Look Ma, No Feeding Tube!

It's been over 24 hours since I declared independence from gavage by ripping out my feeding tube. I've managed to keep it out by taking every feeding either through nursing or via the bottle. Let me tell you, they don't make it easy. In an evil plan to put the tube back in, my Mommy and the nurses decided to give me a bath yesterday afternoon. Baths really tire me out. To me, they're like running a marathon with all the involuntary arm flailing and assorted other stuff. Plus, they're too relaxing at the end. They put me in the mood to sleep through many feedings. They took a Polaroid of me to commemorate the event. Maybe someone will help me scan and post this picture. Who knew that Polaroids still existed!

Anyway, along comes the 5:30 feeding and I'm still completely tuckered out. Both my parents try with limited success to get food in me. Well, the nurses haul out the heavy artillery, so to speak, in their effort to speed the exit of me, the boring boy. They send in a nurse names Suzy to feed me. Now Suzy is a large Russian woman, a sort of mother earth made flesh. You just know that she was born with the ability to bend the will of infants to her ends. Well, she's determined to get me to eat. First, she wakes me up with the dreaded cold wet cloth in the face treatment. You know I didn't like that, but I did wake up, if only briefly. The rest of the time she variously prods, massages, burps, and otherwise cajoles me into taking the feeding. By 6:40 I'm finished. In the words of the old Alka-Seltzer ads, I can't believe I ate the whole thing.