First Runner-Up
I do not have breasts.
Well, let me clarify. I don’t have working breasts. And, for the most part, I’ve been happy with that. Through my life, I’ve had enough points of ridicule hurled against me (my glasses, my lack of any athletic ability, my propensity to bring up Green Lantern in any conversation), and adding one more (namely a boy with boobs) would likely have been the kiss death. So I’m okay with that.
Or at least until we had a child.
You see, Henry wants only 3 things out of life: a nice place to sleep, a regularly change diaper, and food. I’m extremely comfortable at getting him to sleep: I can rock and sway and sing with the best of him. I’m also pretty good at changing his diapers (with the only hiccup being if he’s wearing footie pajamas, which only slightly affects my efficiency). And I’ve gotten very comfortable feeding him.
For the most part, he’ll feed from a bottle with little complaint. He’ll happily chow down, sometimes even grasping at the bottle and now, more frequently, staring at me while he eats. Other times, however, especially when he’s really hungry or really crabby or just generally unhappy with the world’s financial situation, he will fight the bottle. He’ll gulp too much air (necessitating a lot of burping) or he’ll spit out the nipple as soon as it touches his lips. Even worse, he’ll flash the curled lower lip, the ultimate sign of displeasure.
Even when unhappy, though, he’ll eventually come around and start eating. He’s quickly realized that if mommy’s not coming around with her supply of food, the only thing he’s going to get is mine, with its inferior soft plastic.
Here’s where the real problem can happen.
Like most people who enjoy fine dining, Henry often partakes in an after-meal palate cleansing. While Kristen enjoys a small dish of sherbet and I like a refreshing mint, Henry prefers Mommy. That’s right, he could drink 3 ounces out of my bottle, surely enough to sate any 5-week-old baby, but he’ll still be crabby, still be miserable, and still start screaming if Mommy doesn’t come over and (I apologize for the phrase) “top him off”.
A few times I’ve thought we were in the clear, that he had had enough to eat and I was preparing him for a nap, when out of nowhere come the screams and the wails. Nothing I could do could calm him down. Not bouncing. Not singing. Not offering him large sums of money.
So like a defeated man, I had to bring him to Kristen and she was quickly able to make things good again.
He’s gotten much better, though. He’s only done this once the past week, which makes everyone involved (Kristen, Henry, and me) much happier, and hopefully he’ll eventually stop altogether.
It’s okay, though, that he’ll always prefer Kristen to me in this situation. One is natural; while the other is very unnatural.
And pretty soon he’ll prefer me in the always important areas of comic book collecting and ball throwing, so I think we’re all squared up.
