couple get acclimated to their new surroundings.
It's a process, though.
"I feel I'm not home yet," Yaina said. "I want to go back because I haven't properly said goodbye, so I can close the door for the last time."
