Pipes of Angels
As you may have noticed, Halloween has come and go and there is still no opportunistic photo of Liam in his bat costume. The reason is that Liam has the insides of an angel, and purity doesn't come with good pipes.

Feeding has been an odyssey. First at the hospital, he couldn't decide if he wanted to nurse. After three nights that seemed like 7 years, we moved to a sample of Similac we got in the mail and all seemed well. Rapture did not take us to baby hell for having used formula, although we were worried.

We had heard horrible things about formula-eaters - that they were lazy, dumb, and (from a lactation consultant) less lovable because the formula makes them smell bad. We pushed on, still loving Liam despite being joined by the god of ill wind. A mighty wind did come from such a small thing and forced Liam to thrash about and attempt to put anything in his mouth - K and I included.

With a soy formula, we got past the dangers of gas and cannibalism for a time. But this brought cement to the angel pipes, where we had to spend days waiting for a couple of wandering rocks. Some said, we should do x and others said we should do y, taking us off the course of our goal, but we have plodded on. Trying a hundred more formulas over a hundred more days.

While we are by no means home yet, we've learned a lot. Mostly, we learned that like any odyssey there aren't any answers. Instead of advice books for new parents, they really should provide troubleshooting guides like you can buy at Home Depot. If your pipes are clogged . . .