For me, it took 11 months. I don’t know if this is below or above average.

Oh sure, I’ve been spit up on dozens of times, sure, that’s nothing. But never this.

The boy wasn’t eating dinner. We knew he was out of sorts, and not eating is certainly out of the ordinary for him. When we’d finished our meal, and decided he wasn’t going to eat any more, I picked him up out of his high chair and into my arms.

With no warning, a fire hose unleashed a column of white milk from his face, splashing against my chest and ricocheting from there all over the table, the floor, my shoes. It was violent, noisy, and shocking. Then after a few seconds, all was silent, except the drip, drip, drip from my clothes to the ground.

Stunned into silence and unable to do anything to ameliorate the situation, Suz and I looked at the boy, the mess. Just as my brain began to process the situation, the world exploded  violently  again in milk.

After it was done, Augie acted as if nothing abnormal at all had happened, cheerfully sitting in my arms, despite the fact that we were covered almost completely in fluid he’d just ejected.

While I’m still not sure what, if anything, I could have done to make the mess less… at least I didn’t drop him.