The end of being "Trapped Under a Milk Dud"

Don't worry. My blog isn't going anywhere... He is still a Milk Dud... just not a "Milk Dud." Last Monday, he asked to nurse and I put him off to walk the dog. He didn't ask again until Wednesday. I put him off then because I had just run 6 miles and needed a shower. I put him off a couple of more days because I was busy. Today, he didn't even ask. Milk Dud turns 2 on Wednesday and I guess I should be celebrating the end of an era. He nursed 10 days shy of 2 years. I am feeling guilty about not continuing. His brother only made it 17 months. My husband was weird about the fact that Milk Dud would say "I want to nurse" and then specify the side he wanted. He is my last baby, so I will never have this kind of relationship again.

I am proud of myself. Only a small percentage of mothers continue to nurse their children after a year, most aren't even nursing at 6 months (http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/data/NIS_data/index.htm). Milk Dud only got 10cc of formula in the hospital when his blood sugar dropped and I was too exhausted to fight the annoying nurse. My oldest never received any formula that wasn't a breast milk fortifier, even though he was in the NICU.

A few minutes after birth

A couple of weeks ago

Instead of being sad that it's over, I should be glad that I was able to do it at all considering the odds were stacked against me as a parent of a preemie who had only seen breastfeeding once in her adult life.

Chocolate cake batter fudge

So, recently I tried a pinned recipe for 10-minute cake batter fudge. It was good, so I wondered if I could make it with CHOCOLATE cake mix.

So, here are the ingredients and things you need

Microwave-safe mixing bowl, 8x8 pan, cooking spray, milk, cake mix, powdered sugar, and butter.

Got kids? Make sure you add sprinkles... LOTS of sprinkles ;)

Add one cup each of the chocolate cake mix and powdered sugar to your microwave-safe bowl

Add 4 tablespoons (half a stick) of butter.

Add 1/4 cup of milk. Do not stir.

Microwave on high for 2 minutes.

Ignore cute, nosey toddler.

It will look like this.

Cute, nosey toddler will react like this.

Mix it up add sprinkles, if desired and you can get the container away from cute, nosey toddler. I didn't measure. I just put in the amount I thought would look good. Oh, and that is my favorite thing from when I sold Pampered Chef. I highly recommend the Mix and Scrape if you are ever at a PC party and want to buy something cheap.

Poor in a greased baking pan.

Refrigerate for an hour.

It will look like this :)

They were a little stickier than the regular cake batter ones. Maybe use 1 -1/4 cups of cake mix. I don't mind sticky for CHOCOLATE!

Eating like an animal

I know it's been a while. I've been busy training for my Ragnar race and teaching my anatomy class for kids at the community college. I am going to start a new little feature about the weird breakfasts we have been eating in our house.

Wednesday, Squirty woke up and told me he wanted breakfast like a monkey. I asked if he wanted it to look like a monkey or to be what a monkey eats. The answer was "eats." I've taken it to be a little bit of an ecology lesson. Squirty told me that monkeys eat nuts and seeds. In general, primates tend to be herbivorous, but do eat eggs, insects, etc.

This was my least creative day. I gave the boys part of a granola bar, a banana, blueberries, and yogurt (that was for Milk Dud).

I've never seen either child eat so quickly.

This was somewhere around 10 minutes later.

Considering neither one has really been a good breakfast eater, I decided to make a trend of this. I asked Squirty what he wanted to be tomorrow. "A lion! Roar!" Great.... he made it difficult on me. I felt like I was on that episode of Top Chef: All Stars where they gave one team the choice of carnivore or omnivore.

Here is what I decided, with a little help from my husband: Wart hog (bacon), ostrich (turkey breast), and ostrich eggs (lions DO scavenge a bit... Chip suggested a poached egg).

Gone, just as quickly, and followed by a huge cup of orange yogurt.

For today, Squirty requested to be a bird. Well, that is pretty easy. I gave them some more seed/nut granola bars, some fruit, a poached "robin" egg (some birds eat other bird's eggs), and "worms" (spaghetti I cooked in water with red food coloring).

Eggs were not consumed, but the rest was GONE.

Tomorrow, we are going to eat like a bear. I will continue this until we get bored with it. I think it is a great way to teach a curious child about how different animals eat different diets.