Bye Bye Bottle

Georgie no longer has a bottle at all.

Since he was about 11 months old, he has only had one bottle a day, right before he went to bed. He has been drinking out of a sippy cup at all other times. Lately, he has been ditching the sippy cup for "big-boy" cups - namely, Henry's cups that have a straw sticking out. A few nights ago, he pushed his bedtime bottle away. I thought it was just a one-time thing. The next night, ditto. So the next night I let him take a few sips of milk at bedtime out of the big-boy straw cup, and he slept just fine, no problem. Same with the next night. So it's really over now, the bottle era, and I packed the rest of them up in the big Rubbermaid container in the basement and felt a little bit sad. Not that I want him toting a bottle around forever, but there was just something sweet and relaxing about holding him before he went to bed and feeding him a bottle, his eyes getting droopy with sleep and looking so peaceful. I'll miss that.

Anyway, onto other things. Our plans have changed as far as getting out to Wisconsin. Originally, I was going to fly out with Georgie on the 15th, while Mike and Hank drove out. Facing the prospect of being in airplanes and airports for 12+ hours on that day, and then needing to take a take a shuttle from the Minneapolis airport to my hotel in Minneapolis late at night, then getting on another shuttle the next day to get back to the airport to get on another shuttle to get to Eau Claire, and then somehow getting to the rental car place, staying there by myself for 4 days, etc. I essentially had a mini-nervous breakdown. Even though 4 days in the car (24 total hours of driving, so essentially 6 hours of driving per day) sounds like torture, at least with the car I have a little more control. There is going to be a LOT of family togetherness those 4 days, so I'm prepared for Clark Griswold-like events and mayhem. Cross your fingers for us. But I feel much better about all of us driving out together rather than being apart and dealing with the shaky airline industry right now.