Every parent expects their child to be a prodigy. Jasper has long fingers and huge feet, so a unique career as a clown/concert pianist awaits. (Probably.)

This is assuming the little man makes it to his first birthday, because, with nothing else in his life to do but sleep, excrete, be cute and eat, he’s showing a distinct lack of aptitude for the eating part of the equation.

It’s not so much a learning disability as a learning inability. No matter how often we introduce food from directly in front of him, at the first break in contact with the meal, his head snaps from side to side or butts forward in the infant version of the dreaded ‘Glasgow kiss’.

Should that somehow fail to spill milk or formula down his parents and the sofa, bed, floor or wall, his little arms escape from every attempt to swaddle them in the fleece equivalent of a straitjacket and flail about, or he sticks his tiny, razor-sharp fingernails into his eyes.

Here’s an adult context. Imagine attempting to fuel your car while your significant other drives it around the gas station. Or ordering a chicken sandwich and receiving two slices of bread, some salad and a map to the nearest poultry farm.

We employed CLSC lactation consultants, catheter-style tubes, one-ounce cups and a giant plastic syringe. Anything to get liquid inside him while we hoped he took to the breast. But finally we cracked and bought a bottle. Not just any bottle: a superbottle that reduces the air he sucks down (for which, read, leaks from both ends unless held perfectlt horizontal).

It seems our prodigy-in-waiting can’t grasp the ancient logarithm, Mouth + Boob = Meal. That takes care of mathematics, then. Fingers crossed for his artistic side. Sleep well.

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