First night at home

From Singles 2011

For the record, this is the second time I've written this post. For the first time in the several years I've been using Blogger, something inadvertent and unfortunate happened and despite the auto-save feature, when my post failed to publish, it also had failed to save.

And, it was, of course, really great.

Well, we brought Zupe home on his 3 week birthday - on a Friday - on a Friday before a holiday (3 day) weekend. We were, at 4 PM suddenly home, alone, and solely responsible for this baby. Everything felt new and scary despite having done the basic care behaviors before...especially feeding the baby.

In the hospital we were given bottles of premixed formula to feed him. We couldn't find this formula in any of the stores. We were "stuck" with dry formula mix...fortunately the same brand he'd been eating. (No one in the hospital suggested that sticking with the same formula was important or even useful...but I know how upset dog stomachs get from abrupt diet changes - and what is a baby, but a hairless dog?)

So, this is what I knew. It is very important to get the proportion of dry mix to water exactly right. Very bad things can happen with a solution that is too rich or too thin. And, I knew what was written on the can. (See below.)

From Singles 2011

Pretty straight forward, right. You just pour cooled boiled water into the bottle, then pour a little out, then a little more out, then add in just a smidgen of water. Then using the nifty attached "leveler" you add mix at the rate of 1 per 50 ml of water.

But, the leveler. It was obviously attached to the little scoop. How was that to work??? And, if you can see on the photo, there seems to be a "fill line" on the scoop about 1/2 an inch below the top. So, how does one level off at that point with a leveler that is firmly attached to the scoop????? I could cut off the leveler - but then it would be pretty messy scooping into the mix gripping the little "bucket" with my fingers.

All of these anxiety driven thoughts cascaded, of course, at the 2 AM feeding.

Fortunately, there is a toll-free number on the container.

Unfortunately, it is not manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They did, however, provide an emergency contact number - a cell phone. (In Australia all cell phones (aka mo-bile (as in gall bladder bile) phones) have the same "area code" - 04.) So, do I call the 04 number and wake the poor schmuck who had to take the phone home for the weekend??

Of course I didn't do that. Instead, I found a 24 hour call-a-nurse health line and asked them.

Seems you fill the cup all the way to the top.

I didn't mess around with the built in leveler. I just pulled a butter knife out of the drawer like I would if I were measuring ingredients to make cookies. No need for fancy-schmancy levelers.

And, we all lived.

Now Kevin and I are old pros. I still don't understand why the scoop has holes in the bottom, but I don't freak out about absolute measuring perfection. So far, Zuperfliegen survives.

And, funny thing. A few days into our new role as living-at-home-family I considered the funny shaped lip on the top of the formula canister. One can scrape the scoop across that lip... and level off the powder. Built-in. Leveler.

Really. Those folks in the formula packaging division need to be informed before any more poor souls cut the scoop off the handle.