Diabolical Puffs

My nemesis stands 1/8th of an inch tall. It's shaped like a star. It tastes like apples and cinnamon, and doesn't have much nutritional value.

It is the puff. Or, more correctly, puffs, because there are so damn many of them.

For those of you who aren't elbow-deep in the baby world, puffs are little, fluffy cereal bites for babies. Think Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, only lighter. Annabelle loves them.

I don't.

This isn't to say there's anything wrong with puffs themselves. Gerber makes a nice product that is a great supplement to meals. They're tiny, they're delicious, and they melt in your mouth.

But I hate them. So much.

It all started a couple weeks ago when Bridget suggested we get some puffs so Annabelle could "work on her pincer grasp." (I think there was a crack of thunder when Bridget made this suggestion, but I can't be sure.) Working on her pincer grasp is a fancy way of saying working on picking up small things.

The next morning, as I was feeding Annabelle some breakfast, we tried the puffs. She was confused at first (that happens a lot with a six-month old), but figured it out quickly. She picked them up, played with them, and really enjoyed eating them. She didn't actually feed herself, but we were pleased.

The morning after that, she ate even more puffs. In fact, she preferred the puffs to her oatmeal. By a lot. And that's when things went downhill.

Puffs became an obsession. Other foods Annabelle loved, like apples, pears, and oatmeal, were cast aside like a photo of an old girlfriend. Day after day, it was puffs, puffs, puffs. Here, see for yourself:

Cute? Sure. Frustrating? Definitely. I even tried that bait-and-switch technique where I'd show the puff, get her to open her mouth, and then go in with the oatmeal. This made me feel shady and dishonest, though.

Annabelle had made up her mind. It was puffs or nothing. For days on end.

This may sound somewhat adorable, but I feed Annabelle breakfast every morning. I want her to have variety and high-caloric foods like avocados and bananas so we can make her nice and chubby. But she has other ideas and, I've quickly learned, she means "no" when she says it. I beg. I plead. I do the whole airplane loop thing. Nope. Give me 10 more puffs, Dad. And make it snappy.

So now what? What do we do with her beloved puffs? Well, they aren't welcome at breakfast (or any meal) anymore. They're buried deep in the pantry. To me, they're dead.

Sure, I feel a little bad. It's not like puffs did this on purpose. Really, it's Annabelle's fault. But, as you might guess, my daughter is perfect, so puffs get the blame and become the nemesis.

We have an extra container of puffs if anyone is interested. We won't be needing them.

Are New Parents Boring?

A few weeks ago, we hung out with some friends we hadn't seen in a while. After the obligatory hugs and handshakes, we got down to talking about what we had been doing for the past few months and what was ahead for the spring. As you might expect, this newly married couple talked about traveling, bachelorette parties, and their favorite types of beer. They talked about Vermont, New York City, and New Orleans. They talked about good food, good movies, and good fun. 

And then they asked about us.

"Well, we had a baby."

(Silence.)

(Awkward silence.)

(Where did those damn crickets come from?)

We all laughed about it, of course, because they're nice people and our sudden change in lifestyle is kind of funny. But "Well, we had a baby" is a pretty good summation of our last five months on this Earth. It'll be a pretty good summation of the next five, too. And as the conversation moved in a different direction, it struck me: Are we boring? And, on a larger scale, are all new parents boring? 

At face value, I suppose the answer is yes. I mean, we must seem very boring to newly married couples and, undoubtedly, to single people we know. Let's face it: Falling asleep before 10 PM on a Saturday night has never been "cool." "Do you mind if I don't shower today?" is not a distinctly sexy question. 

It's not like we don't do things. We go out for dinner, visit friends, take naps, and take long family walks. We have date night and we're even going to a concert next month. So, we do stuff. It's just that the stuff (save the concert and the occasional date night) usually includes our beloved Belle.

In fact, Belle was with us that day with our friends. As I answered the question about our recent activities, I immediately thought of her as a great accomplishment that made the last five socially slower months seem acceptable.

That's how people think of babies -- as accomplishments. I sat in a conference room of health care professionals last fall and listened as 29 out of 30 people talked about their kids as the most important thing in their lives. (One dude was crazy about triathlons.) But babies aren't really accomplishments. Accomplishments fade. You accomplish something -- an A on a test, a game-winning shot, a new raise -- and then eventually move on and forget about that thing. Babies, on the other hand, define your life. At all times, you're thinking about your child. Maybe not literally every second, but certainly every hour. What's she doing? Is she happy? I can't wait to see her smile again. I hope she likes me when she grows up. These thoughts constantly swirl in your head. 

And along with defining your life, babies are a convenient excuse to get out of social situations we dislike, which makes us seem more boring. I've used Belle as an excuse and I'll continue to do it in the future. The simple reality is that no reasonable person can say, "Oh, that's really lame that you want to hang out with your daughter." (I mean, you can say that, but you'd be a huge jerk.) 

This week, though, I watched a video that immediately changed my perspective on this boring question. I'd seen the video before, but this time, it really hit me. It's called "This is Water" and it's an illustration of a commencement speech by the late author David Foster Wallace. Here's the link. (If you haven't watched it, I strongly encourage you to take the nine minutes.) 

It made me realize that we're boring -- and new parents are boring -- only if we choose to be. It all comes down to altering your perception and how you feel during the everyday, grind-it-out moments of your life. To put it in specific terms, I'd rather feed Belle oatmeal than get drunk at a bar. And a trip with Belle to the Curious George store in Harvard Square brings me more joy than a round of golf. 

So it may seem, at first blush, like new parents are boring. Early bedtimes, middle-of-the-night wake-ups, and eating at restaurants at 5 PM to beat the dinner rush can certainly sound boring to newly married couples, single friends, and even retirees. But, in reality, this is, without question, the most interesting my life has ever been. 

Dad's First Feeding

Yelling. Then crying. Then really loud yelling. Then spit up. Then more crying. Then more spit up, more yelling, and lots of tears, in that order. Then more yelling.

In short, chaos. Absolute chaos.

I fed Annabelle for the first time this week. It didn't, you know, go well. In fact, some would call it a disaster, a train wreck, or, in the parlance of our times, a dumpster fire. At least at the beginning.

It all started when I received a text from Bridget around lunchtime: "Guess what? I pumped today, so you can feed her tonight!" I was thrilled. No, elated. I'd read a lot about that first "Dad to baby feeding" and, now, it was my turn. I was going to get to feed my young. But I was also really nervous. I had never fed another human before. Sure, I'd given a date a bite of chocolate cake, but I'd never fed another person an entire meal.

I immediately turned to the most logical place to refresh my knowledge: Google. After getting sidetracked on a video about how to bathe a newborn (Belle hates baths, which is a story for another time), I finally found a decent site that talked about 45-degree angles and "not forcing it." Content with my superficial research (especially the angle thing, which seemed pretty scientific and impressive), I enjoyed the rest of my day at work and some early evening tennis. As I walked home in front of a setting sun at 6:30, I realized I was muttering to myself: You can do this, Mike. You can do this. 

I walked in, grabbed Belle, grabbed the bottle, took off my shirt in preparation for copious amounts of spit and vomit, and put on my game face. You can do this, Mike. I took a comfortable seat on my couch and held Belle at precisely 45.0 degrees. Here's the play-by-play:

Attempt 1: Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! (Baby translation: "Absolutely not. What the hell is this? There is no way I'm feeding this way.")

Okay, okay. She just needs to get adjusted to this, I think to myself. Compose yourself, Mike. You can do this.

Attempt 2: Waaaaaah. Bottle goes in for a second. Waaaaaaaaah! (Baby translation: "Did you not hear me 10 seconds ago? I said no!")

Attempt 3: Waaaaah. Waaaaah. Bottle goes in for a few seconds. Milk comes out! Hooray!  Waaaaaaaah! (Baby translation: "Look, man. You are not my Mom. You'll never be my Mom. Go write a blog post or something.")

"Honey," I say to Bridget. "I don't think this is going very well."

Attempts 4 - 8: A little milk goes in. Waaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah! (Baby translation: "No! Give me the real thing!")

I decide to walk around and bounce Belle for a while because that always seems to help her relax. She calms down a bit. Bridget leaves the room because she'd read a baby won't feed when she can smell/sense that her mother is around. It doesn't make a difference. She can easily hear Attempt 9 from the other room.

Attempt 9: Waaaaaah! Waaaaah! Deep breath. WAAAAAAH!

I remove the bottle and look at it -- .25 ounces (maybe) of the 3 ounces are gone. Thirty minutes have gone by. Crap.

Attempt 10: Bridget holds the bottle while I bounce Belle. And ... success! She's sucking and gulping. "Honey," I yell. "You've got it. You're doing ..." Waaaah! Waaaah! Waaaah!

At this point, 40 minutes into the feeding, I'm close to calling it a failure. I'm ready for Bridget to come in with the big guns. (Pun intended. Whatever. I'm tired, so I'll use puns when I want.) And then, suddenly on attempt 11, something clicks. Her eyes soften, her breathing slows, and her lips curl. It's like the moment when a kid understands long division for the first time or a minor leaguer learns how to take an outside curve ball to right field. Success! Just like that, quietly, calmly, Belle grabs hold of my pinkie and guzzles 2.75 ounces of milk in about two minutes.

Bridget snaps the photo above and, out of nowhere, I have one my proudest (and most gratifying) moments thus far as a Dad. (Isn't she adorable?)

Then I realize it's almost time for Belle's weekly bath. Sigh. I think I need a nap ...