A couple of weeks ago, I got tired of replacing my daughter’s reusable drink bottles I was packing in her lunch. She proved to have quite the talent for breaking the bottles we purchased for her at the local Henry’s. Most often she’d crack the lid, but sometimes it would be the bottle itself.

I replaced three bottles this school year before deciding that it was flat out time to cough up the money for a Klean Kanteen. So far, we’re loving it.

We bought one with a sports bottle top, so that she doesn’t have to open it very much to take a drink. I figure you can count on most first graders to spill their drinks pretty regularly if they’re open and they’re in a crowd of other kids their age. Too much goofing off going on. It’s just 12 ounces, which is small for a Klean Kanteen, but since it’s the only size that fits in her lunch bag and she has some juice left over each day, I would call it the perfect size.

We had some paint pens sitting around, so I let her try decorating it after I painted her name on it. Something like this I want to be sure can be returned to her if she ever forgets it at school. I hope the paint sticks well, but I know metal can be tricky.

The nice part is that if she should somehow manage to crack the top, I can buy a new top, not a whole new bottle. Even the top looks much more sturdy than what we had been buying before, though.