milk cups

My kids love milk. Love milk. We can easily go through a gallon in 24 hours. I probably buy 12 gallons every 2 weeks (4 gallons at a time-it's all the fridge can hold). They also like to drink it warm. I know, many people think that it's wierd. But, my boys expect warm milk in their milk cups at every meal. Since Marcus was a toddler-7 years ago-I have put their milk in gerber sippy cups. We had 4 cups, 2 green, 1 blue and 1 orange. For Marcus and Cale, the milk went in the green cups and their juice/water went in the colored cups. Then Ewan came along and eventually graduated to having his milk in a sippy cup too. By then, one of the green cups had vanished (it probably broke-I can't remember). With 3 cups and 3 boys, each of the boys got a color-Marcus, green-Cale, blue-Ewan, orange-and have had these colors for the past 3 years. We took out the insert that makes the cups not spill-so no one has to suck the milk out of the cup, they just had to tip the cup back-kind of like a water bottle, a little. Take a look at that first picture. These cups are super-old. You can see multiple teeth marks in the blue one, and all of them have faded from the color they once were.

Tuesday morning, I came home from work to find that one of the sippy cup lids had met up with the heating coil in the dishwasher....

Ewan's cup. He was devastated. Andy could not even convince him to drink his milk out of another cup. That's a big deal when someone doesn't drink their milk.

I was able to swing by Walmart later that morning and get new cups...

I was a little anxious about the color change. 2 orange, a blue and a pink? How would the boys react. An executive decision was made to give Liam the pink cup-he wouldn't care. And, Ewan picked the blue cup as his new one. When it was time for after-dinner milk, I gave Marcus and Cale the choice of keeping their old cup or using one of the new orange ones. They each picked the new ones. And so, we said good-bye to the old cups.

I keep waiting for the day when the older boys start to care that they are drinking milk out of sippy cups. I'm pretty sure there are not that many other kids at their age doing this. But, it's a comfort for them right now so I don't mind. They are my babies, after all. :-)