My friend Annie Lovell (who was a bad influence on me in many ways), and I decided to steal her bottles. We would wait until my mother gave her the bottle and then left. We would sneak over and take the bottle away, unscrew the lid (we never could get the hang of sucking the nipple), and share all the milk. It was horribly sweet. In later years, the first time I ever tasted condensed milk, I realized it tasted a lot like that formula. We would finish the milk, screw the lid back on, and give her back the empty bottle. Of course, by then she was usually screaming bloody murder.
Sometimes we would throw the bottle on the floor as though she had done it. My mother would come running and scold Lydia for crying or throwing the bottle. We were all innocence, had just come in to see what she was crying about. We did this for quite a long time. Of course, we were caught.
Oddly enough, the missing formula never seemed to keep Lydia from growing quickly and becoming more and more of a nuisance.