Sippy cups, Goodwill, and more walking

Because of TongJie's cleft palate, he can't make a suction with his mouth because he can't close off the part between his mouth and nose.  All the sippy cups that we've seen in the stores seem to have some kind of valve to make it so the cup won't leak if it's left on its side or something, but that requires the drinker to be able to suck with enough suction to get the liquid past the valve.  My sister, Melonie, mailed us a package with some plain old Tupperware cups with spouts that don't have any sort of valve or anything.  If they're spilled and left on their sides, they will most certainly leak, but not as much as a regular cup with no lid would.  I tried cutting just a bit more off one of the spouts to make the liquid drip out faster, and guess what?  It works!  TongJie loves being able to drink out of a cup, and now we can save his bottles for formula.  Even though he can't make a good suction with his mouth, he slurps by sucking in air through his mouth and nose at the same time and he's able to get the water out.  We've tried regular cups with no lids in the past, and they're frustrating for him and really messy, so this will be much better.  He still ends up with water all over his shirt, but a lot more of it is going into him than it was with a regular cup.  We haven't put any juice into the new cups yet, but I'm sure he'll love that even more.

We went to Goodwill today, the one in East Wenatchee, to check out their selection of baby clothes.  We love shopping at Goodwill, but have never been in the market for baby clothes until now (unless it was for somebody else's baby shower, but I suspect that purchasing a gift from Goodwill might be considered somewhat tacky).  They have a selection of very nice clothes, so we got two pairs of 12-month shorts and a sweatshirt jacket, which is what we really needed.  We also bought an impulse buy of a pair of overalls.  It was even red-tag half off day and we didn't know it, so one of the pairs of shorts was half off.  What a deal!  Here is TongJie modeling his steezy new overalls.

After TongJie's nap, we went once again to the loop trail for some walking, but not without stopping at Dairy Queen first for a half-off drink because it was between 2:00 and 4:00.  We're all about getting good deals, as you may have gathered.  Actually, we're both feeling much better to be back on our normal budget starting today.  Since we were gone for half of the month of May, we didn't do our regular budget, nor did we do our envelope cash system for certain items (namely groceries, restaurants, gas/oil, clothing, haircuts, pet food/supplies, coffee, toiletries, etc.), so since we've been back from China we've been gingerly spending money without really keeping track of it.  And I don't like that.  So, as I was saying, it's very nice to be back on our regular budget.  And the guy at DQ even gave Albert a pup cup!  TongJie didn't realize what was going on, since he's now in his rear-facing carseat like he's supposed to be, so he didn't have a chance to get jealous.  I'm sure it won't be long until we'll no longer be able to slip things like that past him anymore.  We walked for quite a while on the trail with TongJie in his stroller, but when we were almost back at the car, we stopped and let him out to walk around for awhile.  He's doing so well with walking on the uneven grass and going uphill and downhill.  He even walked a bit without holding onto either of our hands!

This evening, TongJie continued playing with his new Mega Blocks.  He also loves carrying bags around, and before bed he was toddling around the house with a bag on each arm.  It cracks us up the way he holds the bags on his arms with them dragging along behind him.

And, to top it all off, I believe tonight was the first night since we've met TongJie that he's fallen asleep before 8:30!