"It may not be glamorous, but it's good, honest work." "How much is this quart of milk?" "Twelve dollars."
As I mentioned yesterday, the boys are now drinking whole milk straight from the cow. Or at least it’s homogenized and straight from the jug instead of scooped from the can and reconstituted with water.
Their pediatrician gave us the go ahead to switch to whole milk at their 12-month check-up. Actually he gave us the option of switching the boys and Abbie straight to 2%-milk so I wouldn’t have to go through the rigmarole of buying and stocking two different kinds of milk, having to match the correct color cap with the correct child. Little did he know that I drink only skim milk, and I’ve been buying two different kinds of milk since Abbie started drinking it. I was just looking forward to a time when Abbie and I could share milk. She’s tipping the scales at 32-pounds as a two-and-a-half-year-old, so I can safely drop her down to skim without worrying that I’m depriving her of mass she’ll need to earn that college basketball scholarship because, let’s face it, she’s not going to earn an academic scholarship if those verbal skills don’t start improving. Even if I’d been willing to move Abbie and me to 2%, I’d still keep the boys on whole milk. Their little bodies barely plot in the weight chart, and they need all the fat they can get. Plus the sooner Ian packs on a couple more pounds the sooner I can turn everyone forward facing in the car.
I don’t remember having any difficulty switching Abbie from formula to cow’s milk. I was concerned that she might reject it, so I offered it to her slowly, maybe a cup of cow’s milk once a day, and then twice a day. After that I realized that she didn’t care if it was cold and straight from a bovine, so I gave her milk with every meal and haven’t looked back.
I was glad to make the move with Abbie since cow’s milk is much cheaper than formula. I wanted Abbie to have the best, so I stuck with formula longer than I needed, even spending a couple months giving her the “next step” version, or as I like to call it, the “toddler milk for idiot parents” version. I still remember our pediatrician stuffing back a laugh when I asked if the “next step” formula was better than cow’s milk.
With experience from Abbie, I moved straight from infant formula to cow’s milk as soon as I exhausted the powder stuff. Their first glass of the cow stuff came one night at dinner a couple weeks ago. I pulled the milk from the refrigerator, poured it into two sippy cups, and set it on their trays. Each boy picked up his cup, inserted the spout in his mouth, took a couple drinks, and threw the cup to the side, horrified that daddy would give them such a cold, vile drink.
Several minutes and many tears later, I placed warm cow’s milk on their trays, which they greedily sucked down. I dug back to my days of pulling breast milk from the fridge to remember my tricks on warming baby milk. I filled a large measuring cup with water, microwaved it for a couple minutes, and set the cups in the water to warm them to the baby-appropriate temperature.
Since that night, I’ve been amazed to rediscover how much milk a child drinks. Each boy drinks a quart every day. That means they combine to drink a half-gallon a day, or three-and-a-half gallons a week. Our refrigerator barely holds that much milk, especially since I have to keep skim milk on hand for Abbie and me. Abbie is doing her part to stretch the household milk budget by nursing the same sippy cup of milk all day.
I can’t wait until the boys hit the point where I can give them skim milk. Not only will that allow me to buy one kind of milk, but they’ll also be refusing to drink their recommended amount of milk. That way I can get by only buying a gallon of milk a week.
Their pediatrician gave us the go ahead to switch to whole milk at their 12-month check-up. Actually he gave us the option of switching the boys and Abbie straight to 2%-milk so I wouldn’t have to go through the rigmarole of buying and stocking two different kinds of milk, having to match the correct color cap with the correct child. Little did he know that I drink only skim milk, and I’ve been buying two different kinds of milk since Abbie started drinking it. I was just looking forward to a time when Abbie and I could share milk. She’s tipping the scales at 32-pounds as a two-and-a-half-year-old, so I can safely drop her down to skim without worrying that I’m depriving her of mass she’ll need to earn that college basketball scholarship because, let’s face it, she’s not going to earn an academic scholarship if those verbal skills don’t start improving. Even if I’d been willing to move Abbie and me to 2%, I’d still keep the boys on whole milk. Their little bodies barely plot in the weight chart, and they need all the fat they can get. Plus the sooner Ian packs on a couple more pounds the sooner I can turn everyone forward facing in the car.
I don’t remember having any difficulty switching Abbie from formula to cow’s milk. I was concerned that she might reject it, so I offered it to her slowly, maybe a cup of cow’s milk once a day, and then twice a day. After that I realized that she didn’t care if it was cold and straight from a bovine, so I gave her milk with every meal and haven’t looked back.
I was glad to make the move with Abbie since cow’s milk is much cheaper than formula. I wanted Abbie to have the best, so I stuck with formula longer than I needed, even spending a couple months giving her the “next step” version, or as I like to call it, the “toddler milk for idiot parents” version. I still remember our pediatrician stuffing back a laugh when I asked if the “next step” formula was better than cow’s milk.
With experience from Abbie, I moved straight from infant formula to cow’s milk as soon as I exhausted the powder stuff. Their first glass of the cow stuff came one night at dinner a couple weeks ago. I pulled the milk from the refrigerator, poured it into two sippy cups, and set it on their trays. Each boy picked up his cup, inserted the spout in his mouth, took a couple drinks, and threw the cup to the side, horrified that daddy would give them such a cold, vile drink.
Several minutes and many tears later, I placed warm cow’s milk on their trays, which they greedily sucked down. I dug back to my days of pulling breast milk from the fridge to remember my tricks on warming baby milk. I filled a large measuring cup with water, microwaved it for a couple minutes, and set the cups in the water to warm them to the baby-appropriate temperature.
Since that night, I’ve been amazed to rediscover how much milk a child drinks. Each boy drinks a quart every day. That means they combine to drink a half-gallon a day, or three-and-a-half gallons a week. Our refrigerator barely holds that much milk, especially since I have to keep skim milk on hand for Abbie and me. Abbie is doing her part to stretch the household milk budget by nursing the same sippy cup of milk all day.
I can’t wait until the boys hit the point where I can give them skim milk. Not only will that allow me to buy one kind of milk, but they’ll also be refusing to drink their recommended amount of milk. That way I can get by only buying a gallon of milk a week.
posted by Matt at
11:34 PM
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