Augustus Gloop

Yes, that’s all I can think when I hold “little” O in the middle of the night.  I look down at him in the dim light, greedily sequestering the bottle all for his own.  And all I can envision is Austus Gloop, chocolate smeared across his cheeks (note: from the REAL movie, not that newer version with Johnny Depp).  This image has become all the more humorous to me now that O seems to be self-weaning from the bottle.  He’s been drinking water from a sippy pretty much since 6 months, so it’s not like he is so attached to the nipple.  But he is picky about which liquids come from which vessel – milk only comes from a bottle and don’t you DARE try and give it to him any other way.  But since returning from Grandma Vicki’s, O has taken less interest in the contents of his bottle.  Often he leaves a few ounces behind, and tonight he outright refused to drink from his bottle at bedtime (and to hear a bedtime story).  “Experts” say this might be the equivalent of a nursing strike or the beginning of him self-weaning and is common for this age.  I think he’s just still got a bit of that stomach flu, and will likely return to his formula-guzzling self soon.

Tonight he woke earlier than usual, and was inconsolable.  Knowing he hadn’t had a proper bedtime snack, I brought a bottle up and offered it to him.  Again, I resisted a chuckle as I gazed down at him.  His blond hair tussled, chubby hands glommed onto the bottle, and body stretched across my body and dangling in midair, I found it amazingly difficult to remember back to almost a year ago.  It was then that I awkwardly arranged pillows and rolled up receiving blankets to position his tiny body in just the right position for him to latch, my arms uncoordinated and unskilled to accomplish the task on their own.  So small he barely spanned the width of my chest.  Now, if he were sufficiently elastic, I could wrap the bloke around my waist as a belt.  Couple his size with the round face and messy blond hair, and all I see in those hungry midnight feedings (heaven help me) is a very young, and much more intelligent, Augustus Gloop!