As I struggled through my morning ritual of trying and subsequently failing to feed Bridget another bottle through her "WHY ARE YOU STICKING A GIGANTIC PLASTIC NIPPLE THE SIZE OF FLORIDA IN MY MOUTH?" screeches, I was oddly overcome with remorse for being a smug DINK (Dual Income No Kids).
You know who I'm talking about.
Apparently four straight days of *bottle feeding failure, which includes but is not limited to begging your baby to take the bottle and then throwing the actual bottle at the wall, you start to hit bottle feeding rock bottom.
I distinctly remember rolling my eyes at a few of the parents in my husband's squadron who bailed last minute on our Halloween party with the "lame" excuse about not being able to find a babysitter.
Oh how I've eaten those words.
Or more like eaten, thrown them up, and been forced to lick them off the pavement.
As much as I had been around kids, with kids, and soaked in spit by kids, I had no clue until I actually had my very own.
It screams of a cliche', doesn't it? That mom wagging her finger at you "Oh, you'll see when you have your own" and you nod and smile and wonder how she could leave her house looking like that because you no you would never do such a thing if you had kids.
And so, as I stood in the dark room and bounced my fourth baby, wishing her to take the bottle as if the rhythmic "SHHHH" sounds out of my mouth would actually do anything, I apologized to all the parents I had wrongfully judged because I didn't know.
And then I wondered how many other circumstances, situations, and yes, people, we wrongfully judge because we've never done or experienced it ourselves.
Sometimes it really does take one to know.
And if we don't know, well then, sometimes we should just shut the hell up.
*I'm well aware that I'm probably the worst person to be feeding her a bottle, but given my husband's traveling and bottle feeding anxiety, I'm actually the better choice. And wouldn't you know? The quiet, dark room with the "Shhhhh-ing" actually worked.
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