Finally. . . .

I've told anyone who will listen that I don't think my babies will ever hold their own bottles. They have never shown any interest in it at all. Whenever we'd feed them and would put their hands on the bottle, their arms would go limp. If I ever let go of the bottle, they looked at me as if to say, "We're the babies, you're the mommy, you hold the bottles." We finally gave up on the babies ever holding their own bottles.

This past week, Brooke and I decided that Piper and Henry are doing well enough with their sippy cups of water that they should try to take their formula in sippy cups instead of bottles. The plan was to get Piper and Henry taking formula in their sippy cups while working with Rosemary to improve her sippy cup skills. Rosemary is not very good at the sippy cup yet, mostly because she refuses to hold it herself. Even this morning she reached for her sippy cup and I handed it to her, and she dropped it. Then I put it in her mouth, put her hands on the cup, then let go. The cup promptly fell to the floor and I got that disapproving look -- the one that says I am not doing things right. So, either Rosemary has not even considered holding her sippy cup herself, or she is training me instead of the other way around.

Initially, as to the transition to sippy cups, we favored a "cold turkey" approach. Well, that failed miserably. Although she enjoys her water in the sippy cup, Piper is nothing short of insulted when her formula is given to her in a sippy cup. Occasionally she tries formula in the sippy cup, but usually as soon as she sees it she bursts into tears and waves her arms so that she was knocks the sippy cup away. Henry doesn't seem to mind the sippy cup that much, but it is harder work and he gives up at some point and has to finish his formula with a bottle. Now we have a new plan: Piper and Henry get sippy cups in the morning only. Once they master that, we'll replace another bottle with a sippy cup.

In addition to sippy cup transition, we've had an exciting week. Wednesday afternoon, Brooke called me at work to let me know that we have water standing in our bedroom. Not good. I then do all I know to do in this situation, which is to call Gary at work. Gary promptly left work to see what was going on. When Gary got home, he pulled back the carpet and figured out that the water was coming from a wall in our bedroom. Then Gary turned off the water at the street and called a plumber to come out to the house. That plumber tore a hole in our wall, then told us that it looks like a hot water pipe burst in our slab and that we needed a "specialist" to identify exactly where the pipe burst, because he can only see where the water is coming out. Luckily, that plumber set things up so that our cold water worked and we were just without hot water. The specialist came out on Thursday and spent 6 hours trying to find the leak and couldn't find it. Finally, yesterday, the specialist found the leak, "excavated" through the slab in our bedroom, and repaired the burst pipe. We do have a one-foot hole in our bedroom, but if we don't have any more water issues between now and Monday, that hole will be filled on Monday with more concrete. Then we just need someone to fix the carpet and fix the hole in the wall.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to say that at least ONE thing has worked out well this week. . . .



That's right -- all of the sudden the babies are holding their own bottles! With all of the excitement going on at the house, on Thursday Brooke had to feed the babies in the nursery (which is upstairs) rather than downstairs with the repair work going on. She used bottles instead of sippies, and the babies actually held their own bottles!!! Brooke said that we just had to scare them into it with the sippy cups! I think she could be right. . . . Now Piper and Henry get sippy cups in the morning while Rosemary is fed her bottle, and the babies hold their own bottles for the rest of the feedings.