Breast-Feeding is best feeding???

I swore I would give it a try. I promised I would try for a month and see how it went, see if I could be a mother milk machine and breast-feed my baby. In Boston there was tremendous pressure put upon me by my doctors, midwife, nurses, baby classes and the well-meaning individuals id meet on the street. “ Do what is best for you but just remember that breastfeeding is best for your baby.” Again emphasis on “do what’s best for you.” Even my own mother who didn’t breastfeed her own children, was in on the whole scheme. She took one look at the can of formula and told me I am not feeding that to her grandson. Thanks ma, I think I turned out fine. My husband was always the one into it saying, “of course that’s what you do, you are going to breastfeed, it’s not really an option.” Of course if he had to breastfeed let us see how long he would last! Huh!!! Actually who am I kidding, if he could have been the pregnant one he would have been the best pregnant person ever and if he could take a pill to make him lactate he would have. He is so much better than me.

I can’t even say the words. Breastfeeding.breastfeeding.breastfeeding. It grosses me out. I am such a child. Ugh. Well anyways, since I swore up and down I would give it a go, I had seen friends nurse their babies (another incredibly gross word for me), it wasn’t totally unfamiliar, and I did some research on what to wear while nursing. (Ew). I was even more depressed with the selection of nursing clothes than I was with the selection of maternity clothes. You mean to tell me, that after 9 months wearing the clothing I hated, I get to spend another year wearing this stuff!!! I cried. I cried a lot. So nursing clothes were a no, I’ll just lift up my bra and I’ll be fine. I wasn’t fine. I wasn’t fine at all. My bras wouldn’t close, and I was busting out all over the place. I had no choice but to cave and buy some, I found the lesser of all the evils, nice long tank tops that covered my stomach and were kind of sort of looking like real shirts. I only had to unsnap with one hand and pull down the top. Sounds easy right? Ok so not only am I childish and immature because I cant say the word breastfeed; I am incompetent and need two hands to unsnap a one handed shirt. So what happens to the baby when you need to use two hands to unsnap your shirt? Good question! Yes, the baby was put down on the most unhygienic surfaces imaginable. The really gross mommy room in babies r us which was a personal favorite of mine, a park bench where a homeless man may or may not have slept or peed, the floor at borders books where plenty of boots and shoes and other no good dirty things track on the floor. Thank god he didn’t catch any scary diseases but I’m sorry baby, mommy can’t manage her shirt.

I did mange to score myself a free Medela “pump in style”, what is stylish about a pump system I do not know, but I scored in not having to pay 300 bucks for such a thing. I claimed to have latching problems, which is a real thing, and since “breast is best” the nice doctors and nurses at the hospital made sure I got my pump so I could supply my tiny 5 pounder with some fresh expressed mothers milk. Going to be away from your baby for a while? Not to worry! The folks at Medela invented some sandwich baggies, I’m sorry, milk baggies, that you directly pump into and zip and store in your freezer until ready for use. Now like I said, the words breastfeeding and nursing totally gross me out but seeing those pumped milk bags stacked in the freezer totally grossed my husband out. Isn’t it great baby? You have two parents who are complete children responsible for raising you and providing you with pearls of wisdom along the way. Just like the one handed tank tops were a simple thing to use, so too these milk baggies were simple. Just attach the pump parts with the special tape that the baggie provided and start pumping. Only in my case, I started pumping…. directly into my lap. So there I am, soaking wet, attached to a pump and watching my free afternoon spent at the mall soak through my couch cushions. I spent the better part of ten months feeling like a cow, putting my kid down in gross places waiting for the light at the end of the breastfeeding tunnel. I didn’t think id last as long as I did but I figured id stick it out and take one for the team and do it until my kid was at least a one years old. But he is a smart one; probably from the copious amounts of coffee and wine I consumed while breastfeeding, and took pity on me. He weaned himself by ten months old and was more than happy to take a bottle. But the real honest to god reason why I really breastfed? Breastfeeding is free and I wanted to buy shoes.

Now what goes best with a nice warm delicious glass (or bottle) of warm milk?? Why the iconic American classic, the chocolate chip cookie! I like to mix a batch of dough and freeze it before baking, I find the cold chunks of cookie dough spread less than when scooped and baked right away but that’s your call.

Ingredients:

· 3 cups all purpose flour

· 1 tsp. baking soda

· 1 ½ tsp. kosher salt

· 2 sticks unsalted butter or margarine, softened

· 1 cup sugar

· 1 cup dark brown sugar

· 2 extra large eggs

· 2 tbsp. vanilla extract

· 12 oz. chopped semi sweet chocolate chunks

Method:

· In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt. Set aside.

· In the bowl of a standing mixer, beat the butter or margarine with the sugars until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

· Add in the eggs one and a time and then add in the vanilla. Mix until blended. The batter will look curdled but once you add the flour it’ll be perfectly cookie dough like.

· While the mixer is on low speed, add in the flour mixture and blend just until combined. It’s ok to see streaks of flour.

· Fold the chocolate chunks in the batter, make sure you see no flour streaks but don’t over mix here and scrape the whole thing into a gallon size freezer bag.

· Press the dough all around the bag so it fills it out nicely and you have perfectly square cookie dough.

· Pop the whole thing into the freezer and forget about it for a few days. My husband swears this is what makes the cookies so good; all the ingredients get a chance to mellow and hang out with each other. He calls it the “caramelization process”. J I love you sweetheart never change!

· Preheat your oven to 325 and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silpats.

· Take your frozen “caramelized” dough out from the freezer and using a large knife cut the dough into 1 and ½ inch pieces, roughly.

· Space them about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet and bake cookies until pale brown about 12-15 depending on your oven. I prefer to under bake them so I bake them just until the tops have puffed and set and are no longer wet looking.

· Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes to set on the pans and then transfer to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling. Feel free to sample some en route to the cooling rack.

· Store the cookies in an airtight container or freeze for later use.

· Cookies are also amazing eaten frozen right from the freezer as most cookies are…