Mom, this bottle sucks...

It seems like my baby goes through these quirky little 'transitions days'. I'm not sure if anybody else has experienced something like it, but I'd be interested to hear if you have. Its sort of like every 2 or 3 months, he takes 2 or 3 days to work me into a new routine, or pattern, or behavior. I find it hard to describe - I guess its sort of like merge lanes on the highway - a little transition between two paths. His first transition was when he went to sleeping through the night. Then we had a little transition phase when he started taking regular naps. Then we had a little phase when he weaned himself from breastfeeding and found great joy in holding his bottle, by himself, not even in my lap (that was a tough cookie to swallow!). We also went through a phase where he taught me he needed more physical play - mostly standing up time, jumping in my lap time, etc.

The good news is, I've learned to follow his lead. He's such a sweet and pleasant baby that when he gets fussy, I now know he's trying to cue me into something new that he wants/needs. The most recent one went as follows:

My baby loves to eat. Up until the past week or two, we had a really clear routine. 6 oz. formula, a little time to digest, then baby food. Repeat 3-4 times a day with an extra bottle before bed etc. Then I received the following baby communication that I needed to translate:

BABY: Cry like I'm hungry
MOM: Make bottle
BABY: Take two sips and throw that shit across the room. Yell.
MOM: Give baby the bottle
BABY: Take two more sips while growling, then throw bottle and yell. Loudly. Stare at mom like she's dumb.
MOM: Why is he looking at me funny while he yells? Maybe he wants me to hold him while he eats. I pick him up, offer bottle.
BABY: Push bottle away and do my "rapid roll" move to get to my belly to make my escape.
MOM: Hmm...I could have sworn that was his hungry cry...

No worries - we have it worked out. We used to start with a bottle then have baby food, but now we have it reversed and he's happily gorging himself on baby food. I think he's eating more solids than is expected for his age - but he is happy and well nourished and getting enough formula to get the iron and such he needs.

I wonder where our next "merge" will take us...