There is a nasty cold making its way through the local elementary school. Our seven-year-old granddaughter caught it first. She developed a nasty cough and was home from school for four days before she was able to return to class. Her older brother caught it next. He seemed to have a slightly more mild case, and missed only two days of school, but he had an additional two weekend days to get to felling better. Somewhere in the midst of those sick children their mother began to have symptoms. Next it was their younger sister. Grandma also was coughing and blowing her nose. We learned from the school that nearly one third of the students had missed class with this cold. In one classroom, more than 50% of the students were out due to the virus. Most, like our grandchildren, were tested for Covid and the results came back negative. It was what our children’s pediatrician used to call the annual “Introduction to communicable disease” that comes with public school.

So far, I have escaped symptoms as has the children’s father. But the baby, only three months old, has had a couple of hard days. His most prominent symptom has been nasal congestion, but he also has coughed some and has had a fever that comes and goes. It is really hard on parents when a child is sick, maybe even worse when the baby is sick. The parents are up in the night, short of sleep, and worried.

Yesterday was a day when we could provide a bit of help for the family. Susan is pretty much recovered from her symptoms. She gave one child a ride to school while I helped with the baby. A time in the bathroom with the shower running worked like a vaporizer tent. That was followed by a bit of saline solution and suction of his nose and a short time of nursing with mother. Then I held him so his mother could attend to other necessary chores. He preferred to be held with his head elevated so he could breathe through his nose and before long he was sleeping in my arms, breathing easily. I didn’t want to put him down because I worried that his congestion might return. So I got to experience one of the great luxuries of my life, sitting in a rocking chair, holding a baby. He slept for a little over two hours and I was able to sit and rock for the entire time.

Sitting in a rocking chair for a couple of hours in the middle of the day is pretty rare for me. But it brought back some wonderful memories. Susan and I bought a new, unfinished rocking chair when we were expecting the birth of our first child. I sanded, stained and sealed the chair and it has been part of our living room ever since. I still love to sit in that chair.

I’ve told the story in my journal many times, but in the fall of 1983, just after we returned from an extended study leave at Pacific School of Religion, we received a call from a social services agency asking if we would consider adopting an infant. The tiny child was about as far away as one could be in our state, 425 miles away, and they were hoping we could pick her up before noon the next day. Somehow we recovered from our surprise enough to say, “Yes!” and our lives changed forever in the most wonderful way. We managed to borrow a couple of infant sleepers from friends who were expecting a child on our way out of town and that was all of the baby supplies we had when we got to the agency in the late morning the next day.

After meeting the beautiful baby and adjusting all of the straps in the car seat we had used with our son when he was an infant, we headed to a local store to gather supplies for the trip home. Diapers and baby formula were the first items on our list. We bought the powdered formula that could be mixed as needed and a couple of small baby bottles. We managed to figure out how to mix the formula and drove over half way home before stopping for the night at a motel. That night I was too excited to sleep. I stayed up most of the night just staring at the tiny baby in the crib. When she stirred, I picked her up. I changed her diaper and mixed formula.

Her brother had been breast-fed, so formula was all new to us, but it was for me a wonderful thing. It meant that I could feed the baby. I took my share of getting up with the baby in the night and there were a lot of nights when I would doze while rocking her in that chair. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

Now she is an adult and a wife and a mother. But holding our grandson yesterday, I couldn’t help but think of when she was tiny.

So I don’t understand how we could have allowed so few companies to so dominate the baby formula market that shutting down a single production plant would cause a shortage and a crisis. I don’t understand why in the rush to abandon NAFTA and re-negotiate the USMCA treaty, negotiators placed a ban on the import of baby formula. I don’t understand how some representatives could vote against a bill to provide emergency funds to the FDA to restore supplies and investigate the shortage. I don’t understand how television commentators and internet trolls could suggest that babies held in detention by border patrol not be fed and the formula for them be given to others.

Feeding babies is a basic human task that falls to every parent and every grandparent. I don’t understand how it can be anything less than our highest priority as a country to address the shortage, to get the necessary supplies in the hands of those who need it, and to insure that changes are made to correct the problem. This isn’t a world-wide shortage. It is a problem in our country.

Maybe there are too many people who have never had the opportunity to hold a baby and feed her a bottle. Perhaps it has been too long since they have picked up a tiny one. Fortunately, I have been given that opportunity, and I’m not inclined to give it up.