Recently I have been able to play a part in feeding my eight week old son. After a long day of caring for Reuben, Mrs Hope now clocks off gracefully at 10pm, and is usually able to be in bed earlier due to Reuben's propensity for sleep. So, between the hours of 10pm and 5am, I am on duty: both input and output. I have thoroughly enjoyed this time with him, sometimes before midnight but more often in the 'wee small hours'. I like it - it's private 'us' time.
He feeds well from a bottle, but prefers his food at body temperature rather than room temperature which requires a trip downstairs to the microwave prior to a meal. We aim to move away from this temperature preference, and so we're gradually working our way from warm to cool (and aiming for 'tepid' tonight).
And so I came to find myself groggily making up a bottle of formula at 3.30am Saturday morning. Actually, it was one of the ready-made cartons we'd bought to test his affinity for the bottle. Having carefully sanitised the various components of the bottle earlier, I carefully unsanitised them as I assembled it. Eventually I decanted the appropriate measure of formula into the chosen vessel, warmed it painstakingly in the microwave and trudged upstairs to my audibly-hungry son. He got his chops working furiously on the bottle in no time at all and was quaffing away eagerly when I felt a slight trickle of liquid on my ankle.
Despite being slightly un-focused by the hour, I quickly ran through a list of possible explanations: drip from baby's nappy (answer: no, baby was wrong way round for that), drip from baby's chin (answer: no, muslin was securely in place, and not at all saturated), drip from bottle (answer: most likely yes, given the complex ritual for preparing the meal and the weary state of the labourer). The conclusion I arrived at was that it was a splash of formula from earlier activities, and I was feeling the chill of it slowly drying in the air. Satisfied, I dismissed the trickle from my mind and returned my (limited) attention to my guzzling son. Then the 'trickle' moved up my calf, and all possible explanations vanished in an instant.
There are times when I feel it is appropriate to wrestle with mystery but I was suddenly keenly motivated to inspect my calf and resolve it. My hurried inspection revealed none other than my recently documented nemesis - a slug.
Thankfully, Reuben is too young to remember his father's ungainly reaction to this turn of events; I shall elaborate no further on the matter but simply leave it to your imagination.
