Got Milk?

Part of motherhood is the fact that you can't remember anything: your short term memory is shot, you leave the house without essentials, you forget why you drove to the grocery store, you leave your wallet at home, etc. My sister calls it "momnesia". I have left the house on more than one occasion without the diaper bag. I have left the house with the diaper bag but without anything useful in it. I have left the house without - brace yourself - the sippy cup! Luckily, on these particular occasions there was milk available for my thirsty little one, but it required a little creative engineering to concoct a way for him to drink it. We've punctured a hole in the cap of a water bottle that we filled with milk and Peyton just sipped the milk through the hole. We've also dipped a straw in a cup of milk, covered the top with our finger, and transferred the straw quickly to Peyton's mouth and let it drip inside. I had no idea that there were so many creative ways to deliver milk to a child.
Tonight I thought ahead. I brought the sippy cup. We were going out to run errands and thought it would be wise to bring a sippy cup with water in it. I didn't actually realize that we would be out for such a long time, but it was getting to be around dinner time and we decided to stop in Moe's for dinner. I learned something very important tonight - not everyplace has milk. And let me tell you that that was not ok with Peyton. He drinks milk with each of his meals, and I guess I hadn't realized what an important part of his meal this actually was. We sat down to eat dinner, he ate a few bites and then he started signing "milk". I gave him his sippy cup of water and what I got in response was "Whhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!", which I translated to mean, "What are you, nuts? You think I"m going to drink water during dinner? HA! I WANT MILK!" And then he threw the sippy cup on the floor and pitched a fit through the rest of our meal.

Lesson No. 546: Make sure you have milk in the sippy cup at dinner time. Pack it in an ice chest if you have to tote it around. Or call ahead to any restaurant that you are considering to ensure that they have milk on their menu. At the very least, don't actually order a meal and sit down at a restaurant that doesn't have milk. Leave to find a more respectable eating establishment.