So… last night I went to CVS to pick up some of Jen’s pain meds and a few things for sweet baby Hayes. On the list: formula, baby wipes, Purel(tm) and colace. Good times. Of course, in classic Eric fashion, I forgot one of them, the Purel, and to compound things, the CVS in my neighborhood doesn’t carry Oxycodon.

As a result, I had to walk over to the other CVS in the Back Bay. (Oh, BTW, as I am writing this, my wife has informed me, “We have tohave another child”) Not too far away, but in my huge Sorrels in 3 feet of snow some of which is half-assedly plowed and with just bringing the little dude home, it wasn’t close either. More fun.

Then last night happened… and this morning… WTF wasn’t Hayes sleeping and WTF was he eating so much? Moreover, was this type of behavior normal? We decided this might be because I bought a formula that wasn’t exactly the same as the one in the hospital. So, this morning, on four hours of sleep and without caffine I trudged over to the CVS 3 blocks away (the close one) to buy the Purel and the correct formula issue.

The first person I see appears to be the manager. She’s in the soap isle.

“Do you carry Purel,” I asked her. “I bet I’m standing right in front of it.”

She walks over and points behind me.

“It’s right there,” says she, kindly. And then, in my defense, “We’ve got lots of soaps.”

“I guess you do, but I’m not sure I’d find it if it were the only thing here. I’ve only had 4 hours of sleep.”

I like to tell strangers about my woes in the hopes of eliciting their sympathy. But then, you know that, you’re reading my blog.

“And speaking of 4 hours of sleep, do you have the key to the formula?”

A weird sentence, I know, but they keep the formula locked up so that it doesn’t get the 5 finger discount. I tell her of my plight and that my son keeps on eating. She tells me that her daughter was the same way, which made me feel better.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I like stories. I also thought I had a punchline, because Jen thought it was funny. Now, well… yah. I wrote it and I ain’t erasing.

Anyway, we were concerned with the massive amount of formula the little guy was enhaling each feeding so first thing this morning we made a nooner appointment with our pediatrician. We got Dr. Judit, instead, a new doctor who was fabulous. We told he of our grand plan: we would embrace the bottle, as there is still no milk from the mommy, and carry on. As one nurse at the hospital told Jen before we left, “If you do breastfeed, he’ll be feeding 24 hours.” Not too far from the truth, I’m sure.

There. I said it. It’s beyond milksour.

This was a HARD choice that we didn’t take lightly. We TRIED so hard. Frankly, we feel like we’ve failed our child in some way. It sucks. And that’s the last time I’ll use that pun. During one of Jen’s crying spells about it last night… actually while Jen and Hayes were crying a duet, I had visions of a headline: “Man Opens Fire on La Leche League with Breast Pump, 4 Injured.” It got that bad.

Jen spoke with some of her friends that seconded our assesment. We’ve done much discussing and it’s the right thing to do for our family. We’ve got good benchmarks for bottlefed normalcy, Jen and her sister were both bottlefed, and both did better on their SATs then George W (1206– 566 verbal, 640 math). Jen’s sister even became a doctor by way of Cornell, Harvard and Michigan, all of which I am told are pretty decent schools. So, what the hell, we didn’t get into parenting thinking that we could do everything right.