After year and change of being on my own, I must say that I've
finally found some stability in my life.
It was a long hard road that had a lot of ups and downs and varying
degrees of frustration, sadness and quite a bit of madness. But I believe that to be all behind me now
because…
…I feel like I have my cup situation resolved.
You see, when I moved in, I had plenty of cups and glasses
for myself. I decided to go all pint glass
for my container of choice yet I still had a few tumblers, wine glasses and
full size plastic cups. But for my young
daughters, who are over here weekly, I had next to nothing.
Oh sure, I had four or five of those small, cheap plastic
cups you get when you order a kid’s meal at most restaurants. You know the ones with their own lid and
plastic straw? The plastic straw that
usually ends up being the one thing chewed most at said restaurant? I mean, what’s up with that, kids? You had your choice of chicken fingers, mac
and cheese, or a corn dog where you eat only three bites but chew away on
that straw like it was made of candy.
Then you pronounce you are full? How
is that possible? Wait. IS that straw made of candy?
Even if it were was and you were full, how do you have room
for ice cream or some sort of dessert? I
don’t buy it and I’m onto your ways, daughters.
Don’t think I’m not…also, don’t think I have any notion that I can control any of it either.
Back to the cups: In
addition to the free restaurant hand-out cups, I also had a few bigger
sippy-cups. These are the ones with the
plastic lip to secure a lid which allowed the child to drink from the cup. Of course, those lids are long gone.
I must say… I miss them.
I know when the kids get older, they feel it’s babyish to
drink from a sippy-cup but that lidded tumbler meant me spending less time
fetching paper towels to clean-up an unsecured beverage container spill. I know my daughters inherited some of my
clumsy genes but boy, they can’t seem to ever keep an eye on that cup. I remember several times looking down to see
one of them start to jump up with a blanket draped across them. This was when they were enjoying a beverage
while watching something on TV when suddenly they needed to jump up and do an
improvised dance move that would probably involve a gymnastic move or two. When this happened, at the point of initial
jump, time slowed down to where I saw everything move in slow motion:
- The blanket going up with the child hurling themselves skyward;
- The cup that is on the carpet and not on the table as was originally recommended as a course of action to take when considering where to alight one’s drink after quenching one’s thirst;
- The cup being entirely too close to the sudden leap situation;
- The blanket being entirely too close to the cup;
- The child being entirely too unaware of what was about to happen.
I do manage to get out “Watch the cup” about twelve times in
the span of what couldn't have been any longer than a nanosecond but to no
avail. The blanket falls off the child
and onto the cup and, once again, I have Sunny D all over my carpet.
If that cup had only been the much missed and much
appreciated sippy-cup with a lid, well, we all would have laughed and had a
great family moment watching the 12 minute routine made up on the fly. Ah well.
At any rate, these cups were as useless as the other novelty
cups that had also lost their lids. One
of the primary reason these cups had lids to begin with was due to their inane ability
to not stay upright when around children less than 10 years of age (it stops
after 10, right? Right? Hello?).
All the old cups were tossed. They were taking up space and had no use other
than to keep paint brushes wet while the latest paint and construction paper creation
was being made. I went to the store and bought a couple different
types of real-live cups for the girls.
Cups that say, “Hey, I live in an adult world where I don’t have to rely
on restaurant giveaways to adorn my table!”
I bought a set of clear plastic tumblers that could be used in some sort
of formal setting although of all the settings that I can perceive at this time,
a formal one is not in the top ten.
I also bought six “fun cups.” These cups are probably three steps up in
quality from the ones I got at the local pizza restaurants but they sported
some cartoon interest. They are mostly simple
cartoon monster faces with short, positive messages on the other side (“Hug it
out!” or “Think happy thoughts!”). Two
of them had doll or baby-like drawings of Captain America and Thor. The Thor one is no longer with us, however,
as the girls’ cousin decided during a recent visit that he really liked that Thor
one and wanted to take it home. I, of
course, said no, but he took it anyway.
Just kidding. He was
more than welcome to take it. It lets me
look for even more cups that are fun. I
remember as a kid having certain cups that I always enjoyed using. In fact, I remember my most favoritist (no,
really, it’s a word) cup of all time was one of the Funny Face drink-mix cups my
family had while growing up. Now, I don’t
remember if we had the whole set shown below but we had a few of them,
especially the one with the jaunty polka-dotted hat since that was my favorite.
(This pic was found
here: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/34340015880371617/
and I certainly appreciate this Pinterest user for having this picture
available and I’d also like to thank Google for allowing me to put in such
basic search terms like “cups”, “kool-aid” and “kids” to return accurate results
such as this. Way to go, both of you.)
Those were the cups that I fought my sister over…probably
literally. “You dare take my plastic cartoon-fruit
drinking cup, woman?? Now you shall see the
true meaning of a thrashing! Tolerate
this, I will not!” is actually something
I never shouted at my sister. It was
more like “Gimme! I’ll punch you! Gimme! MOOOoooommmmm!!”
I've noticed this same trait in my children, by the way and
unfortunately.
I see this passion for the fun cup as being just another
thing children bond with like a blanket, doll or a stuffed animal. Although perhaps the cup is just a little bit
more sophisticated. They take pride when
they have their cup and even though it’s their 239th drink out of
their cherished chalice, they still hold it up to look at the pictures,
spinning it slowly in their hand with a big, fruit drink moustache dripping
across their upper lip as if they had never seen the cup before. I remember doing that as a kid and it’s fun
to see my girls experiencing the same thing.
The other big factor to the sense of serenity regarding my
cup situation is that I moved the girl’s cups to the bottom shelf of the
cabinet instead of where they were, on the top.
I had them on the top because I didn't want the girls to get their own
drinks because I felt more comfortable doing it for them. Now, they are older and can get their own
drinks, so I dropped their cups to a more reachable area of the kitchen
cabinet.
Of course, by allowing them to
get their drinks, I see them pour the beverage of choice to the very tippy-top
of the cup. So much so, they have to
hold it with both hands and walk slowly in order not to spill it which we all
know is an impossible task (please refer to earlier in this blog). Plus there is no way their bladders have
grown to such a size as to be able to hold all of that liquid so I’m usually
asking them to pour some out which also inevitably means a towel wipe up is in
my very near future.
Since establishing this new cup protocol, however, I mostly
have felt a calmness. A certain settling
that has made this house more of a home.
The girls have their fun cups of which no doubt I will be refereeing
fights over who had a specific cup first and how it’s “Not fair” when I make a
decision on who was indeed first.
Although I do also get the enormously popular, “She always gets what she
wants!” Sometimes I make bets with
myself on which one it will be.
If you perhaps feel a bit unsettled in your life, perhaps
just a bit off from where you think you should be, may I suggest a cup
stabilization? You’ll be surprised at
the VOLUME of help you’ll receive.
(Get it? Volume?
Like the volume of liquid a cup can hold? Do you get it? It’s a play on words. Okay, so maybe a failed play…like one that
was called back after a referee challenge but a play nonetheless. )
Maybe next time I’ll
talk about how an organized garage leads to an organized soul.
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