Remember Jenna from Diaper Doody? She’s visiting us for a week and we had to pick her up from the airport. First, I needed to get fuel for Mommy, Daddy, and Luke at the grocery store. Red Bull for Bex, Coffee for me, and formula for Luke because we didn’t know if there would be a good opportunity for Bex to breastfeed him on baby’s day out.
Bex breast feeds Luke as often as she can. She enjoys the bond it builds between them. He enjoys motor-boating my wife’s breasts. And me, well I enjoy that it’s free.
On the rare occasion that her breast milk is not available, we have to feed our little guy formula. After we were discharged from the hospital, I went out and bought the same stuff they were feeding him in the NICU. It’s a six pack of little two ounce bottles that are already pre-made. We’ve got a growing boy and hims needs his viddles. A two ounce feeding doesn’t quite cut it anymore, so we graduated to the powdered mix. Food is food right?
Our son, a man of fine taste and sophistication, would disagree. He knows the difference between the good stuff and a cheap imitation. It’s no contest for the winner either.
Jenna fed him the first formula bottle shortly after we left the airport. He was taking it fine one moment and the next, he was doing his best Linda Blair impression. There was vomit everywhere, on the car seat, on his pants, on his shirt, on Jenna, and it just kept coming for a few seconds. After he exorcised those demons, Luke was all smiles and happy again.
He’s no stranger to spit up. What baby is? Since he was born, he’s had a bit of a sensitive tummy but we found that more frequent burping during chow time prevents that from happening. So I figured that Jenna just didn’t burp him enough. No harm, no foul.
The next time we tried to formula feed him was late in the evening. I mixed him the bottle, he drank it up and burped just fine. He only had about two ounces, which is very little for him. Sure enough, after a few minutes he started his exorcist routine again. So the bottle got set aside.
Maybe forty-five minutes later he was acting like he was hungry again. So we all looked at the bottle and asked “Do we dare?”
The big question was if it was still good. In theory, yes. Bottles should last about an hour after they’ve been made. Then they turn into a pumpkin or something after that.
I was a little skeptical but Bex and Jenna said that if it went bad, it should have a sour smell. So like an idiot, I unscrewed the top and stuck my nose inside. I gagged, and choked, and puked in the sink.
It was most definitely sour, like raw meat that had been left in a suitcase. Then that suitcase was left in the living room for two months. Then the suitcase is found and accidentally opened and the whole house smells like toxic rotted meat. Why no, that oddly specific analogy didn’t actually happen to me. Why would you suggest that? Oh, because it did. But that’s a story for another time, and as a result I will never buy sausage again. Anyway, that’s how awful it smelled.
IncrediDad senses kicked in, and I checked the expiration date on the formula can. Remember, I bought the it this morning. Sure enough, it expired on August 1st. My stomach curdled. Had we inadvertently poisoned our son?
Bex stayed home with our little barf baby while Jenna and I drove back to the store. As any parent would, I calmly and rationally explained that they tried to kill our five week old baby.
The terrified customer service manager immediately apologized and promised us a refund and a new can of formula. After she was gone for quite a while, Jenna said, “I bet they’re all expired.”
Sure enough, the manager returned with package of formula that was the next size up, a 22 ounce container. She apologized again and explained that someone marked them down without checking the expiration date first.
Luke is fine now, even if his parents are feeling pretty guilty. But look at it this way, at least I wasn’t the lady who fed her kid spoiled milk twice before realizing how bad it had turned, right mom? Oh wait, that’s exactly what I did.