Feeding time

Lucy, seldom am I more jealous of your mom's skills as a parent as when it comes to feeding. When your mom feeds you, you are instantly at attention and eat quite well. So well, in fact, that you were at the 97th percentile in weight when you had your two-month check-up. Well, on our Wednesdays together, you aren't so cooperative with a bottle as you are with breastfeeding. Unless the conditions are EXACTLY right, you seem to prefer starving. And through trial and error, I've discovered the optimum, or more correctly, MANDATORY conditions are thus: the milk must be 98.6º±0.5º, delivered in a ridiculously expensive bottle that mimics a human breast, be bounced on an exercise ball at the rate of 106 beats per minute, with the bottle being squeezed at 689.47 pascals at a rate of every other bounce, and the light in your room has to be on, to give you something to look at. And even then, unless you are REALLY hungry, you still won't eat. Hopefully this is a phase, as I doubt we'll get any babysitter to follow all these steps. The temperature, bouncy ball, and light are one thing, but getting the pressure that exact takes a practiced hand. And if you're this picky with being fed milk, I'm not looking forward to introducing you to duck confit!

But when I get the conditions exactly right and you will eat, it just melts me to see you look right at me while you're eating and give me that, "Thanks for going through all this trouble, dad." And I think back, "Bumblebee, you're worth all the extra effort."