Monday, May 5, 2008

The *First* Straw

I came home from work a couple of Wednesdays ago, and walked into my kitchen to see Mrs. LIAYF sitting there with a big wide grin on her lovely face. "I have something to show you" she said. A big grin then came over my face. "No, nothing like that, funny man...Lukas, let's show daddy what we learned today."

She then pulled out a sippy cup with a straw and held it in front of Luke's face. He hesitated, as if for dramatic effect, and proceeded to wrap his tiny lips around the straw and draw back a frosty drink of refreshing water! I was shocked. I had no concept a 10 month old could do such a thing. "How did he learn to do that??" I exclaimed. "I just demonstrated it for him today and he imitated me right away." "Really?" "Yes, really."

I was instantly overwhelmed with pride that my son could learn to drink from a straw at such a young age. Yes, so proud that I had to immediately run and Google it. I used "age that baby drinks from a straw" or some other similar search phrase. To my surprise and slight disappointment I have to admit, the first thing that came up was an ehow.com article which described how you can introduce babies to straws anywhere from 9-12 months. Yes, that is 9-12 as in the range that encompasses 10, the age in months he actually currently falls into. That being said, the optimist in me rationalizes that he is on the lower end of that scale. Oh yeah, he is ahead of the curve!

But in reality it seems that this is common enough amongst babies Luke's age and that this is not the sign of incredible genius in my baby that had originally so easily rushed into my mind. Maybe so, but I do know a lot of babies Luke's age, and not one of them is drinking this way quite yet. Early exit polls can't be wrong, can they??

So perhaps (other than facilitating a baby getting much needed liquids, of course) this is just a nice party trick. A fun thing to show your friends. If that's so, then I'm sure Mrs. LIAYF will next be teaching Luke to pull quarters from behind other kids' ears for an encore.

Or perhaps sawing dad in half!

5 comments:

Whit said...

Both are boys did that pretty early, too. I'm not sure how many months they were, but I think it had something to do with my Jamba Juice addiction.

Whit said...

that would be 'our' boys

Jason Roth said...

Our son was late when it came to drinking through a straw. He didn't quite get the concept. I think it was after he turned one before he actually did it for the first time.

James (SeattleDad) said...

Whit - I love that stuff. I got hooked on a Peanut Butter Jamba shake while the Mrs. was pregnant. I at least had the alure it was healthy since I would add a shot of vitamins and energy to it. Better than coffee at least.

James (SeattleDad) said...

Jason - Luke is a champ at nursing. We will have to pull him away from that kicking and screaming. Probably why he got the straw concept so well at this age.