"Coffee"

Benjamin loves drinking out of a straw. He also loves to do everything that Mommy and Daddy do. This means that whatever I'm eating, he wants to eat (even if it's the same as what he's got right in front of him--he wants MINE); whatever I drink, he wants to drink. So when I have a cup, he just opens his mouth big and wide and leans in. And when I have something in my cup that I don't want to have, like soda or coffee or booze, and I don't let him drink it, he pitches a fit. The last time we stopped at Starbucks and I got a banana chocolate smoothie, I had to walk behind Matt, who was pushing the stroller, and drink it, because if Ben saw me drinking a smoothie I knew he would want some (I made the mistake of letting him have a sip once). Now, a banana chocolate smoothie would not hurt Ben; it's actually quite healthy. But in that case, I didn't want to share. So I taught him a very important lesson: hiding it. I digress...

Because I'm brilliant, I decided that this time when we went to Starbucks in Barnes and Noble I would get him his own special drink: milk in a coffee cup. Everyone wins. I will get to have my soy peppermint mocha, he will have his milk, we will both drink out of straws: no sharing, no fights over straws, no tantrums in public. It worked...in the sense that he allowed me to drink his drink and he enjoyed his. He enjoyed it so much, in fact, that he would NOT let go. He wandered around the bookstore with his "coffee," sipping from it periodically and turning it upside down to see what happened. And when I tried to take it he grasped it with his vulcan death grip and cried out in horror. When it was time to get in the stroller and go, he allowed me to put it in his cupholder. But then he kept leaning forward and trying to get the straw in his mouth without using his hands. Then he would cry when it didn't work. He screamed all the way home in the car because I was not about to let him have a non-spill proof cup without me being able to grab it before it hit the floor. When we got home I gave it back to him and he once again held it like he would die without it. He held it while I undressed him, and he took it with him into the tub, where he finally plopped it down to see what happened, and I scooped it up before his bath became a milk bath.

At least I didn't have to share my soy peppermint mocha.