My son calls milk, "nook." We call it milk, or rather we call it milk some of the time, the rest of the time we've adopted his mispronunciation even though we probably should be encouraging him to say milk. We're in the middle of another "milk evolution" here at the house. It's one of those transition items that keeps transitioning to the next stage as the children get older.
First, you have nothing but nursing going on. That milk is, by virtue of its source, warm. The first transition we went through was to move to formula. Getting them to suck from a bottle is fairly easy and as long as you make the formula fairly warm, they don't mind.
The next transition is to remove formula and replace it with milk. And that's one of those "sneak it in gradually so they don't balk" situations. One-hundred percent formula goes to seventy-five percent formula with twenty-five percent milk and so on until they don't realize the formula has been eliminated.
Then there are the bottles. At about a year, they really don't need a bottle any more. The child has the manual dexterity to hold a sippy cup and drink from it. But which nozzel-type thing is the best way to go? My two children have their preferences. There are also the tippy sippy cups and the slurpie sippie cups. The tippy ones you have to hold up and tip so that the liquid will flow into your mouth. The slurpie sippie cups have a straw that goes to the bottom, so tipping that type up only gets you air. The children have to figure out which one you've given them this time, and adjust their drinking habits accordingly. Oh, and not get annoyed at you for giving them the type of cup they dislike. Unless that's what you intended to do, because they need to be beverage-flexible--so cry it up, you'll figure it out eventually, kid.
Did I mention temperature before? How the milk starts off warm and you have to work at it to get a child accustomed to that nice, cold drink of milk because they pretty much think cold milk is something to be thrown on the floor with big tears and a tantrum when you first try it. So you have two choices: first, you make it a bit less warm over time (say ten seconds less in the microwave every week) and eventually they adjust. Or, you can add chocolate powder or syrup or blend regular milk with chocolate milk and it becomes a different drink--a different drink they don't mind being cold like they don't mind their juice or water being cold.
There is also the nightcap situation to contend with in our house. The "last thing I consume before going to bed that my parents love because it causes me to drop off to sleep instantly when I'm done" milk. We've been working on getting this one out of our routine for a while now. My son, who has been drinking bedtime "nook" for almost a year longer, is having more of an issue. He runs out of the bedroom with his bedtime clothes on yelling "nook, nook!" He knows where to look for the milk and he can even reach up on the edge of the counter looking for it.
And lastly, there's the re-introduction of milk at other times of the day. If you're getting a large bottle or cup of milk at the end of the day, you're getting a good quantity of that bone-building calcium and milky goodness just before bed. If that final drink is removed, do you reintroduce it at another point in the day? We're working on adding milk, preferably cold, to breakfast again.
So at this point where do we stand and how much further do we have to go? Bottles? Gone. Warmed milk? Gone. Chocolate added to the milk in lieu of warming it as a sneaky parental trick? Done only for my son now. Milk at bedtime? My son still needs his nighttime "nook" but gets less than he used to. Implementation of milk at breakfast? In progress. Interestingly enough, they associate juice with breakfast now so we've got another transition to go it seems. But hey, no more bottles in this house!
The Big Boy Update: Socks on? Yesterday morning he was coming down for breakfast and my husband said, "I just left those socks on him from last night." I said, "I didn't put them on him, did you? We don't send him to bed in socks." My husband said he didn't put socks on him either. He can reach the sock drawer, likes to pull out the socks and has been taught to put on his clothes at school. Did he get up in the morning, select and put on socks? It's the only explanation we have.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: "Buh dah bah baby" My friend gave me a bag of hand-me-down toys last night. On the top was a realistic baby doll that had no clothes on. I put her in the chair in the living room to see what would happen this morning. As soon as my daughter walked into the room she said a few babbling syllables that very clearly ended in the word "baby." She picked it up and carried it around rather carefully until it was time for school. She surprises us regularly with words we didn't even know she could say.
Fitness Update: Possible run at one with my neighbor. It seems she may be getting out of clinic early. I'm going to see if she wants to do the art museum to pedestrian bridge route. It's a beautiful run through outdoor art at our nearby art museum and ends with a nice run across a newly built pedestrian bridge over one of the highways.
Someone Once Said: I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
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