March 31, 2000 - Friday
It did not come back again today and this morning Harry wasn't the happy, quite boy we first knew three and a half months ago. What was different from yesterday? Well, Harry took a non-routine nap right after his mother fed him and left for work and perhaps that threw off his schedule. Perhaps, I was too tired to maintain his level of interest. Whatever it was, Harry spend a different kind of morning than yesterday.

Oddly, though, it was not the classic whiny baby kind of day for Harry and somewhere between his moments of outward discontent, Harry was very much the endearing boy I've been writing about. There were actually several times this morning, when I was trying very hard to distract him, that Harry would switch back and forth between audibly laughing and crying in one continuous flow. An odd and complicated picture indeed for such a young child, it seemed as if I could see the best side of my boy trying to come through, yet being repressed by some physical ailment. He had trouble feeding from his bottle and really fought through a full 4 1/2 ounces of milk. I would think that he wasn't hungry, but then he'd cry even more when I took it away. I grew so suspicious of more teething pain that I went off on a vain search from the baby Tylenol.

I don't know, maybe it was all something I did or didn't do, because the last half hour I spent singing and playing for him and he was a good and active a listener as ever: pumping his leg seemingly with the beat and grinning and smiling at the good parts. And, in a reversal from last night when he rejected his mother again in favor of a bottle, once she got home today and set up the milk bar, he seemed to have none of the trouble eating that he had earlier with me and the bottle.

Go figure.


Comments, opinions?