Rambling Rhodes

Milking It For All It's Worth

My infant daughter has discovered a "skill" that's so obscure, no one could have ever considered it even remotely possible, particularly not the manufacturers of baby bottles.

Basically, my daughter has figured out how to poke baby bottle nipples down into the bottle, and then douse herself in baby formula like she's auditioning for an infant remake of the movie "Flashdance."

My daughter's ridiculously early foray into wet tee-shirt contest practice would be distressing enough by itself, but that concern is overshadowed by the fact we are CONSTANTLY changing her out of formula-soaked outfits. NOTE: I should clarify that ANY foray into wet tee-shirt contest practice is distressing, whether ridiculously early or not.

I wouldn't be so exasperated by my daughter's actions if I didn't know she knows perfectly well she's doing something entirely annoying. She ENJOYS it. She likes the annoyed attention that's directed at her when I'm carrying her to the changing station for the 50th time each day.

She KNOWS we have no choice but to change her right away, because the time it takes for baby formula to go from mildly sour smelling to "a-zombie-belch-in-the-face-after-the-zombie-ate-a-skunk-dipped-in-pig-manure" is roughly 10 minutes. Honestly, I don't know what the decay-inducing ingredient is in baby formula, but the half-life of that stuff is more rapid than any known radioactive material.

Believe it or not, actually dealing with the aftermath of one of my daughter's impromptu milk baths isn't the worst part, although that is, as stated, monumentally annoying. No, the worst part is witnessing, in real time, a milk bath in progress and not being able to do anything about it. Walking into a room and seeing my daughter holding a full bottle of milk--with the nipple having been freshly poked down into the bottle--makes my heart rate spike like I just witnessed a Viet Cong pull the pin on a grenade and start running at me.

The moment I see my daughter wielding a bottle of milk, sans nipple, time basically slows down as I try to traverse the distance between myself and my daughter. After several slow motion spins and dodges around pieces of furniture, my hand will be about six inches away from grabbing the bottle from my daughter's grip, at which point she'll give me this slightly amused look, right before pours the entirety of the bottle's contents onto her face and down her entire front.

And then. . . THEN. . . she has the audacity to look SURPRISED! It's as if all the countless times she's pulled the exact same stunt just disappears from her memory, and she sits there with this look that says "What just happened? I was dry, but now I'm not?!! Why am I not dry like I was just a moment ago? Oh, goody, Daddy's annoyed! That makes me happy!"

And then we get to do it all again an hour later. Excuse me, I have to go sit in a corner and weep for a few minutes.

Posted by Ryan at May 31, 2012 02:31 PM | TrackBack