THE BABES IN THIS CASE do not refer to the buff bodies in the Mather House dining hall but to the dozen or so babies who have recently appeared during meals. This year, due to an overwhelming number of house tutors with young children, Matherites have been growing increasingly accustomed to the pitter-patter of little feet. Three-month-olds are bottle-fed in the dining halls; preschoolers solemnly peruse Mother Goose in Mather's cozy concrete library. It is even said (albeit by shaky sources) that they can be found in the weight room. Is this explosion of fecundity a mere coincidence, or is there an explanation for the disproportionate number of kids who have suddenly appeared in the house? In the interest of pulp journalism and succumbing to a yearning to regress to the Core-free, tricycle-filled years of childhood, Fifteen Minutes gathered ruminations on the Mather House baby boom.

Francisco de la Fuente '97 offered a simple explanation, "Mather is a pretty relaxed house. The tutors here are younger, and definitely less highstrung than the single tutors in other houses who have been at Harvard for, like, thirty years." He even went so far as to suggest that the tutors at Mather might actually "just have sex." Cathy, the I.D. card-checker at the dining hall, considered the question for a while. Bursting into laughter, she surmised, "Must've been a COLD winter!" When asked if she thought the food might have contained fertility-enhancing additives, Cathy quickly supressed her giggles and solemnly and flatly denied any chance of food contamination.

Mather House residents do seem to enjoy having the kids around. "I adore playing with the little rugrats," explained a senior concentrating in French, and Russian Literature Students especially relish the light-hearted diversion the children create. "It's so nice to see kids playing when you're all stressed over a paper or midterm," said a student attempting to disengage a toddler from his calf. "Playing with them definitely brings back your sense of perspective." And for those feeling a bit lonely, the children lend Mather a sort of family-type atmosphere. The kids are almost ridiculously well-behaved, making Mather's sophisticated riot-proof mechanisms unnecessary.

As for the kids, they seem to adjust to life at Harvard better than some first-years. "I like it," states an unequivocal Basia, age ten. She is particularly happy about having close friends, like Zachary, an eighteen month-old mini-Matherite. Christina Gomez, house tutor and mother of eight-month-old Sofia, claims her daughter "loves having 400 of her closest friends with her constantly. She has these big cute cheeks that always get pinched ." Sofia can often be found having picnics on the floor of the dining hall with her colleague Avery, the eight-month-old son of Dr. Vincent Cryns and Julia De Maria.

Still, it is rather unusual to have ten children appear in the space of a semester in a House, and conspiracy theorists are not tempered by Irv Devore's Science B-29 explanations. "Definitely something in Mather is making all the tutors have babies," explained Gomez. "We think it's something in the water." Another good reason to invest in that Britta purifier. Barring that, a Mather House Nursery.