My husband resisted, but I insisted.
After 36 years of more or less managing to avoid feeding a baby, I figured he could and should give the youngest grandbaby her bottle.
He likes to pick up babies and make faces at them until they chuckle at him. He enjoys playing games and showing them all sorts of new things at any age. He eagerly reaches out to hold their sleepy, little bodies on his chest until they fall asleep – but, taking advantage of opportunities to meet a baby’s needs – that is another story. Through half a dozen children and a dozen or so grandchildren, he has managed to skate over performing the basic responsibilities of caring for an infant.
At my insistence, grandpa held the bottle and baby. I said, “We better get this on film, it is an historic moment.”
My son grabbed his camera and snapped enough shots to satisfy any family member checking the shared photo sites. The age of the digital camera affords them the ability to take all the pictures any doting parent could desire.
Even through their three-month, tumultuous initiation into parenting – when they learned how to respond to their infant’s tears, rants, raves and refusals to comply with text book behavior – they took pictures. She looks sweet in each picture, but these days the little dear not only looks, but acts, like an angel all day, including heading for bed by 7 every night and needing only a bottle or two between then and the next morning.
Her parents enjoy more sleep and more happy hours during the day and continue to be fascinated with everything about her.
Besides giving the tiniest of our many granddaughters her bottle, my husband checked out all the other things this five-month-old could do. She insists on being held in a standing position so she can build up her leg muscles for crawling and walking. She purses her lips in deep concentration and joyfully, if intensely, studies the world around her.
Our Gerber baby look-alike is right smack dab in the middle of the chuckle and laugh stage. A smile at her triggers her whole body into a happy response. Her little toes curl up, her legs reach up and then her hands flail around before she settles her fist into her toothless, grinning mouth.
She really likes that fist. We tried substituting pacifier for fingers, but unless sleep overwhelmed her, her rosebud of a mouth preferred to be stuffed with fingers and fist.
Her proud as punch parents enjoyed watching us enjoy her. They wanted other people to reach out and embrace their little charmer, their wonderful daughter.
Three visiting girl cousins discovered her overflowing closet with four racks of outfits – in sizes to fit the next year’s growth. This long awaited child has enough dresses to play dress-up every day of the month. Her cousin chose a pink baby dress and matching hat.
Momma dressed baby in the outfit – right after daddy stripped her down to her diaper for breakfast cereal in her Bumbo chair. Cute dresses make perfect pictures and play time, but meals mandate casual attire.
Whatever her state of dress, we all enjoyed a day or two of watching the newest infant learning to manipulate her little body and her big parents.