Drinking from Cups

Tonight at dinner I decided to start having Nicholas and Celia drink from cups without covers. I've seen both of them try drinking bath water this way from little cups when they take a bath, so I figured, "why not?"
For dinner they had chicken nuggets, sauteed yellow squash and mango/strawberry fruit salad. They have been liking to eat out of bowls and plates. They also prefer to use utensils as well. For example, if I put spaghetti into a bowl and set it on their tray they will not eat it without a fork. I wish they would just use their hands because it would probably assure that more would end up in their mouth, but they will just whine until I give them a fork. They have been using our regular salad forks (the little forks?) because they can stab their food better.
So tonight, with their dinner, I gave them a small cup with about 1/2 inch of milk in it. I was set up between them with paper towel at the ready. Their eyes must've gotten wider when they saw what I was giving them. They looked at me as if to say, "Are you sure you want to do this Momma?"
The first couple tries quite a lot of the milk ended up on their tray or slithering down their bibs, but after a couple more refills of a little 1/2 inch of milk, they were getting better. Nicholas continued to get more on himself than IN himself. However Celia ended up getting the hang of it and drank a couple servings of milk without spilling anything. However, towards the end they were fishing their hands into the cups and splashing milk around or tipping the milk out onto their tray. I ended this drinking session when they started to splash the spilled milk on their tray by taking their trays off and declaring meal time "all done".
For as messy as it was, it cleaned up quite well and they were heading off to bath time right away. We'll try to do this every dinner if we can. I don't plan on them carrying open cups around the house until they understand not to spill on purpose, but in the meantime this is good practice.


On another note, today I took Nicholas and Celia to the library. We picked out 5 board books and I found 2 parenting books on Toddlers. One is titled 'The Happiest Toddler on the Block". I read "The Happiest Baby on the Block" when they were infants and it helped immensely, so I am hoping to get some info from this second book of Dr. Harvey Karp. Lately, when I take N&C on a walk, I will take a book I am reading and read as I walk. I end up walking pretty slow, but I am pleased to say, so far we have only ran into one bush. lol