Tyler had his first Oreo cookie last week. I would prefer that he not be given “grown up” foods yet, as he’s only 7 months old, but it’s a type of tradition with Sarah’s family. When the first tooth comes in, and baby can sit up on his own, he’s ready for his first cookie. I’ve learned the art of “choosing your battles”, so I just grabbed the camera, knowing there would be some gems in there. If you would like to browse all of the Oreo pictures, they start here. For those of you that don’t want to look at picture after picture after picture, here are a couple highlights.

The first step is to give the baby a cookie, and then get very far away.

At first, I thought it would go relatively well. I found myself wondering why Sarah took all his clothes off, and had him in only a diaper.

It almost looked as if he wanted to see what he looked like with a mustache.

It was when Tyler started drooling that I started getting grossed out. He had dark brown drool flowing down his chin, neck, chest, and stomach.

Tyler’s chubby hands were equally filthy.

Yeah, all down his chest and belly.

Tyler seemed to thoroughly enjoy this new, sugary food.

Sarah tried volunteering me for bathtime. I told her she was out of mind, because the Oreo fiasco was not my idea. As a last ditch attempt, she said that it wasn’t hers either. I told her it was HER family’s tradition, not mine. She realized I wasn’t going to budge, and grabbed the filthy baby.

Luckily for everyone involved, Tyler cleans up nicely.

So there I am, sitting on the computer – because where else would you expect me to be? – catching up on Digg. Sarah is in the other room, feeding Tyler. After a little bit, I hear Sarah walking across the dining room, towards the office. This is one of those things that catch my attention. Nine times out of ten, if Sarah needs something, she’ll call me into the living room. It’s usually for trivial things. Once, she wanted to let me know that Tyler’s butt had just exploded. Another time was to ask if a lady in one of her daily shows was Finkel/Einhorn (from Ace Ventura – it was). So, to have Sarah come to me; it didn’t make me stop in my tracks or anything like that, but it piqued my attention.

“Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“Look at Tyler’s neck, what is that?”

She brings Tyler to me and attempts to show me what she was referring to. This turned out to be a difficult task, for a couple reasons. Tyler apparently didn’t want to show off his neck. As we were pushing on his back and his forehead to force his head back and expose his neck, Tyler was pushing back, and doing a pretty decent job. If Tyler ever becomes an MMA fighter, his opponents will find it impossible to catch him in a rear naked choke, because Tyler can tuck his chin with the best of ‘em. The other issue is that Tyler has rolls in his neck (and his arms, and legs). Getting deep into the area that Sarah had somehow discovered was not easy. It’s possible – quite likely, actually – that this was the first time I’d ever seen this particular area of Tyler’s body. I am in awe, and slightly ashamed, that Google can capture the entire PLANET, and there are areas on my own son’s body that I have never seen.

We finally manage to get his head cocked back, and his neck rolls separated, so that I could see what Sarah was talking about.

Tyler had neck cheese. There honestly was a voice in the depths of my mind that asked, “Is he seriously churning breastmilk in his neck rolls into cheese?” What a sicko.

Turns out that this is actually an issue with chubby babies. Google results on a search for (redness baby neck rolls) gives 2 diagnoses. It’s either a yeast infection, or the equivalent of a diaper rash, but on his neck. So, we treated it as if it were a diaper rash. With Desitin. Sarah slathered it on there after his bath. The next morning, his neck looked tons better.

So now we have to put baby powder in his neck rolls to keep the moisture out. You can’t just slap it on there because babies will breathe it in and get respiratory issues from it. Instead, you have to put it in your hand, rub your hands together, THEN put it on his neck.

So that’s that. Tyler makes cheese in his neck rolls.