Giving up the bottle

We all have addictions, right?  We all have things that we do without thinking, use as a source of comfort, or accept without fail.  For my youngest young'un, the bottle does not fall into any of these categories.  (As I'm writing this, I hear that she is also waking up after a short, short afternoon nap.  And, she had very little morning napping.  Frustration.)

OK, so Audrey won't take a bottle anymore.  To say that she used to take a bottle is even something of a misnomer given that her agreement to use the milk nanny was somewhat hit-and-miss.  When you have two kids, then the second one gets the shaft sometimes.  For Audrey, we didn't try nearly hard enough to have her wholly comfortable with the bottle.  It was (take your choice here on any given night) too much effort, too much clean-up, too time consuming.  And then we made the choices that we did and it was decided that she wasn't going to a sitter come 6 months, so the bottle usage plummeted even more.  Again, pick any of a number of reasons why. 

Bottles are super duper fabulous when you need to be away from the kid for whatever reason, like returning to some semblance of having adult responsibilities.  But having a kid who won't take a bottle also removes you from those same aforementioned responsibilities pretty easily.  What, you want me to lead the meeting tonight?  Sorry...I have a kid who won't take a bottle, so we'll have to be done by 7:45.  (True story.)

But this past weekend was the final drop of wasted milk.  (Once you start a bottle with a baby, you can't save the rest for later.  Whatever is left is wasted...annoying when they only drink one ounce of milk that you fought hard to put in that bottle in the first place.)  A few months ago, two of my sisters-in-law and I made a date for this past Sunday to have a girls' day in Indy.  I'm the only one who has kids, currently, so having a kids-free day was mostly the cherry on top of my sundae.  But Audrey won't take a bottle.  Who wants to guess the outcome of who went shopping and who didn't stay at home with daddy?

So I decided that the bottles and corresponding paraphernalia were wasting too much pantry space.  They're gone.  Relegated to the closet where they will likely remain until someone else has a baby and I can pass them on or else hawk them at a garage sale.  Weaning makes me a little sentimental and weepy but doing away with the thought of bottles?  Not.  So.  Much.

On the other hand, someone small has developed a mighty big tendency to chomp come milking time.  It's not biting so much as an incredible first bite/latch.  Oh the tenderness...I knew thee well and begrudgingly acknowledge thee again.  It's a good thing I don't often throw things away, like half-used containers of Lansinoh...

(What, is this everyone-under-the-age-of-five-wake-up-early day?  Good grief.)