King of Cups

Potential milestone time: methinks HR has had his last bottle. As he is to turn two in just over two weeks, I'm sure everyone is like, weren't you supposed to conquer this one a year ago? But we didn't. We tried, but he just wasn't ready. So I never stressed about it, it was one of those times where we looked at what contemporary child rearing recommended, and decided to go a different way because that's what worked for our family. He's always been fine with water from his sippy cup, but he had some kind of mental block about milk. So for a long time he's been down to a bottle before bed, and one first thing in the morning, and that was the only time he drank milk and I just couldn't see a problem in that. But he is getting older, no denying, and Mike and I came up with a plan, just to try out, wherein he could pick out his own special cup for milk and we'd see if it worked. Yesterday he picked out a Cookie Monster cup, and was reminded from point of purchase up until bedtime routine how cool this cup was, his very own milk cup. We asked him over and over, "What are you going to drink from your Cookie Monster cup?" "Milk!" he answered, excited every time. I mean, we really built this up. And hell if it didn't work! He happily drank his milk from his cup and went to bed as normal. It was pretty goddamned gratifying, and I'm not so much saying "parental instinct for the win!" as I'm saying, sometimes, no matter what other kids are doing, your kid just has to be ready and he'll let you know when that is.

Back around when he turned one I was reading a message board to which I belong with other mothers of kids HR's age (sometimes this community is hugely helpful and supportive, but more often it's stressful and confounding, so I take everything with a grain of salt) and I remember reading a post by someone who wanted to know who was off the bottle, etc., and one mother said she firmly refused to give her one-year-old a bottle, reasoning that when he was thirsty enough he'd take a cup. And after screaming for his bottle for three nights and dehydrating, he finally came around to the cup and it was worth it. That seemed so drastic to me, and so arbitrary. I mean yeah, there are lots of good reasons a baby shouldn't be on a bottle forever, but if it gets to where your kid makes himself sick in the process of forcing him, I just don't see the point. To me that's where the need to control gets unrealistic and unhealthy. That said, it's what worked for their family. It's just not my style. (Passive aggressive award of the day for those few sentences.) I did appreciate many other mothers weighing in saying that they weren't too concerned about rushing the process.

Anyway, as The Wolf says in Pulp Fiction, "Let's not start sucking each other's dicks just yet." It's only been one night, and he could take a totally different tack this one. But dudes, even if we're not 100% all the way there, we're 99% closer than we were yesterday. And I'm such a dummy that even though I'm thrilled, I find it bittersweet.

Have we talked about Happy Endings and how great this show is? I'm fairly new to it, but every episode is like a valentine to me. The cast is gold, and if I could pick any show in the world for which to be a writer in my fantasy comedy-writer life, this is the one. That translates to personal high praise. In the season finale last week, a wedding band covered "Like a Prayer" and though I realize I've never been all that big on Madonna, that is a fantastic song that I never appreciated until way after its heyday.

So here's the Mandonna version (incidentally, Adam Pally where have you been before now?)



And the original, for posterity. And because it has aged beautifully.