Oh my, times are a changing. Just like after Amanda and I married, I needed to learn a few new things, Ben now, on the occasion of his first birthday is suddenly “transitioning” (as she calls it) away from the bottle (yep, it’s been formula) to a sippy cup and from bare feet all the time to wearing shoes.

First of all, Ben has no clue. He loves his bottle, but he also likes sippy cups. Sippy cups to him are the things you can hold upside down and let liquid spill all over. Last night however we bought those “no drip” sippy cups. But the truth is he will probably still make a mess. He has been smarter than all those sippy cups we have given him with thus far. It will be interesting to see how he figures out how to dump everything out of these!

As for his feet, he just doesn’t like to wear shoes, despite how many we try to put on his feet. He will wear socks (as long as we are looking) but loves to pull them off more than anything and laugh at us. At the Babies-r-Us we found lots of shoes, but hardly any that will fit over his fat little feet. He is extremely ticklish, so it was a challenge. Trying to put anything on his feet is an adventure, and one that we were not winning there in the store.

But at my prompting, we did get Ben a pair of “Polliwalks.” Polliwalks look like some sort of amphibian, and are, I suppose, a knock off of those ever-popular “crocs.” The were pretty wide too, they looked great, AND he kept them on. They have little amphibian eyes on them too to scare away danger, but since he is not yet walking we will have plenty of time to find out how they work!

Anyway, he is enjoying his new things, and he is wearing the shoes……an amazing victory I must confess. Tomorrow however is a new day. If history is any teacher, I expect to pick up a couple of sticky polliwalks and empty sippy cups off the floor.

Nite and God bless!

Tom+