Sippy cup success

I am THRILLED that Madeleine has been taking to the sippy cup so readily; I still remember the screaming battles I had with Julia when I dared to try and replace her before-bedtime bottle with a bottle-shaped sippy cup. To combat this issue, I decided to start introducing the cup at dinner a few months before I really want to completely wean from bottles, and this past week I've been able to give her formula in her cup at dinner time, completely eliminating the bottle before bed. Not only is she accepting the sippy cup, but she is actually holding it herself without me needing to "feed" her at all. Not only that, but last night she ate the same dinner as the rest of the family - pasta and peas - rather than spoon-fed pureed veggies. I couldn't have been more excited - do I actually see an end in sight to the spoonfuls of baby food that get spit back in my face?? I got a few pictures of Madeleine with her sippy cup; it's no small feat that she's holding this thing herself, because it's kind of ginormous - in fact, I actually had trouble getting a shot in which her face wasn't half-covered by the cup:





Unfortunately, just because Madeleine is transitioning from pureed to finger foods, I am not off the hook with the spoon-feeding just yet. Despite her heroic showing with the dasparagus the previous night, Julia decided last night that she doesn't like peas anymore, and getting her to eat all her dinner required a lot of intervention and fork-feeding from me (as she would conveniently either drop the peas off the fork between plate and mouth, or take one pea at a time, guaranteeing she would run out of time to eat them before bedtime.) Here is a list of some of the excuses she gave for why she couldn't keep eating her peas:

-They don't have enough salt
-They're too sour
-They're too spicy
-They're too mushy
-Mama, I'm choking on them (after some dramatic fake coughing.)

Sigh.
However, one child eating independently is better than none, so I have to be thankful for what I can get!