Betrayed!

Bye-bye baba.

The pediatrician warned that I had to get Andy completely off bottles by 18 months, otherwise he would grow up to be a lunatic with funky teeth. The pediatrician is very good at making blanket demands without any advice on how to get from point A to point B. When Andy, as a baby, refused to eat his cereals and purees (he basically didn't eat any solids until he was 9 months old), the doctor's wise advice was "Keep trying." As a new parent, this is not what I was looking to hear. Alas, Andy did eventually get the hang of eating, but I wish the doctor had said something like, "Have you tried cheese? This kid looks like he's going to love cheese. Take two tablespoons of Cheez Whiz and call us in the morning." Now that, that would have been some solid doctoring.

The doctor made the bottle proclamation at Andy's fifteen month appointment, when I admitted that he still had two bottles, one in the morning and one before bed time. Perhaps selfishly, I have delayed getting rid of these bottles because I love giving them to Andy, who loves his bottles equally as much. The morning bottle is amazing, because it buys us some cuddle time in which I can doze off for a few minutes. This is how the morning goes:

Andy screams in crib.
I wonder for a moment who's making all that noise.
Oh, right, I have a kid.
Get out of bed, go downstairs.
Pour milk into a bottle.
Screams are increasing in intensity.
Go upstairs, get Andy out of crib.
Screams stop.
Climb back into bed, where Andy settles against me and drinks bottle.
Cuddle with Andy and fall asleep for the best five minutes of the morning.
Get woken back up when Andy hits me in the face with empty bottle.

You can see how this has become a much-loved morning ritual. The day goes on, and there's much activity, cheese consumption, sock removal, et cetera, and then we end up in Andy's bedroom after a long day. He curls up in my lap, his head nestled against my chest, and drinks his bottle while I stare down adoringly at him. This is the quietest, sweetest part of the evening. And this is going to be the most difficult bottle to remove- for both of us.

Today, on a Monday, I took away Andy's morning bottle. It was awful, and I wanted to cry. I woke up before Andy and crept to the kitchen where I optimistically poured his morning milk into a sippy cup and unhooked a banana from a bunch, hoping that the site of his favorite herbaceous plant would make the experience less traumatic. Andy was stirring when I reached the second level, and I went into his bedroom and dialed my demeanor to "cheery." This may have been Andy's first clue that something was wrong.

I lifted Andy out of his crib for a cuddle. The poor bastard started looking around expectantly, and this is when I ceremoniously presented him with his milk cup. "Here's your milk!" I said brightly, as if this lame ass cup was exactly what Andy was looking for. Andy shook his head vehemently, and when I moved the cup closer to him, he shook his head even harder, pushed the cup away, and then looked up at me. Betrayal sparked in his dark eyes, and that's when I showed him the banana. "Look, Andy!" I exclaimed. "Should we have a banana? Isn't this your favorite herbaceous plant?"

Andy was not interested in the banana. I tried again to offer him some milk, and he shoved the cup away again. He looked up at me, imploringly, and inquired, "Baba?"

Shit. This was already going poorly.

"No baba today!" I announced happily. By this point, I was at maximum enthusiasm and feeling very unlike my normal, "glass half empty and filled with motor oil" self. My cheeks ached from the smiling, and I feared that I was permanently altering the shape of my head. "Today we're having the cup. You know the cup! You love the cup!"

Andy replied, "Baba."

"Okay, let's just change our diaper and get dressed!" I said joyously. I don't know why, but I refer to Andy's diaper as "our" diaper, as if I have equal stake in what he creates in there. We accomplished that task, just barely, and then I tried to hand Andy the cup again. "The cup is so freaking awesome!"

This is when the crying started.

For the next twenty minutes, Andy cried and screamed and clawed at me and repeated "baba" in a pained voice while I did my best to finish getting ready and make sure he understood that the cup and banana were still available for his enjoyment. He clung to my legs, demanded to be held, sobbed, and cried his sad cry, the cry that makes my very cells weep individually for my baby boy. I had tears forming in my eyes, too, and part of me was thinking, "Oh, God, just give him a bottle. What's the harm?" But, I suppose, part of being an okay parent is sticking to your guns, and so at long last, we got to the point in the morning where it was time for Andy to go to day care, and we got his coat and shoes on without the poor boy having had even one small sip of milk.

I am telling myself that he was probably fine the second he got to day care. And that tomorrow will be rough, too, but that by the end of this week, Andy may hopefully feel resigned to drinking his morning milk out of a cup, even if this resignation comes with the lingering sense that he's been wronged, and betrayed, by the person he thought he could depend on most in the world. Me.

Perhaps tomorrow I will try a different tactic. Maybe I'll turn down the happy demeanor a tad and act more like my regular, morning "life is worth living, but just barely" self. Maybe I'll offer Andy the cup while snuggling in my bed. There's a reason I didn't do that this morning- I don't want my bed smelling like sour milk after Andy refuses the cup and instead, vindictively, dumps it out onto my comforter. But, perhaps another part of being an okay parent is letting your bed smell like sour milk during the occasional transition week. We make so many sacrifices as parents. And, sometimes, we ask our children to sacrifice as well.

This is for your own good, Andy. I think.