Never Enter into a Contractual Agreement With a Three-Month-Old

Breach of Contract, Exhibit #1

The evidence says it all! Without prejudice or provocation, Coleman broke our signed and notarized agreement. He spit up on me. (For the backstory click here)

As many of you know, when Cole was born, he and I entered into an agreement that stated I would do all of my fatherly duties as long as he saved spitting up his formula for other people to enjoy.

In the beginning, things went swimmingly. I fed him, burped him, played with him and anything else I could think of to hold up my end of the bargain.

Cole was a champ. He held out to his end of the agreement perfectly. I mean, being an infant he couldn’t stop spitting up altogether, but he never spit up on me. Unfortunately for Kolette’s sake she wasn’t a part of the agreement and therefore was spit up on all the time.

Then, a few weeks ago, for some reason or another, Cole decided to treat our agreement just like your average Huggies diaper–and crapped all over it. There was no prelude, no warning, nothing. Just a shoulder filled with regurgitated formula.

Wanting to nip this problem in the bud, I decided that Cole and I needed to go into renegotiations. Like any other deliberation, both sides had to give a little. But, in the end we ended up with an agreement both sides could live with.

A little older and a little wiser, this time I decided to get the terms and conditions of our accord written down on paper and signed by both parties. With more than just a verbal agreement, I was as confident as ever.

Cole signing our agreement

Then, two days ago, for reasons unbeknownst to me today, Cole spit up all over my newly dry cleaned Tommy Bahama pullover (See Exibit #1).

I consulted an attorney and, although he feels I have an ironclad case, I decided against taking Coleman to court. First, these are the things you have to expect when you enter legal agreements with family. My son is four months old today and I don’t want to ruin the rest of our relationship over a little “spilt milk.” Second, what assets does he have to go after anyway. There’s a few onesies, assorted diapers with Bag Balm, and a Bumbo but that’s about it.

That’s not to say that I haven’t been eyeing his Bumbo, but it just isn’t worth the effort. I’m going to have to let this one slide, and chalk it up to a lesson learned. Never enter into a contractual agreement with the three-month-old.

Jh-

Like I'm going to want to leave it up to a jury with that smile!

Breach of Contract

Since the day Cole was born I’ve been doing my best to help out around the house. One of the things that I’ve become particularly adept at is feeding and burping. In fact, if you’ve read the last post you know we’ve had some issues in that area as of late.

However, through it all, I felt like Cole and I had an understanding. I would feed and burp him as long as he didn’t spit up on me. We came to this understanding minutes after his birth. I told him that it wasn’t that he couldn’t ever spit up, it was just that he couldn’t spit up on me.

I tried to get Kolette in the deal but Cole said he couldn’t agree to both of us. Which explains why I cut bait and left Kolette to fend for herself.

Cole has done great in keeping to his part of the bargain. Nearly 12 weeks into his life all was going to plan just the way we’d agreed on. Ko was getting spit up on all the time, but I was clean.

I foolishly took this to mean that Cole was a man of his word and began to rub it in every time he spat up on Kolette. Often, he would spit up on her and she would ask, “How come you never spit up on daddy?” Smiling to myself, I would laugh and point and chuckle knowing that it was all because of our deal that was firmly in place.

Then, earlier today things changed. I don’t know if Kolette found out about our deal and was able to negotiate a better one, or if Cole just decided to back out of his agreement with me altogether. But, this morning as I held Cole burping him according to his wishes, about 4 gallons of formula came spewing out all over my arm and sweater. Seriously! I might as well have bathed in the stuff.

Of course he was smiling and cooing all over the place. Proud that his belly was empty showing absolutely no remorse with regard to reneging on our deal.

So, back to the drawing board. Cole and I are scheduled to meet later on this week and discuss his breach of contract. Hopefully we’ll be able to come to some kind of agreement and I’ll be back in his good graces–out of the spit up, clean and pure. Until then, all bets are off.

Jh-

Coleman and I hammering out the details on our new deal.

Cole Signs!