daily update

I'm guessing that between two toddlers I'll have new things report daily.  That's the case again today, at least.  W has learned how to kick the ball.  He walks/kicks the ball around the room and looks fascinated at how he can move it.  He also fell in love with my water bottle that I take to work.  I left it out within his reach on the couch when I came home from work last night and he grabbed it.  And he claimed ownership of it all evening (G tried a few times to take it, but was completely rebuffed).  On top of that, Grandma asked him at one point, "Is that your water bottle?" and he looked at her confused, like "This isn't a BOTTLE!".  Such a smart boy - he knows his bottle!

Which brings me to the conundrum of bottles.  How to help the boys say goodbye to them, at what pace?  Jerry says they were able to drink 3 of the 6 ounces of morning milk from the cup before they "demanded" a bottle yesterday.  (It was a morning that they weren't awake yet before I left for work, so I didn't get to participate in this).  I'm not sure what that looks like, especially if the bottles are out of sight.  Maybe an all-out refusal to drink what was left in their cups?  If so, maybe instead of giving the bottle option, we need to just take the cups away and when they want milk again, give them the cups.  But I'd think Jerry probably already thought of that, did that, and they refused the cups multiple times and he knew they needed milk.  Well, we'll see.  I guess they do typically drink milk from cups during their mid-day milk break from Grandma.  The evening bottle is supposed to be the last to go, so I'm still giving bottles.  Now, not that I can't have a similar experience with cups, but last night was precious: I snuggled with both boys in the rocking chair on my lap at the same time in the darkness of their room while they drank their bedtime bottles.  Such a sweet time.  Jerry even ran to get the camera, but it wasn't charged, so he missed documenting the moment.  Instead, I tried to be really mindful of what it felt like, smelled like, sounded like, looked like - to create a real memory of the moment.  That's a subject I'd like to expand on in a future post, actually: the way the boys' first year is such a blur in my memory.  I feel sad about not being able to exactly remember how they felt as babies.  But, I do have lots of video and watching it now & then helps with that.