It would be cool if this post were about water balloons filled with cold milk, lobbed at adversaries in the hot sun (mental image courtesy of dr. g). But no. We have a formula switch coming up in the a.m., and I’m not looking forward to it. Abigail’s G.I. doctor is far more concerned than her pediatrician about her slowing weight gain, and wants me to a)feed her higher-calorie foods and b)switch her to a higher-calorie elemental formula. I’ve tried three bottles of the new formula over the last two days and she has drunk a total of 2 ounces. I myself am not super-worried about her weight gain, though I don’t like feeling her tiny ribs and shoulder blades so sharply through her skin. She is a glacially slow, cautious eater, and a very active baby (her whole life is a pilates + step aerobics routine) and her digestion is not that efficient yet. If she would let me help her eat more often, she’d do better. My general feeling is that she will grow out of her skinniness when she becomes more proficient at feeding herself and her digestive system matures, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. I’m on board with increasing the calories in theory, but not too excited about helping her adjust to a new, equally yucky, formula. There are two options with the new one: unflavored, which tastes like some kind of cleaner mixed with sweet-n-low and the powdered cheese packet from a mac-n-cheese box; or vanilla flavored, which tastes like cake batter plus an extra cupful of sweet-n-low and, of course, the cleaner. We’re going with unflavored. It’s closer to her former formula; Abi doesn’t like super-sweet things anyway; and it will be an easier transition to regular milk when that day finally arrives. So if you are a prayer and are reading this on Thursday or Friday, send up a shout-out for sweet, hungry Abi, who is probably on a mini-hunger strike.

Her G.I., who is a nice guy and a copious note-taker but not Mr. Details, gave me a “helpful” photocopy of high-calorie foods that I could consider giving Abigail. Milk, ice cream, butter, cream cheese, regular cheese, breakfast drink mixes, yogurt… Um. yeah. Remember that whole bleeding from exposure to milk thing, doc? He had me take the photocopy anyway since it had two items on it that she could eat: peanut butter, and wheat germ. I plan to stick with my stand-by of coconut oil, which is one of the few non-animal sources of the saturated fats that babies need to grow their awesome brains. And it makes everything taste really good. Coconuts are such strange, furry creatures and they produce such delicousness. Where would Thai cuisine be without the mighty coconut?

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