Adventures in Parenting

A post over at Antique Mommy got me thinking about some of the now funny adventures we've had in learning to become parents (if you have time, read Antique Mommy's too, it's hilarious).

When we were about the leave the hospital with Ella, the nurses made us give her a bath first. It seemed like the hardest possible way to do it (we had to stick her in a small tub, not one of the handy baby bath tubs). In any case, the poor girl looked like she was freezing by the time we were done, so Brennan picks her up and holds her close to warm her up as he moves her over to the towel. At which point, Ella poops right down the front of his shirt. Of course he didn't have a change of clothes, but I had stolen one of his shirts to wear to the hospital, so he was able to wear that. We knew our place after that.

Then when Ella was a few months old, she started crying over her bedtime bottle. Just screaming. Howling. This went on for about an hour. She would chow down on her bottle for 2 seconds, and then spit it out. We could not figure it out for the life of us. Then we noticed the bottle was just as full as when we started. Turned out the hole in the nipple wasn't totally cut, so she wasn't getting anything. Brennan says, and he's probably right, that had a representative from Playtex been in the room, I would have killed him or her with my bare hands.

She must have been quite a bit older one day at the Pizza Ranch for lunch, when I noticed something clear and goopy had fallen out of her diaper. The silica gel (or whatever it is) in diapers that does all the absorbing was falling out. That's when I discovered the entire package of Huggies I had purchased had slits in the back of them. The package hadn't been damaged, so it happened before they made it in the plastic. That pretty much rendered the entire package useless. Although I was able to return it to Target, and then Huggies sent me some coupons.

I will now admit my most humiliating. When Ella started eating, I was hyper sensitive to choking hazards. It really freaked me out. So, yes, I did break her first cheerios in half. THERE. I said it.

I'm not going to say I've made no mistakes with Natalie, or had nothing humorous, but none are as notable as those first time parent things. Anybody else have something good?

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So this weekend I beat Brennan in Scrabble. He actually went off to sulk a bit. Ella goes to comfort him. "Dad, sometimes I don't win games either. So I go in my room, and sit on my bed...and I think of a tricky game to play that I can win!"