March 6, 2000 - Monday
All seems back to normal following yesterday's bizarre events. Harry is happy again, though his mother thinks he's still eating extra to make up for calories lost to his misadventure. We have no better understanding today than yesterday about what went wrong. We tried everything we could think of - feeding, diaper changing, napping, rocking, talking, walking, singing, smiling, patting, rubbing, burping, bouncing, distracting, entertaining - and nothing worked beyond brief respites. The signs are so strong toward a temporary milk malady that I wished we had grabbed a bottle out of the refrigerator before we left the house. I had thought of it, but we'd not reached the drastic-measures stage. I also had the fleeting thought that maybe Harry was starting to prefer the bottle to nursing, but that seemed highly unlikely. And, we'll never know.

Today Harry's mother talked about the frustration of not knowing what was wrong and wishing she could just say "Harry, what's the matter?!" I felt that way when Harry was disrupting my computer printer troubleshooting with distracting and seemingly directionless whimpers. But oddly, yesterday was less aggravating and angering, perhaps because the whole circumstance was so over-the-top there was no room for those emotions hindering the task of deciphering the trouble or at least comforting him as best as possible. Harry was just being a baby and I often noted that in an alternate reality, Harry could be like this dialy, as some other babies are. Heck, our walk even had moments of guarded satisfaction - for me, probably not Harry. He was zipped up inside my jacket and we walked through a cool wind and, though he was clearly never happy, he was distracted enough by the new places and my talking and singing that he stopped using his big round red face for most of the time we were outside.


Comments, opinions?