Changes

Despite the usually early hour (6:30ish), Harrison's morning feedings on weekends are a treat. We bring him into our bed and snooze and cuddle while he lies on pillows between us, drinking his milk. He usually takes a break midway through the bottle and roams around the bed, attacking and snuggling, head butting and kissing, burying his face into pillows, getting off the bed, getting back up, throwing things between the headboard and the wall, and fishing them out again. After a bit, he finishes his bottle and then the bed-roaming continues.

Yesterday, after Harrison's morning feeding, Doug and I made the long-procrastinated move to retire all of Harrison's bottles. It's something we had been moving toward for a few months. At daycare, he's on the cup full time, and at home, for juice and water, but we were still giving him his morning and nighttime milk from his avent bottle with the nipple attachment.

The bottle is one of the last remaining baby vestiges, and I've been reluctant to let it go. It's the only time I can get Harrison to snuggle and sit (relatively) still. Doug feeds him every weekday morning, so I get the bedtime feeding and always look forward to that quiet time. We snuggle into the nursery chair and read bedtime stories while Harrison lazily sucks. He's able to hold the bottle with one hand and the other he uses to run his fingers through his own hair and point (grunting) at the book stack when the current book ends.

Anyway, yesterday during Harrison's nap, I put away all of the bottles and nipples. Doug suggested we keep a few out, but I felt that we needed to quit cold turkey. Harrison is fully capable of drinking from the cup, so it's not like he would starve, and I knew that because I am not eager to come to terms with the fact that Harrison is no longer a baby, if we kept any out it would be too easy for me to regress to the bottle. So they're all away, and Harrison is not pleased.

Every night after I get Harrison dressed in the living room after his bath, he gets down off my lap and walks into his room and picks up his bottle which Doug has set on the window seat cushion. Last night, he looked from Doug to me to the sippy cup that was there instead, pointed at it, made a questioning noise, and then decided that rather than eat, he'd like to play with the fan.

This morning, Doug reports that he flew into a rage at being presented with the cup.

I guess change is hard for everyone.