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May 04, 2008
Cause and Effect
We passed a rather nice milestone a few days ago. I finally got a chance to feed the baby.
We were cautioned by doctors, midwives, and lactation consultants alike not to give a bottle to the baby too early on, lest she succumb to the dread malady of "nipple confusion." The estimates for when she would be able to keep the various nipples in her life straight varied wildly, but the most consistent time frame seemed to be four-to-six weeks. So at five weeks we decided to give it a try. Alden was not confused, I think, but perhaps overwhelmed by the bottle. There was a lot of leaking of milk all over the place. There was a lot of desperate gulping of air. There was ensuing abdominal pressure, baby angst, truly heroic belches, and, in the end, a milk-coated, ill-fed, grouchy, gassy baby.
What does one do with a baby in this state? Throw it in the tub, of course.
I took Alden into the big tub and found that she is a natural swimmer. She was able to float comfortably on her back and really seemed to like it in there. And then, all of a sudden, she started shrieking inconsolably. And family fun bath time was over.
It was nothing that the Pooh Bear jammies couldn't fix, apparently.
To make me feel better in the wake of the botched bottle feed and the sad bath, Robbi cooked up a batch of strawberry shortcake.
For those of you who don't know, the strawberry shortcake is, in the Behr home, a cross between art form and feat of endurance. The helpings are large and the ingredients are not on anyone's list of low-calorie snacks.
On a proper Behr shortcake, one gets both ice cream and whipped cream.
There's really nothing moderate about it.
Oh, and in Behr terms, the shortcake is not dessert, but the meal itself.
Though it still tastes like dessert.
Eventually we went to bed, bracing ourselves for the sleepus interruptus that had been our bittersweet plight each night for the past five weeks. Only...it didn't happen. 7:00am rolled around and we learned, to our mutual delight, that neither of us had been woken by the baby and her endless needs. We felt like celebrating. So Robbi did. The only way she knows how.
I swear I'll start writing (at least occasionally) about something other than baby antics soon. As soon as something other than baby antics happens to me.
Posted by bogenamp at May 4, 2008 11:19 PM