I have a new part-time job.
It’s only about 4 hours a week, give or take a few minutes, based on my efficiency. And the hours are pretty flexible, as long as I get in a minimum of 30 minutes every day. There was a considerable learning curve, but once I understood the technique, things have gotten easier, actually even monotonous.
What is this newfound occupation, you ask?
Sippy cup detail.
I literally spend a good 30 minutes each day unloading sippy cups (and all their 1,000 parts) from the dishwasher, drying said sippy cup parts, assembling sippy cups, disassembling sippy cups, and reloading sippy cup parts into the dishwasher to start the process anew.
Since the girls transitioned to one nap last week, I have incorporated two snacks. Those, plus three meals, plus a nightcap, total TWELVE sippy cups each day.
And of course our girls prefer what has to be the most complex sippy cup construction on the planet. But of course I would have carved sippy cups from gigantic chunks of petroleum-based material, using only my bare hands and a rubber spoon, to get them to wean from the bottle…but (now that they’re fully weaned and I feel like I have the space to complain a little bit) why me???
No one warned me about this…none of the seventeen friends that responded to my Facebook plea, asking which sippy cup they recommended…not one person said, yeah, these are great, but the maintenance and upkeep is a real humdinger!
That leads me to only one conclusion:
My seventeen Facebook friends are letting their kids drink from unclean cups. That, or they won the lottery and are investing the winnings into buying new sippy cups for every meal. (I know, I know, that’s two conclusions…)
But at the end of the day, I’ll gladly work second shift so my girlies can drink from clean sippy cups, the exact sippy cups that make their hearts smile, for each of the TWELVE drinking occasions I’ve somehow created for them.
And while the pay for this part-time venture is not much (that being an overstatement), I’ll borrow a line from that credit card campaign to sum things up…
No more bottles = priceless.
Ticker
17 comments:
I feel your pain. Elliott had some sippy cups that had enough parts that they needed instruction manuals! But a couple of months into the sippy cup era he stopped being too particular about them. So I was able to buy some that didn't have rubber stoppers, straws, etc. in them. Just cup and lid. Much easier to clean. Take heart--maybe they'll mellow out about their cups soon!
I didn't mind the sippy cups too much, since I could always hand wash them in a pinch. But now that my girls use real cups, I realize just how much free space I now have in my dishwasher.
We DEFINITELY drank from unclean sippy cups...those things are impossible!!!!! My youngest is 4, so I still use a few cups with lids, but none involving stoppers or containing itsy-bitsy crevices. I think we bought every, single kind of sippy cup there was...my favorite had just a small stopper that fit into a circle in the lid. Only problem: that stopper fell out ALL THE TIME and left my entire house coated in droplets of milk. You can't win, I tell ya.
Oh, yeah..we drink from unclean sippy cups around here! I fill a cup with milk in the morning, they drink on it for an hour or so until we leave, then I put what is left back in the fridge for the evening. If it's a day we are home all day, I let them carry a cup of water around and just refill it all day. I'd go crazy trying to wash and refill them all the time!
I do have the problem Sara D. mentioned...little drops of milk everywhere. I'm thinking we made the right decision in not replacing our carpet yet!
Tee he! The joys of it all. I use ones without valves from Tupperware. Easy clean. You just have to watch out for random spills!
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Ahhhh, soooo funny!!! I am enjoying your blog and your girls are ADORABLE!!! I can't believe you go through 12 cups a day. I fill 4 with milk in the morning, clean 3 and put them in the dishwasher, clean the 4th and put it in the fridge with water. They share that cup the rest of the day... Kudos to you!! If you are this on top of cups you must be doing GREAT at everything else as well!!! Well done!
I love the blogs of moms with slightly older kids, but sometimes they are a bit scary!
Thanks for the heads up, the girls will just have to make due with the simplest cups I can find! We're sitting at 6 but still use bottle predominantly. How do you know which ones they like? And what if they like different types? Oh this is too much to ponder this late!
Hi, I'm Megan. And my kids TOTALLY drank from unclean sippy cups. ;-)
I'm a rinser and refiller - guilty as charged.
we are just starting the sippy cup journey. and we totally use unclean ones, lol.
which ones did you end up going with???
Yeah, I usually start out the day with 4 cups - 2 with milk and 2 with watered down juice. That is all the juice they get in a day, so when the juice is gone, those cups go in the dishwasher. The milk cups only come out for meals and then go straight back in the refrigerator. We keep refilling them throughout the day. It is still a ridiculous amount of work!
Yea, I totally "rinse" too. ;) At the end of the day I wash everything really good. If I have a little extra time, I wash, rinse, put them all back together...but sometimes, I'm like okay, you want juice, rinse, rinse, here you go! ;)
Mandy what do you use to clean the sippy cups? It's so hard to get into the crevices.
Any suggestions?
Gosh, who knew???
I also get scared by mothers of older multiples. Mommy Esq said to me once "just you wait. the food battles get worse" and I can't imagine.
Hmmm, we only have 6 sippy cups total and I MAY buy more when they transition properly. At the moment they have 3 milk bottles each a day (the one after lunch is a sippy cup), water and some juice or rooibos tea (a South African thing??).
Every night after I put them to bed I POUR milk (I save so much time now since they're done with the formula) into 4 bottles and 2 sippy cups. They have water from another set - we use those same water ones the whole day unless they get grubby from peanut butter hands (Connor). Juice or tea - when it's done that's it - in the wash. Milk ones too - when done, in the wash.
I have a thing about milk - studied microbiology so I know how those germs multiply....
P.S. Mandy, I can't seem to comment from my work computer (where I do most of my blog visiting)- if possible, can you select the first option under comments and it will fix it?
Otherwise, no worries!
We use the Take and Toss sippy cups with straws (no valve) and my kids get one a day. They use the same cup for every meal and snack, and I just refrigerate and refill throughout the day. I never thought of it as being unclean (hee hee hee). I do use the cups with a valve if we're taking cups of milk to go (which is done very rarely). I hate cleaning them, and so I'm very, very impressed that you've kept up with the cleaning required to have clean sippy cups presented to your girls all day long. :o)
I re-purposed my bottle dishwasher basket (Circo, I think,) for sippy cup parts. My girls got a flip-lid cup for water, and used it all day. They got clean cups per serving of milk. That came out to 8 cups a day, altogether.
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