Yesterday when Alethea got up she asked to sit on the potty, so I took off her diaper and sent her into the bathroom while I took a second to throw her jammies into the hamper.  When I arrived in the bathroom, I found Alethea holding the purple sippy cup that had been missing for several days.  She was smacking her lips and had a peculiar expression on her face.

“What are you drinking?” I asked her.  “I hope that’s not four day old milk.”

“No, water,” said Alethea.

Now I don’t know how many of you have ever had the opportunity to open a sippy cup full of four day old whole milk, but for those of you who haven’t, let me just tell you about an interesting phenomenon we like to call Sippy Cheese.  (Please note that I did not coin the term sippy cheese, I heard it from my brother, maybe he made it up, I’m not sure, but in any case, I do not take credit for its creation.)

Whole milk, when left to sit unrefrigerated for several days, will slowly separate into a solid white glob, surrounded by a clear water-like liquid.  The white part sort of resembles a soft cheese.  Thus, when we find a forgotten cup in the diaper bag or sitting in a random corner of the house, we always declare, “Uh, oh!  Looks like we’ve got some Sippy Cheese!”

“Please just be water,” I said to the purple cup as I slowly twisted off the lid. “Nope, it’s sippy cheese.  So gross!”

“Gross!” repeated Alethea.

Fortunately though she wasn’t too scarred by the experience.  When I later dumped out the milk in the kitchen sink, Alethea exclaimed, “Sippy Cheese down the drain!” and laughed hysterically for several minutes like it was some kind of joke.

“Sippy Cheese!  Sippy Cheese down the drain!”

“Sippy Cheeeeeese!”