The Sippy Cup Situation

We have recently transitioned from one child who drinks from a sippy cup to three children who drink from sippy cups. And I am sad to report that we have not made this transition gracefully.

People have been telling me for a year, "you must have your hands full," and this is certainly true. So, if my hands were already full, how am I supposed to manage so many sippy cups?

Problem #1: Too many parts
We have so many different kinds of sippy cups-- sippy cups with rubber spouts, sippy cups with plastic spouts, sippy cups with straws, sippy cups with handles, sippy cups without handles, sippy cups with removable handles, sippy cups with stoppers, sippy cups without stoppers.

Once they've all been washed and dried we have a serious humpty dumpty situation on our hands and even if I did have access to all the king's horses and all the king's men, none of us would have the wherewithal to put them back together again.

Problem #2: Milk waste
Since the boys have only been drinking milk since April 15th, I haven't been able to accurately gauge how much milk we'll go through in a week. So far it seems like a four-gallon vat would work just fine. The problem is, my wasteful offspring are not drinking all of it. I usually put half drunk cups of milk back in the refrigerator. Is that safe or will it immediately grown legions of flesh-eating bacteria that will cause my children great harm and foil all chances I have at the mother-of-the-year award? And if I can put it back in the fridge, how many times can I put it back in the refrigerator?

What We're Reading Right Now

What We're Reading

Here's what we're reading right now:

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus - An excellent didactic tale for my little three year old negotiator. By the author of Knuffle Bunny, another favorite that we returned to the library after we read it 379 times.

Umbrella - Ever wondered how to describe what rain sounds like on an umbrella? Annabella received this from her Aunt Heather, who no doubt knows that Crow Boy (by the same author) is Marco's favorite children's book.

Polite as a Princess - I tried to fight the princess phase, but I was a poor match for the Disney marketing machine. At least this book teaches manners.

In the Night Kitchen - I know everyone raves about Where the Wild Things Are, but my favorite has always been In the Night Kitchen. Who wouldn't love a book with the last line, "And that's why, thanks to Mickey, we have cake every morning."

I Love You the Purplest - Got 2 boys? Get this book.

How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight - I wish I could say that this book has taught my children to go to sleep without throwing crying fits of tyrannosaurus rex proportions, but sadly it has not. They like to read it though. And then they do everything that the book tries to teach them not to. That's why they call it fiction, I guess.

Who Loves Me? - This is a really cute book, unless you're suspicious of talking cats.

Brain, Child Magazine - I devour this magazine as soon as I get. It's essays, fiction, debate, and articles about motherhood without all those annoying articles like "10 Ways to Soothe a Fussy Baby" that you know were never written by moms who actually had fussy babies.

Freakonomics - This one doesn't usually get read aloud at bedtime or naptime. I don't think we'll be explaining the economics of crack dealing to our children until their at least 12. If you're thinking of buying or selling a house, however, there is some really interesting stuff in here about how real estate agents are crooks.

I Owe My Sanity to Huggies Overnights

Annabella wasn't just a good sleeper, she was a great sleeper. She was an A+ sleeper. She was a genius at sleeping, a real baby prodigy. Thank heavens for this journal entry or I might have thought my sleep-deprived mind was playing tricks on me when I remembered that she started sleeping through the night when she six weeks old.

Has there ever been a mother who was lucky enough to have been blessed with more than one good sleeper? I would have been happy with two out of three. I would even have been OK with two bad sleepers, just as long as they didn't happen to have been born at the same time.

But when six weeks passed and the boys were still waking up every few hours, we were disappointed, but not in despair. Even at four months, we were cautiously optimistic every evening that the boys would sleep (or at least let us sleep) for more than a four hour stretch. True despair probably set in at six months. And then eight months passed. And then nine. At nearly a year they were still waking up at 4:30 am screaming, wet, hungry, and very, very angry.

Lets get something straight. I love my boys. They are two of the sweetest little tan munchkins that ever crawled on this earth. They are both this complicated combination of cuteness and swarthiness. Each day they amaze me with their huge smiles, uncontrollable laughter, and endless capacity for cuddling. And they are so lucky that they are so loveable because otherwise I would hate them for not letting me sleep more.

Do you have any idea what eleven months of sleep deprivation does to a person? If you don't, I hope that you never do. If you do, I hope that you have people in your life who can remind you that life was not always like this and will not always be like this and that you should definitely not strangle the next person who tells you to "cherish these moments because they grow up so fast!"

Who knew that the solution to all my problems was a more absorbent diaper? I cannot say enough good things about the Huggies Overnight diaper. They are the only things that keep my boys from being a sopping mess at four in the morning. And as a result, for the past few days (a little under a week before their first birthdays) the boys have slept straight through from 7 pm until 6 am. Maybe it was daylight savings time that turned 6 am into the new 5 am. And maybe they saw the glint of insanity in my eyes that convinced them that cuteness can only take you so far. And maybe they were just ready to sleep longer. Whatever the case may be, I'm not taking any chances. I'm keeping Huggies Overnights in stock forever.