A day in our life...: The sippy cup adventure

Ahhh – my little boy has developed quite the personality. His latest trick? Pulling our leg. Let me explain…

It all started when we decided to try moving towards the sippy cup. As with most things that involve parenting or raising children or childhood development – we were clueless. So we started by pouring some juice in the sippy cup sitting it on the tray in front of Mike. And he responded by picking it up, shaking it, turning it upside down, and throwing it on the floor. Then he looked up at us with his “How did I do?” expression…

We tried several more times over the next few days. We tried to show him how he could raise the cup to his mouth and some yummy juice (or formula) would come out. It all met with the same fate. Some shaking. Some banging. Sometimes he would turn it upside down and suck on the bottom (“Is this how you do it”?). Sometimes he would stick the handle in his mouth and suck on it (“Is this how you do it?”). Sometimes he would simply take his arm and sweep the sippy cup off his tray and send it crashing to the floor. We tried drinking from the sippy cup ourselves thinking that Mike might “follow our example”. We tried a half dozen different styles of sippy cups. Try, try, try as we might – no matter how many times we showed him how to drink from the sippy cup – he stubbornly refused.

Then comes daycare. We asked his teacher Mandy for some advice. She, after all, gives sippy cups to kids all day long! Her advice? Bring in the sippy cup and let me give it a try. So we did (laughing all the way). Surely she doesn’t know how mighty Mike’s will is!

With great anticipation, we pick Mike up from daycare. To our flabbergasted surprise – he drank a full 4 ounces from the sippy cup. AND he ate some puffs, a mum mum biscuit, and a biter biscuit (and we have had very little luck with any solid food!).

Now it’s official. The joke is entirely on us! Mike knows all about drinking from the sippy cup (he probably learned it from his girlfriend Harper). He has simply been pulling our leg all along…

“Do you bang it like this?”

“How come nothing comes out from here?”

With our ego’s a little bruised, we decided that we couldn’t be outdone by a 10 month old boy. So we tried the sippy cup at home once again. Although this time we gave it to him with no fanfare and paid no attention to him while he had it (except to occasionally pick it up off the floor). The result? When he was convinced we weren’t looking, he raised the sippy cup up and took a drink! Fortunately, we had the camera ready and he was BUSTED!

“Dang! They caught me red handed!”

In other news – the weather has been fabulous here! We decided to spend some time outside in our wonderful backyard. Of course, we had the camera with us. And while we may know next to nothing about child rearing, we are bound and determined to capture it all on film! Here are a few of the pictures we took…