It is probably time for me to buy a sippy cup. My granddaughter is old enough to use one, and too young to be reliable with a regular glass. Mostly we go to her house, where there are several, and when she does visit us her highly prepared mother always brings a spill proof cup. The recent designs really are pretty neat. 

 

I recall the first one I didn't buy. As a new nursing mother I went to a La Leche League meeting that had a simple fundraiser. There were small prizes and we could buy tickets to win them. The basket for the sippy cup had no tickets purchased yet. The leader pointed this out to me, that the drawing was that day so my chances were pretty good. But my baby was still exclusively breastfed, and I saw no need for one. Not exactly forward thinking of me. 

 

Over the years my children spilled bathtubs worth of juice. I remember wiping it up, and sending an unspoken apology to the tree that had faithfully grown her best Galas, which were harvested by a farmer who set them in baskets, which were transported by a truck to the processing plant, where they were squeezed into juice, which landed in bottles, and were trucked to the grocery store, and picked up by the stock person and lined on the shelves, which I put into my cart and took home, setting it in the refrigerator, and just today poured into a glass for my child. Which she spilled. 

 

It was all so disappointing. So close, but not close enough. 

 

It still happens, in different ways. Last week I bought some organic peaches at the farmer's market, and have been enjoying them in my granola. But one got hidden behind the hummus and when I found it realized that it was bruised beyond being edible. Alas, having made it from Georgia to my home, she ended up in the compost. 

 

The other day at church I noticed someone I rarely see. A sweet message formed in my mind for how I would greet her, and I resolved to hurry across the room when the service was done. But I got distracted talking to other people and she slipped away before I had the chance. Driving home I said a little apology to the angels who had carefully crafted the suggestion and left it handily in my head, offering it at the opportune time for me to put it into action. But somewhere as I walked the twenty paces across the floor it slipped out. 

 

So close, but not close enough.