No Picky Eaters Here

(Side note: Himself and I probably BOTH qualify as picky eaters in our own ways, but I will eat anything put in front of me, except baloney and sea urchin, at least once. Himself isn't quite that accommodating).

After last night, I've realized I have high hopes (and reason to believe) Baby Girl (at least while on a completely liquid diet) is not picky in the slightest.

Yesterday's horrible, no good, very bad day continued to slide downhill with alarming speed. Baby Girl puked all over me and her (necessitating a second wardrobe change for both of us - er, rather one of us - she stayed half naked in her diaper from then on) when I went to pick her up from the sitter's. (I stopped myself from thinking that the smile mentioned in yesterday's post was really the "my head is safe" smile and the puking was the "take that mom!" reaction when I showed back up).

No big deal. She ate too much. Baby Girl pukes just like her mother - with great regularity for no apparent reason. Except, she didn't cry more than five minutes for the next 3 hours. And she refused to eat. But she smiled a lot - that little impish grin that has come to mean "You only THINK you have things under control." She was right.

I finally coaxed her to eat (Lesson #473 - having to coax an infant to eat is probably not a good sign). I picked her up to burp her and VOILA! baby puke all over my couch (and I mean ALL OVER - two whole cushions were casualties), all over me (remember the wardrobe changes? Yep, I too ended up in almost nothing), all over her and then all over the towel I grabbed as she deposited the last of any stomach contents on the nearest object.

And I thought my bad Monday was over.

I called the on-call pediatrician, because clearly an infant who has not kept food down in six hours is not a good thing. He was a bit more nonchalant about it than I felt and reassured me that the morning's bump on the head had nothing to do with her throwing up.

On his advice, I sent Himself to the store for Pedialite. Himself gave me a dirty look and protested that he was not dressed to go out. I glared at him and stood very close and stage whispered, "I have put all of my clothes I wore today - all two wardrobe changes - in the washing machine and I STILL smell like sour milk!" He quickly acquiesced, if only to escape whatever might come next.

And this is where I discovered Baby Girl is not picky. She already moves from nursing to bottle and back like a champ. Apparently the fact that grape Pedialite cannot possibly taste like breastmilk didn't even seem to register in her mind. While she wasn't particularly interested in eating period, she didn't even think twice about the yucky purple stuff in the bottle. By the second middle-of-the-night feeding (1 oz. of purple water doesn't stick around in one's tummy very long), she was sucking down COLD purple Pedialite like it was the best thing in the world.

Then she smiled. This time, I'm sure it was of the "You're the greatest mom ever" variety. Right then, in the dim corners of the Hobbit Hole, with Baby Girl snuggled in my fuzzy robe and smelling of something like grape-flavored sour milk, the world was perfect.

Maybe Mondays aren't so bad after all.