Christmas present turns out to be New Year's blessing

Due Dec. 25, little Cassius Mars was expected to be a Christmas present.

But he ended up being a New Year's blessing for his parents, Chelsey Bosse and Greg Mars. Cassius, who was born at 12:14 a.m. Jan. 1 at Health Sciences North, is Greater Sudbury's 2014 New Year's baby.

The baby, who weighed eight pounds, 13 inches at birth, took his time to enter the world. Bosse was induced at around 8 a.m. Dec. 31, but when she hadn't given birth by late that evening, her doctors decided to do a C-section.

Mars said he and Bosse knew it was a possibility their son might be the New Year's baby.

“We were hoping at that point,” he said. “We kept on joking 'Eight more hours to go.' There was some other girl who was in labour at around the same time, but theirs was born at 11:20 p.m., so we got the New Year's baby.”

The young, first-time parents — Bosse is 21 and Mars is 25 — said they found the name Cassius in a book, and liked how it sounded. Famed boxer Mohammed Ali's real name was also Cassius Clay, Mars said.

The baby doesn't, as of yet, have a middle name, although Mars jokes he's partial to the name “Zebulon.”

The attention that's come with having the New Year's baby has been pretty exciting for the parents.

Mars' parents are from Barrie, and although they haven't been able to see their new grandson in person yet, they got to see him on the television news.

While Cassius was fussing a bit during Northern Life's visit, Mars said in general, he's a pretty quiet and relaxed baby.

“He's awesome for sure,” he said.