To sip or not to sip

When it comes to trying new things, I can be really stubborn. It takes a magical combination of all the right things before I'll give in, but usually once I give in, I'm pretty accommodating. Two examples:

• Taking a bottle. Do you remember how adamant I was about refusing a bottle, back when I was just a baby? Boy, I did NOT want that bottle. While trying to convince me, Mama gave me 3 different kinds of bottles in 5 different shapes and combined them with 4 different kinds of nipples. Eventually she found the perfect combination and I gave in. I would only drink out of that particular combination (the tall skinny 10oz Dr. Brown's bottle with a Nuk nipple) for awhile, but once I was used to it, I was willing to drink out of any bottle with any nipple. So she switched me over to the wide Born Free bottles and we were both happy.
• Drinking formula. That was another, more recent, battle. When I decided to wean myself suddenly, I had no idea that all of the gazillion bags of milk Mama stocked in the freezer had gone bad! I'd cut myself off from the milk-drug cold turkey! Mama had to give me formula for the first time, and I was not very pleased with it. She tried a bunch of different ways to get me to take it, including mixing it into my applesauce, watering it down, giving it to me at various temperatures, in a bottle, sippy cup or regular cup. She tried 4 different brands before she finally found the one I warmed up to (Similac). Once I was used to drinking it, she decided to try mixing in some of the other brands, since she could only buy them in 10 gallon tubs and she didn't want to throw them away. Like before, once the novelty had worn off, I was completely accommodating and I used up every last tub of formula in my 3 weeks of formula-feeding.

My latest stubbornness is around sippy cups. After working so hard to get me to take a bottle and drink something other than the milk-drug out of it, Mama is weaning me from the bottle. Is she never happy? I'm already drinking whole milk instead of formula (that was an easy switch -- have you ever tasted formula?), and I've been drinking it in my bottle for the past couple of weeks. Instead of taking my bottle away from me completely, she first removed all of the regular bottle nipples and put in "trainer" soft spouts instead. And then she switched the soft spouts to firmer spouts. She's trying to be sneaky about her machinations, but does she really think I don't know?

The past week, she tried to completely replace my bottle with a sippy cup instead. Ummm, I don't think so. I'm perfectly willing to drink water out of a sippy cup, but milk? No. So what do you think she did? She went out and got a bunch of different types of sippy cups, offering them to me one at a time. I was determined to refuse them all, but darn it, she found one I like! It's got handles and everything! So now I'm willing to drink milk out of my blue and red Gerber sippy cup. Or out of a regular cup during mealtimes. But that's it.

Awww, who am I trying to kid? Just like with the bottles and formula, once I'm used to drinking out of my Gerber sippy cup, I'll be totally willing to drink out of all of the other ones I have. I know that's why Mama doesn't mind getting a few different kinds for me to try -- she'll have me use them all eventually. I'm so easy.