Why are parents so obsessed with the first time their babies do anything?
The first smile, the first step, the first word. It's exciting, yes. I get excited, too. But firstism borders on obsession. And it's inaccurate. So much of parenting has to do with failing. Why not remember the bad things? The first time the baby was dropped in the bath, the first time she choked on a prune. In short, why is everything supposed to be good? In that spirit, the first time I drowned my daughter in milk was in late September.
Zoë had never taken a bottle. We had a plan to change this. One day Elise went to her office on campus for the morning and left me and Zoë alone. We thought it would be easier to give Zoë a bottle when Elise's breasts were not in the vicinity. >I held Zoë in my arms as I warmed the milk and talked with her softly about the fantastic thing she would soon experience. Then I sat in the rocking chair, leaned her back, and inserted the nipple. As the nipple went into Zoë's mouth, a sound came out that might be comparable to what would happen if I tried to feed her a cattle prod. This was unnerving. I moved her to another position, turned on some classical music, tried again. The cattle prod wasn't working. Our morning turned into a downward spiral of screams and spilled milk and snot. I was doing something terribly wrong; and I would have to do it again.
Round two came two days later, once Zoë and I had both recovered. Elise went to campus, leaving us alone again. I heated the milk, prepared the soothing nursing environment and inserted the cattle prod. Zoë started bellowing immediately. Again I changed positions, but her crying only intensified. I held her too tightly and she pooped and I ran upstairs and changed her diaper, her legs straight and quivering. And because she was on her back, she threw up what little milk had gotten into her and gagged and started shrieking as if I was killing her, which I sort of felt like I was, or at least like I wanted to. So I shoved a pacifier into her mouth, which only made her throw up more. I had completely lost my cool. She was furious. I was furious. She was screaming, I was screaming inside. My jaw felt like it was made of steel. Finally, I went for a walk outside, as I figured it would be more difficult for me to strangle my daughter and dispose of her body in view of the neighbors.
Parenting is not a competition I am having with Elise, but I do know that if it is one, it is one that I am losing. She's got the biological edge (who wouldn't prefer Elise's breasts?), so I know Zoë's rejection of me isn't personal. But Elise also has something essential that I do not have. She has the ability to deal with frustration, while I am a hair-trigger away from disaster. I can't shake the feeling that Zoë is onto this — that this is, in fact, personal. I think Zoë senses my frustration and feeds off it as opposed to the milk in the bottle. And what baby would respond to a father who says, "Drink the damn milk, please!"?
Round three, a week later. This time doesn't even involve milk — we fight just for the sake of fighting. Elise and I are at a friend's house in Oakland for dinner. Zoë starts crying and I walk outside to, in theory, calm her. I lose my composure in an instant. It's not quite clear to me why. Even as I half-heartedly sing, let her suck my arm, point out the moon, she knows I am upset and everything I do just makes her madder. She starts hyperventilating. She's glaring right into my eyes. I'm glaring right back. It's like we're facing each other from either end of a dusty street in a Western, only instead of pistols we have similar genes.
I rarely got into fights growing up. The few ones I was in I lost. In second grade it was Casey Neil. I remember both of us grabbing the other one's nose and not letting go (I guess that one was a draw). In fourth grade, I got beaten up by a child actor whose child-actor brother played the adorable kid in Terms of Endearment. In high school, even though I played football, I wasn't that tough. When teammates fought, I was the guy who tried to separate everyone and then got squashed himself. In college, where I played football too, I once lined up across from a defensive back and when he snarled, "I'm going to fuck your mother after the game," I remember thinking, "Wait, how does he know my mother?" So I don't think of myself as a fighter.
But here I am in what feels like the fight of my life. A battle with a baby. I'm fighting a thing the size of a Muppet who makes me angrier than I have ever been. As I walk down the street in Oakland I am yelling (under my breath though, so as not to arouse suspicion), Stop it! Stop crying! And just before the urge to throw Zoë in the bushes becomes more than an urge, I think about my goats.
I had five goats on the farm in Connecticut where I grew up. When they were babies I nursed them from a bottle. I milked them every morning once they were grown. And every day I took them for walks. They were well behaved, except when they didn't want to be. Sometimes, before coming back to the barn, they would stop and eat my father's apple trees. They weren't supposed to and they knew it. One goat who doesn't want to be caught is difficult to catch; catching five goats working together is impossible. And a small apple tree can be eaten quickly. So, one by one, I tackled the goats and dragged them back to the barn hard by their necks. I remember the sound of their hoofs scattering the dirt, and I remember how scary it felt to get so angry. How easy it was for me to turn into a brute. It was something I felt awful about then, and even now.
When I remember this, I realize that while I may not be a fighter, I have a temper. I have the ability to snap, a terrible thing to have as a parent. I also realize that Zoë, with her grownup features and full head of hair, is only three months old. I forget that she is not crying to spite me, that I am entirely responsible for her, that she's not a goat. That's she's my daughter.
So I bring Zoë back in my mind from her imaginary trip to the bushes, and bring her close into my arms, and take a deep breath, and think, who am I really fighting? Am I fighting my daughter, or my short temper? The answer is sad and obvious. It's me on me. I'm fighting myself, and taking a pummeling.
What saved me on that street in Oakland was recognizing that at some deep level I am flawed (that and the prospect of jail time), knowing that the flaws I have are my own, and that this girl and I will be joined together for a long, long time, for years, and that if I can just ride it out for the next five minutes, and for the five minutes after that, we will be okay and may even put down our weapons and ride happily into the Western sunset.
This is an excerpt from Crawling: A Father's First Year.