Choosing battles

There are some wars I'm just not willing to wage with my children. If Charlotte wants to wear mismatched socks pulled up to her knees with Dora slippers on to the store, whatever. She's expressing herself and as long as she's safe, who am I to quell her independence?

She has a very distinct bedtime routine. I mean, if you forget something or put something out of place, she flips her shit. Thankfully, it's the only time she's so anal and I think it has to do with her needing to control to feel safe, especially once she gave up her pacifier. So, I give her that.

She took her "bippy" till she was almost three. Though I didn't want it to affect her teeth, part of me didn't care. It made her feel safe. It was her comfort. After she turned 20 months or so, I made her keep it in her bed and she could only use it for naptime and bedtime. And occasionally in the car, mostly because I wanted to plug her whine-hole while trapped in a moving vehicle.

Sawyer never took a pacifier. Ok, I lie. He took it for like the first four months or so, until he got his first cold. He was too stuffy to suck on it for a couple of nights, and after that he would spit it out or chomp on it but never suck it. Mike and I took it as a sign to throw away all remaining bippies and save ourselves the agony of going through what we went through with Charlotte (who willingly gave them up, never asking for them, but created a months-long battle of getting out of her bed repeatedly that damn near drove me over the edge of the precipice I call my sanity).

He has a bunch of silky blankets and stuffed animals he likes to sleep with, but has no real preference. Any one will do, which is great. His vice? His bottle.

I'm sure you've seen me on Twitter lamenting about how I'm sure he'll be 35 and still carry a BPA-free "bot" in his briefcase. He still takes THREE-FOUR bottles a day. I've been able to eliminate the morning one since he finally sleeps till 7 and then we just get up and have breakfast. He still takes two naps, and before each one he takes a bottle. And then the obligatory one before bedtime.

As soon as he gets tired or when he's scared or upset, he cries, "Bot! Bot! Bot!" For instance, when I bring him to the gym daycare, he immediately starts crying because he's a momma's boy and doesn't like when I leave a room. I hand him a bottle and he plugs up and walks over and starts playing. If I'm at the supermarket and he starts acting up or whining because I won't let him squish my bread or pull things off the shelves, I give him his bottle and he calms down. It's his soother. It calms him.

I just can't bring myself to take it away.

I remember when Charlotte was his age, she was already off the bottle, drinking her milk in a cup. I'd see older babies with bottles and smugly be proud of my awesome parenting skills. Oh, how I'd love to punch my past self squarely in the throat.

We've tried to put milk in his sippy cup, but he won't drink it. He'll literally throw it on the ground. He loves his sippies and has been taking them since he was 7 months old. But he wants his water/juice (due to constipation issues - most likely due to the crazy amount of dairy he intakes - he also drinks like 2-3 full sippies a day of watered-down apple juice) in his sippy cup and his milk in his "bot." Nothing else will do. Juice in a bottle? Milk in a cup? BLASPHEMER. He won't do it.

So for now, it's a battle I'm not willing to fight. We're going to Disney in a couple of weeks. He'll be on a plane for the first time, staying in a strange hotel, skipping naps, etc. He needs his bottle to get through that. Hell, WE need his bottle to get through that.

Then when we get back we'll try to get him down to only his nighttime bottle. Baby steps, right? Sometimes I get comments. Some are good - like the daycare lady at the gym. She says "Oh heck, my last daughter took a bottle till she was three!!" or his dayhome provider, "he's still a baby." Some are not good, like the old lady in the supermarket, "My, isn't he a big boy to have a bottle?" SUCK IT, GRANNY.

He IS still a baby. And for now, I can't bring myself to take away something that soothes him, calms him down, and quite frankly, shut his hole.

(This is where you comment and tell me YOUR kid took a bottle to college. Or give me some magic trick to get him to drink milk from a cup after vacation.)