Sippy Cups Anonymous

There are a few stages that all parents go through with their kids- usually at about the same time. One being The Sippy Cup.  This magical transition from bottle to cup, baby to toddler, a milestone to be recorded in the baby book and calls placed to all your family and friends touting your BIG KID'S accomplishment! (Unless of course it's kid # 3 or #4- in which case it's just a blip on your radar.)

The ONLY sippy cup I want in my house

 My oldest and middle kids both graduated to sippy cups between 1.5 and 3 (YES THREE..SHUT UP!). Teenzilla had a harder time than The Oldest, she was  is a very stubborn little girl.  The Oldest- he did pretty well giving his bottle up- a few tears, some back sliding when Nana would give in- but he was done with the bottle right at 2 years old- big round of applause for me! ( just kidding- really) Now Teenzilla- that was a nightmare. We did the water only in the bottle and what she really wanted to drink in the sippy- which she promptly responded to by hurling the cup as hard as she could. We let her cry it out - and she could cryandcryandcryandcry- her will was MUCH  

stronger than mine. She was well over 2 years old before she was completely "bottle broke" GASP! 

 Nowadays if you don't have your baby off a bottle, drinking from a sippy and feeding themselves BEFORE 2 years old- you are a horrible parent and you are destroying your child's teeth, creating speech problems and attachment issues.  I personally think that's all a load of bullshit- but that's me. 

Now there is The Boy. He is 9. He will be 10 in July. And he still drinks from a sippy cup. Oh- I could blame it all on the autism, I could say he has a hard time drinking from a regular cup ( he kind of does- he prefers straws all the time) but really - it is all about the meds he takes.  He started taking medication to help him sleep at 3 years old. Because up until then HE DIDN'T SLEEP.  So after the autism diagnosis- he was prescribed Clonidine - or rather it's generic equivalent- Catapres- which put him to sleep.

Initially we would crush it up and feed it to him in pudding. Then he started giving foods up he used to love, pudding being one of them, and caught on to us trying to feed him the crushed up meds in anything else. He quickly wised up to the "It's sprinkles" lie. So then- because we had liked  being able to sleep again- we decided to crush it to a fine powder and put it in juice. In a sippy cup. Yes, at night. Because- along with the bottle I finally got rid of at 3 years old, he also gave up drinking milk. No chocolate milk, no soy milk....no milk at all.  So watered down apple juice it was. 

Yup- this looks like ours

And now-even though The Mister swears he knows he takes medication-he gets a sippy cup with juice in the morning for the ADHD meds, and one at night for the Catapres.  We have had the same 2 Spongebob sippy cups for about 4 years now- and I refuse to buy more.  But until he can either A) Swallow a pill or B) Be persuaded to take the meds  crushed up in ice cream or something he likes I feel we are stuck.  

My biggest fear is that one of his classmates will find out about it. That is NOT the way I want him to give it up.  My heart is pre-broken just thinking about that disaster.   Now I need MY sippy cup....