Feeding the beast

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.
Charles Dickens

Well last night was about all my wife could take. She has been a real, real strong person dealing with our daughter. Lack of sleep, pain from breast-feeding, total upheaval of her life, but this morning she had enough. This morning, I was in charge of taking care of the baby and no amount of pouting or complaining was going to get me off the hook.
I gave our baby her first bottle today. I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the whole process. First of all, the baby looked totally confused by the idea that she was able to get milk from me and not my wife. Of course that's what I infer she was thinking, babies can't really comprehend such things can they? What if they can comprehend such things? Perhaps they know a lot more about what's happening around them than they get credit for...Probably not.
Anyway, I guess that getting milk from a breast and getting milk from a bottle are not the same thing. Our baby is now an expert at getting her fill from my wife, she is a rank amateur at getting any milk from a bottle. She just can't swallow all the milk fast enough and it spills out of her mouth and down her shirt and makes a big mess.
This process did not allow me the bonding that I had anticipated. It really did not allow either of us much of anything but frustration. From my daughter's point of view there is lot of reasons to cry over spilt milk. I guess that eating out of a bottle is going to be a learning process for my daughter and for her parents. Time will pass, more bottles will be offered, and less and less milk will get spilled over time.
In time my daughter will begin to understand that mom and dad care for her in different ways. Sometimes Dad's way is more messy, more frustrating, and dirtier but he's still trying to do the best that he can for his baby.