No Fail

I've blogged before about my husband and I taking a learn-as-we-go approach to parenting. Before having kids we never really talked about how we would raise them (other than the fun things we looked forward to doing with them one day) and were the first on both sides of our immediate families to have them. We of course know we've always got our parents advice, our pediatrician/24-hr. on-call dr.'s to consult, great group of mom friends, as well the handy dandy Internet, but there's been a few times now (guess a few times in two years isn't that bad!) that I've proclaimed out loud "how come I didn't know that?" 

Today was one of those times. 

Lately my 7 month old has been going after my toddler's cups. I couldn't remember off the top of my head when we started our oldest on cups (we bypassed bottles completely with him), so I decided to google it. That's when I came across this article called Sippy Cup Syndrome. It's a short read, so you really should click on it. I was surprised to learn that sippy cups are intended as transitional cups as I guess I just thought all kids cups were treated equally as long as they were: BPA-free  and SPILL PROOF. Thankfully our oldest son also frequently uses straw cups (for water), regular cups (at mealtimes), so sippy cups were just we did for milk and juice (only do juice on rare occasions!) at snack times. Knowing what we now know we will be eliminating sippy cups for Benjamin all together (pretty sure he's not going to care) and try out these straw cups for Grant in a couple of months. Phew, glad that dilemma is solved! Almost...is it ok for us to share straw cups between both boys? Also, when is it time to throw out a cup? I ask both because I worry about bacteria, germs, etc.

Hmmm...now what does the above image of cookies have to do with sippy cups you wonder? It's my no fail method to feeling accomplished with the day no matter what kind motherhood worry, guilt, or doubt has crept in. So, so what if we extended our son's usage of sippy cups a bit past their intended time or we just recently learned the benefits of self-soothe? To quote Henry David Thoreau, "Every child begins the world again" and today when our 7-month old started to clap on his own, I thought okay, we may not know everything but even so our kids are still pretty spectacular. And I must say that realization was even better than a plate of my homemade chocolate-chip cookies.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, here's a list of the other times I've felt down right baffled as a mom:

• Fevers (turns out most of the time they're ok and medicine doesn't cure them, just helps with the pain)
• Shoe shopping (click here for some really good tips)
• Teeth/toothpaste/pediatric dentist (already did a whole post on this one!)