Change he can't believe in

Zachary is certainly a creature of habit, and at times he will become very displeased if things aren't just so. We've seen this in his choice of books (bedtime has specific favorites; if you offer him a book he doesn't want, the hand sweeps across and pushes it away), the way he wants to play legos (we assemble them, he disassembles -- though lately he's started snapping them together himself), and of course the specific foods that he most enjoys (though again, he does occasionally try something new, even if it's just bringing it to his lips before an outright rejection).

His drinking cups similarly must conform to exacting dimension and delivery requirements; milk in a sippy cup (or if we're feeling adventurous, occasionally in an open air cup), juice in one of these nearly airtight straw/lid cups. (The air-tight seal is a double-edged sword; lately he's been pushing on the springy plastic lid, which forces up juice through the straw and makes a mess. It also doesn't work so well in pressure changes on planes; on the flight home from Florida, the juice cup soaked his shoes and socks, which were sitting alongside it in the seat pocket.) On the occasions where we've forgotten to bring the right cup and try to serve milk in a juice cup or vice versa, he looks at it suspiciously, will occasionally take a sip, shudder, and then hand it back to us while shaking his head.

Incidentally, we've been noticing lately that Zachary will always carefully put his cup on a table or counter top if he's done drinking from it. The other day I found one on the front window sill that he likes to look out of. The converse is also true though; if I'm filling his cup on the counter, he's been starting to make attempts to grab it before I can get the lid on.

Anyway, the straw juice cups are certainly rugged, but they were bound to eventually start to fail after nearly a year of constant use and dishwashing. The straws started to crack, and rather than let the little man get his first taste for plastics, we started to pitch them. When we got down to one last week, I took the little man to the store that allegedly carried them. No dice, though he did have a fun time looking around at everything and checking out things I put into the shopping cart. The next day, we ran to the next-closest store, and again no dice - and then struck out for a third time stopping at a store on the way back from lunch with friends S & J. Of course, this was the moment I noticed the third straw was starting to split.

I finally found some stocked at an online store, and purchased three, feeling mildly silly that I was paying as much for shipping as for the cups themselves. Still, it seems worth it -- today, Meh tried to give him juice in a 'flip straw' cup (exact same brand! exact same cup shape!) we had in the house, and he frustratedly rejected it. He also shook off three other cups, and Meh eventually had to revert to the old on, from which he happily drank his grape juice/water mixture.