Mom is free!

Well, it happened. Maia has now had her first successful bottle from moi, meaning that once again I have demonstrated my superior ability to love and care for a child and thus assuring me at least a silver in the 2008 Daddylympics. I think my form and hold were really spot on though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for gold. It was kind of funny-- she's totally different than Aidan was because he just sort of calmly accepted the whole process. "What's this? Fake nipple? But there's milk, right? Cool, no worries. I'ma go back to watchin' that blob over there that I haven't figured out a name for yet." Maia, on the other hand, looked at the bottle, looked right at me, and raised her eyebrows. Like "Seriously, Father, I know you aren't Mumsy, so knock it off and get her over here." But I assured her it was ok, and dripped some milk on her lips. Then....WHAM-O, off to the races. That kid is a friggin' milk wolverine....you can seriously hear her slurping and gulping across the room, stopping occasionally to belch or grunt, catch her breath, and resume chowing down. I feel REALLY bad for the wife when she gets teeth....does anyone make Kevlar nipple-shields? Maybe I should look into that.

Random observation: I forgot how weird it is to see someone open their mouths and have just gums there...but not like old person gums, because they're all dimply from where the teeth used to be. Baby gums are all primed for eruption, and you can tell there will definitely be teeth there at some point. I dunno, it's early, I'm tired, and it amuses me. And this is my blog, dammit, so deal.

Back to our story-- so Maia is feeding well, which means Mom is free to go back out into the world for more than an hour at a time! Sunday (Sunday? Maybe it was Saturday...I have no idea) she took Aidan out for a McDonald's lunch (where apparently he burst into a rousing round "Ol' MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I...E-I-O." I'm saving you all the extra E-I-E-Is he invariably adds.) Then they went shopping together, and got some good Mommy-son quality time. Which, to be honest, was awesome for me, because as much as I love my son, chasing a two year old all the time is EXHAUSTING. Especially when he's displaying an increasing desire to be pantsless, if not diaperless, as much as possible. But I digress.... anyway, Maia and I chilled at home, and I puttered about while she slept. Eventually, I decided to play her some classical guitar music; apparently, I suck, because it woke her up and we went for round 2 of the bottle. Either that or she just despises the Baroque period in musical history. Once she had her bottle, she fell asleep on my chest and stayed that way until Mom got home. It was a pretty cool day, and I'm really looking forward to taking care of her alone for a few weeks when my wife goes back to work. As long as she doesn't do the 4-hour screaming/crying thing Aidan did, that is.

One last thing-- an update on our budding Pavaratti's musical repertoire. He now knows the classic "Little Bunny Foo-Foo", and sings it with great vigor. This is kinda weird to me, because my best friend Tom and I used to sing that every single day in first grade, much to the chagrin of our poor teacher.... everyday she'd ask what the class wanted to sing, and everyday we'd yell "FOO FOOOOOOOOO" louder and longer than the other kids, and that would in turn make them scream "FOO FOOOOOOO" until the whole class was chanting like a bloodthirsty mob outside the mad schientist's castle. It's just a little surreal that my son loves this song as much as I did...like watching myself back in the day. For whatever reason, he seems to use his dinosaur voice when he sings it, and he stomps around as though he's crushing small woodland creatures with each step. Maybe he's going to be a metal god when he grows up-- I'd kinda like to hear dueling guitars shredding along to a growled version of "Little Bunny Foo-Foo."

I'm sure he'll be huge in Japan.