Colds, work, and bottles

So many topics in one post.

Eva got sick with a cold on Wednesday and spent Thursday and Friday with her mom. That meant that Cathy and Nathan got to spend some time one on one getting to know each other better. Thursday night the sneezes started and by Friday morning it was very clear to the person who gets up with Nathan at night to feed him (ahem) that our baby had his second cold. It's inevitable that he'd get sick even without being around a toddler, but I'm sure it didn't help. These things can't be avoided though, and in true Nathan fashion, he really only gets terribly upset by the whole thing when he can't breathe. It's hard to hold that against him. I was so grateful to Cathy that she was willing to come and care for him on Friday since it didn't seem like I should call in with a sick child on my 4th day back to work, and Brian had a bunch of meetings he didn't think he could miss. I really do feel so fortunate that we found her. Because they were at our house, it was really easy to take 10 minutes to feed him. 

See? Smiling while being dressed and snorting. Love this boy.

Then today happened. It was the first day that Nathan went over to Eva's house to play. Our morning was little frantic as we iron out the kinks of "daycare" drop-off, and in the midst of packing up, I completely lost it. I think my tears took both Brian and I by surprise. Last week felt more like having a babysitter while today really brought it home that I wouldn't be seeing my child all day, every day.

So Brian did drop-off, the work day began, I pumped, and then I got a call. Nathan won't take a bottle. Interesting... 

[A little background (and potentially a whole other post)... around 2ish months old, Nathan spent a few weeks being almost exclusively bottle fed as we tried to figure out some of our breastfeeding issues. The whole story involves lactation consultants, Nathan being tongue tied, two clippings, nipple shields, etc. It wasn't pretty, and I can honestly say that feeding Nathan was far and away the most stressful and discouraging aspect of having a newborn for me. All of those issues have been more or less resolved for the last month and a half though, (cue triumphant music!) and given our experience with bottles in the past this really wasn't a concern for me with going back to work. How wrong I was, apparently.]

Brian still had the car (yes, we're still a one car family, Brian usually bikes to work) so he had to come home from work and pass the baton. Thankfully, Eva lives 5 minutes away, and he was still in a relatively good mood when I got over there. I fed him and put him down for a nap, and we crossed our fingers for the next feeding. Clearly, he couldn't have been TOO starving because he slept 45 minutes, was awake and watching Eva play, and went down for another hour and a half nap before he was ready to eat again. By that point, we were all certain he would be motivated enough to make the bottle his friend. Not so. By the time I got there at the end of the day Cathy had been trying to feed him for 20 minutes. 

We've been trying to figure out what has happened ever since. He spent Saturday with Nonnie and Papa and definitely gave them a hard time about the bottles in the beginning, but we were hoping that a full day of bottles had gotten his pickiness out of his system. Not so, apparently. 

Brian was able to give him a full bottle tonight with relatively no trouble at all, so we're stumped. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. 

He may not like bottles, but we still think he's the sweetest thing.

love the elbow dimple!