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But he doesn’t stay happy for very long while on my lap. Though I’m playing with him with one of the toys we bought, it’s only a few minutes before he starts crying.
“What’s wrong with you, little man?” I ask, playing with the toy a little more, trying to get his attention away from whatever it is that set him off. “Are you done with this?”
He looks away, and I pick up his bottle again. “How about this? Are you still hungry? Were you not done yet and I took it away? I’m sorry about that, here you go, let’s try it again.”
I offer him the bottle but he turns his head, his crying getting louder by the second.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask him, wishing now that he was able to just talk and tell me what the fuck is going on in his world. This is the part of having a baby I’m still not used to, and I’m not sure I ever will be, either. I don’t know what to do with him crying and refusing anything I’m trying to give him, and that scares me.
It makes me wonder if there’s something really wrong with him, and I’m too inexperienced to know what it is.
My brothers and Jeanette return to the bus with bags of snacks and drinks, but I can’t hear what any of them say to me over the sound of Hendrix wailing.
“Oh, no! Someone’s upset with their day,” Jeanette says as she walks over and holds out her hands to take him from me.
“Have you changed him?” she asks me.
“I did before I fed him.”
“Was he just wet? Or did he poop?” she asks.
“Just wet,” I tell her. “And I checked him again when he was finished eating to make sure he hadn’t gone again, but he’s still dry. He doesn’t want any more of his bottle, either. I tried that to make sure I didn’t misread him when I thought he was done.”
“What did you do to Hendrix?” Julian asks. “Did he see you with his own eyes and realize just how ugly you are?”
“Speak for yourself, you look just like me,” I tell him.
“Only better,” Julian says with a smirk. “He’s probably upset because he thought it was the cool dad, but then you spoke to him and he realized that he’s stuck with the ugly old dad.”
“Fuck off,” I tell him. I know my brother is just giving me shit, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m getting more and more agitated by the second with the baby continuing to cry. I’m frustrated that I don’t know what’s going on with him, and even more frustrated that my brother is teasing me instead of doing what he can to calm Hendrix down.
“There there, it’s okay,” Jeanette says to him as she holds him in her arms. “What’s wrong, little man? What’s got you so upset?”
He just arches his back and continues to scream, and I wonder how new parents ever figure out what they’re doing with their babies. It’s hard enough with two brothers and a nanny helping out with Hendrix. I can’t imagine if it was just me and one other person who was just as confused about taking care of him as I am.
“Do you need to burp?” Jeanette asks him suddenly.
She pulls him closer to her once again, laying his head on her shoulder. She then starts patting him on the back. I’m not sure what she’s doing, but I don’t interrupt.
Both my brothers give each other a look, then they look back to Jeanette. She’s humming and patting Hendrix on the back until he lets out a burp that’s much bigger than anything I would have ever expected could come out of his little frame.
“That’s my boy!” Julian cries out with a laugh.
“Holy shit, how does something so small make a burp that big?” Terry asks with wide eyes. “I’m not even sure I could do that.”
“He’s not crying anymore—was that really the problem?” I ask in surprise. “How did you know he had to burp?”
“Babies don’t handle things the same way we do,” Jeanette explains to us. “So when he’s drinking up his milk like that, he winds up swallowing a lot of air along with it. So by the time he’s done, he’s got that stomachache that you or I would just take care of, but he doesn’t know how to do that. So you have to do it for him by patting him on the back like you saw me doing until he works up the burp, then he lets it all out.”
“I know how it feels to let it out and just be relieved, but I had no idea that babies had to have help with that. Poor little guys, like, can you imagine just lying there with your stomach hurting and not have any way to take care of it? That would suck,” Julian says.
“That’s why you have to pay attention and be the one to do it for them,” Jeanette says.
“Where did you learn that?” I ask her. “You don’t have any kids of your own, right?”
“Um, yeah, I just left them behind without a word,” she replies sarcastically. “Duh, of course I don’t have any of my own!”
“Okay, that was a stupid question,” I admit. “But seriously, where did you learn how to care for kids like that? I don’t believe it’s something that you just magically know, is it?”
