A Toddler Can Drink a Third of a Cup of Juice For Infinity

If you have the means, I greatly appreciate your support! Upgrade at 30% offIn the battle between parent and baby, the baby always wins. Today, I found myself reflecting on sippy cups and I started to laugh.My girls are now both over 10, but every now and then I have a fond flashback to back when they were little bundles of joy……little bundles of joy who could fling a sippy cup with the velocity of a major league baseball pitcher.However, you could never catch them in the act. You never saw the wind-up or the pitch. The only evidence was the destructive consequences.A parent’s life is filled with moments when you set a sippy cup on a tray, turn to get something out of the cupboard, then hit the deck as you catch a blur of motion in your peripheral vision followed by an explosion of sound.“What the heck!” you scream, as the sippy cup slams into the refrigerator door with enough force to knock all the alphabet magnets onto the floor.You look at the innocent, cherubic face of your sweet little darling.She smiles back up at you. Your brain fails to assemble these events into anything that makes sense.You sigh and think, “I’m probably just tired.”This kind of thing happens a lot.When you have kids, you go through an era of inevitability. I think the hardest time comes when you try to transition your kids from sippy cups to regular cups.I mean open cups…I mean cups that are going to spill.“I don’t want a sippy cup.”“Fine, here’s this.”Two seconds later…“Daddy! I spilled!”SighhhhhhhhRemember how when you first got a cell phone you kept losing it all the time? Maybe you don’t, but I assure you it happened. You see, it takes a little while to subconsciously train yourself how to behave.I haven’t lost my phone in years.You’d be surprised at how much of life gets done without actually paying attention. The trick is getting to the point where you can do your job on auto-pilot. Go watch an electrician put in outlets sometime. He doesn’t even think about it. He just twists the wires together perfectly and can finish thirty before you can even do one.The difference between him and you is that you’re thinking about it. Shame on you. Thinking is inefficient.The trick is that putting the tools back in their place is part of the conditioning. Everything is always where he needs it exactly when he needs it. I bet he never spills his sippy cup!When you first give your child an open glass of juice or milk, it’s getting spilled.100% guaranteed.The kid doesn’t know that she can’t set a glass down on an uneven surface. You only know that because your subconscious mind got sick of cleaning up messes and decided to take matters into its own hands.Your baby doesn’t have that conditioning. She’ll put half her cup on the edge of her tray, then get distracted by the dog, and the next thing you know…“Daddy! I spilled!”And it always happens when you’re exhausted!You’ve had a hard day at work. That co-worker who seems dead set on spreading malicious rumors about you was on her very worst behavior. You have a million emails from people who seem to think everything wrong with their life is YOUR fault.All you want to do is sit down and eat something. That’s all you need! Just a few seconds to sit and catch your breath and maybe have a sip of wine and…“DADDY! I SPILLED AGAIN!”“GNAAAAAAAAA!”The funny part is that you completely surrender to this. You get so that even as you reach into the fridge to get the milk, you know it’s going to spill. Even as you take the glass and pour the milk into it, you know you’re going to be mopping it up off the floor.You feel a momentary surge of sympathy for the cow.“Sorry buddy, this milk of yours is going on the floor and there’s nothing I can do about it.”Then…“Here honey, now be very careful and don’t…”“Oops!”You and the baby share a moment where you both look down at the expanding circle of milk on the floor. You’re too beaten and broken to even cry about it. The baby is pointing down at the mess with her chubby little finger as if to say, “Look! A mess!”“Yes honey, I see the mess.”You can’t win this game.You might think to yourself, “Oh, I’ll just serve her a little bit less! That way the mess won’t be as big.”Let me tell you how that’s going to go.You serve your baby one-third of a glass of juice.She picks it up and instantly finishes it. Then she holds up the glass in the universal sign that she needs a refill.“Fine!” you think, and you give her another third of a glass.She slams that one too and asks for more.You’d think this would stop after three times, but it doesn’t. Let me tell you a weird little secret about babies: they can drink a third of a glass of juice for INFINITY!You will go broke trying to serve your baby a third of a glass of anything. They just pick it up, slam it, and ask for more.And the funny part is that you’ll always fall for this. No matter how many-thirds of a glass you’ve given them, at some point, you WILL serve them two-thirds of a glass.You’ll think, “Fine! She must really be thirsty. I’ll fill ‘er up!”And that’s what finally breaks the spell. Your baby will take the full glass, take the tiniest of sips, and then push it away. Half the time the glass topples over right then. The other half of the time it topples exactly 26 seconds later when the baby gets distracted by something and accidentally knocks it over.I’m telling you, this is the way it is. You can’t escape it. Greater minds than yours have tried. This is what it means to be a parent.Some of you are thinking, “This can’t possibly be true.”The only people who are thinking that aren’t parents.The parents out there are nodding along going, “I, too, was broken on that wheel.”Eventually, you just accept that you have to clean up spills. You become resigned to it. You might even find yourself filling up a glass and then dumping it on the floor when your kids aren’t even around.Cut out the middleman. That counts as “efficiency” when you’re a parent.And then, one day, your kids grow up and they don’t spill things anymore.Here’s the weirdest part.You find yourself missing those days.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI'm so happy you're here, and I'm looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe