Vivian looks like she might just skip bottles altogether and go from the breast to the cup.
Erin has been at work for over a month, now and fortunately — very fortunately — Vivian has been able to cope with feeding at 8, noon and 5 p.m. This is very fortunate because before Erin headed back to work, we tried to feed Vivian by the bottle, and she had definite ideas about where food should come from. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, and we gave up. But we wondered if she’d accept food by the spoon or even a sippy cup.
Recently, she’s been paying attention to us while we eat, and when we gave her her first cookie crumb, she seemed to like it. We’ve bought rice cereal and have tried a few spoonfuls successfully. We’ll soon be introducing solids more formally.
But today, while sitting in a Starbucks and having icewater, we noticed Vivian reaching for the cup. And on a whim, we tried handing it to her (carefully holding it so she didn’t spill icewater on herself). And darned if she didn’t deliberately tip the thing directly to her lips and try sucking.
Her motor control still has to develop. A normal cup would result in a wet and squalling baby, but I was still impressed. And she seemed to enjoy the sippy-cup of water we tried on her later that night.
After rolling over a few weeks ago, Vivian hasn’t shown much interest in being on her stomach. She is, however, developing an ability to take weight on her legs, so we’re wondering if it’s possible that she might skip crawling and go straight to toddling…
…And then nothing will be safe! :-)
So this weekend represents the third anniversary of the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq. A quick check suggests to me that things are still a mess. It’s nice having Saddam Hussein in jail and all, but with the country tipping towards civil war, calling this operation a success is an example of mindless jingoism.
But I won’t say much more than that. The arguments have been restated ad nauseum. If you want a summation of my thoughts on the invasion, I recommend looking back on this post from January 2005. As for what to do with the Middle East quagmire, my recommendations are here and here.