Marathon of Errands and Success with a Straw

Tonight Dan, Ethan, and I ended up going on a marathon of errands. Due to the very cold weather and my extremely pregnant condition, I had been accumulating a list of errands to do but had not been motivated to actually do any of them this week. Since Dan had today off, I decided to take advantage of that and hit as many stores as possible. Dan and Ethan went with me since one of our "errands" was dinner at Outback to celebrate my birthday, but they stayed in the van for every stop except the restaurant. Within just a few hours we went to: Walgreens, the bank, Target, Wal-Mart, Babies R Us, Toys R Us, The Children's Place, Kroger, a party store (to get a free mylar balloon), and Outback. I also wanted to hit CVS, but it was getting past Ethan's bedtime, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. At least my errands are narrowed down to just one remaining. It has definitely been much more of a challenge to get Ethan in and out of the van and shopping carts being 8 months pregnant, so we haven't been shopping just the two of us as often lately.
For many months now we have been trying to get Ethan to drink out of a cup with a straw rather than just sippy cups. On occasion he has taken a sip, but he hasn't been consistent and usually just ends up chewing on the straw. Tonight at Outback Ethan attempted to use a straw again with success!! How to use the straw finally seemed to click with him, so I think that he'll be fine using them from now on. It used to be difficult if we ate out and forgot to bring his sippy cup, but that should no longer be a problem. Oh the little successes in life that we celebrate! :)