Mommy Commentary's Milk Makin' Lactation Cookies

I teased my Milk Makin' Lactation Cookies on social media yesterday (yup, I'm on social media, come find me on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram)...and instead of following through, I then teased them in yesterday's post.  Time to buckle down and share this recipe with you already, with my tips and tricks at the very bottom.

...AND it is still August, therefore, still Breastfeeding Awareness Month, so I also wanted to share a little more of my experience as a nursing mama.

With Thing 1, I was told I could not breastfeed.  I wasn't physically unable, but I was taking Prozac at the time and my OB/GYN, Psychiatrist and Therapist were all very adamant that my breast milk would be tainted and bad for my baby.  I was devastated. 

I was young, and didn't know any better to question my doctors. or how to advocate for myself and my baby.  I feel that my daughter and I were robbed of a key bonding experience, and I still mourn that loss.

For the record, there is now plenty of evidence on several anti-depressants that are perfectly safe for breastfeeding mothers.  Kellymom.com has this great article, which is  a good starting point if you need, or want, to look into it more.  And for good measure here's a great link about most common medications and vaccines, and their safety for nursing moms.

When I got pregnant with Thing 2 I was so excited that I was going to be able to  have that extra bond by nursing him. Then, at just a few months pregnant, the panic set in.  My biggest fear, regarding breastfeeding, was that I would not be able to provide my son with the vital nutrition that he needed.  My previously discussed 'Paranoid Parenting' instinct kicked into overdrive, and before I was even 6 months pregnant, I had already pinned at least 4,000 remedies to low/insufficient supply...  Along with possible solutions to every other breastfeeding woe there is.

When he was about 3 months my body had figured out the ebb and flow of Thing 2's dietary needs.  The thing about that is that your breasts stop getting engorged, and I stopped feeling the letdown reflex. I NOW know that this was completely normal, but at the time, I immediately assumed that I was drying up.  So I did what any good mother would do... I pulled up Pinterest and started sifting through the pins to find the most user friendly recipe for lactation cookies.  

I whipped up a batch, and by batch I mean 57 Chips Ahoy sized cookies (seriously, this recipe makes a lot of cookies).  I probably had 4 or 5 that night, and by the next morning I could tell the difference.  I've mad these bad boys a few times now, and have had the same results every time, where I can detect the boost to my supply by the next morning.

I was happy to have such success with these cookies, and have been even happier to spread the love.  My husband's coworker recently welcomed a little girl, and his wife had been having a rough go of breastfeeding in general.  She was having actual supply problems and did have to supplement with formula for awhile.  I was glad I had the knowledge and know how to make and send her some cookies-and I was even happier when she reached out to let me know how they had helped her.

I got this recipe from Laura of Sweet Treats, and she credits Amanda at i am baker with the original recipe, so I owe thanks to the both of them.

And a special expression of gratitude to my husband who supports me through the ups and downs of breastfeeding, and gifts me awesome kitchen tools!

Ingredients:

1.5 cups All Purpose Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Cocoa Powder (I use unsweetened)

3/4 cup Coconut Oil (or Vegetable Shortening)

1.5 cups Granulated Sugar

2  Large Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1.5 cups Rolled Oats

1 tbsp Ground Flaxseed

2 tsp Brewer's Yeast

10 oz Dark Chocolate Chips

1. Set oven to 350º and prepare 2-4 cookie sheets.
2. In medium mixing bowl, mix the first group of dry ingredients, set aside.
3. In a standing mixer, mix the coconut oil (or vegetable shortening) and sugar,  scraping down the sides of the bowl, until fully married.  Add eggs and vanilla, again scraping down the sides to make sure it all mixes.
4. On a low to medium speed, slowly add the the first group of mixed dry ingredients until entirely incorporated.
5. Use the, now, empty mixing bowl to mix the second set of dry ingredients, minus the dark chocolate chips. Slowly add this bowl to the stand mixer on a low speed.  you may need to remove the bowl from the mixer and further incorporate by hand. Then add the chocolate chips.
6. Place 1 inch formed balls on the cookie sheets, 12 per sheet in a 3 by 4 configuration.
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until browned at the edges, remove and allow to cool. Store in an air tight container.  

My Tips...

• I actually prep the three groups of ingredients before ever turning the mixer on... break the eggs into a ramekin with the vanilla extract, and pour oats into a large measuring cup and then add the Brewers Yeast and Ground Falxseed to it.
• Put the sugar in the mixer before the coconut oil, the wet attracts the dry without having to fanangle around the paddle to scrape the bottom of the mixer's bowl.
• After adding the oats/yeast/flaxseed mix, to the mixer, in incorporating, remove the bowl from the stand and mix by hand.  There is always about an 1/8 of a cup that doesn't incorporate by the mixer alone.
• A full bag of chocolate chips is too much, in my experience.  I know its hard to believe I'm complaining about too much chocolate, but seriously, by the time that you get to scooping mix for the last batch, it's almost all chips with nothing to bind them together.

Return to the Land of the Living

My goodness, I almost forgot what it felt like to be even remotely productive.  Since Thing 2 arrived 5 months ago I feel like I have been the laziest person. EVER.  

I'm lucky to have a great pediatrician who reminds me that I'm not being lazy, despite my inability to get ALL the housework done. While still riding a roller coaster of emotions, fueled by hormones, and getting little to no sleep I am undoubtedly doing the most important job of my life (for the second time).  

I am the protector and comforter to this new little being.  I am creating the nourishment he lives by.  I am working around the clock to keep him clean, and warm, and dry.   My every thought is consumed with figuring out how to be the best parent to this little person that I MADE.  

But... the world did not stop just because I made a new little person... dust still accumulated and laundry piled up.  Like every new mother it was hard to find the time and energy to take a shower.  

These days it's a victory for me that laundry actually makes it from the folding table (aka guest bedroom bed) to its drawer at least twice a month, up from once..or never.  Despite her best efforts, my seven-year-old is not the stinky kid, so there's another win.  And I'm finally reaching a point where a little over half of the food my family eats does not come from a Nestle or General Mills distribution center.  My therapist was shocked when I told her that I've been pushing to get us back to eating on real plates.  If my therapist thinks it's too soon, should I really be stressing myself out over it?   

It's clean, mission accomplished!

It's important that I remember not to be too hard on myself, and I urge all you new moms out there to remember the same thing.  At five and a half months I feel that the baby and I are just starting to develop a routine of sorts.  As the days go on we'll continue to develop a schedule of feedings and naps, eventually I'll squeeze in a playdate, and one day, a date night.  I'm learning to accept that despite my desire to control everything, I cannot get it all done by myself right now; and it will take time to figure out what works for my growing family.

I absolutely love this post from Modern Parents Messy Kids, it covers age appropriate chores, and how to get kids to do chores for the sake of having a clean space versus earning a new video game. BTW... I believe husbands fall into the 10 and older category, but don't hold me to that <chortle>.  I started having Thing 1 help me with chores when I got pregnant, but since her brother arrived she has told us that she feels like nobody pays attention to her.  So, where I had planned to have her start doing some chores more befitting a 'Big Sister', we have actually cut back on her responsibilities.  There is one 'Big Sister' chore she really enjoys doing though, which I think is great for older siblings... once a week she goes through the house and wipes down all the doorknobs and light switches with a disinfecting wipe.  She likes knowing that she is doing something to help protect her little brother, and that just makes me feel warm and tingly.

Finally, I didn't have a support system around me of people offering to help with cleaning, or making us food.  I had one friend that brought us a couple of amazing artisan lasagnas, and she invited our daughter over for a sleepover, and I was, and still am SOOOOO grateful to her for that.  If you do have people around wanting to help, take them up on it.  If a dish shows up with lima beans in alfredo sauce (its happened), it's one less meal you have to worry about, and you husband will have greater appreciation for your cooking.

With all that being said, I feel like today was a pretty productive day for me...

I stripped...my cloth diaper stash....After ruling out thrush as the cause of Thing 2's nasty rash on his lower tummy and thigh, I determined that I needed to strip our stash.  I have never stripped diapers before and my initial search kept giving me sites that gave stripping instructions for top loaders.  I finally came across a post from Mama Natural about how to strip your cloth diapers in a front loader.  

One of the keys to the stripping process is using disinfecting bleach, but guess what.... Bleach scares the bejeezus out of me.  Plus, I wasn't sure about putting such a caustic substance on something that would be in contact with really sensitive areas.  However, I love Genevieve, so if she advocated using bleach then so be it... and in the post she pointed out that bleach is recommended by one of the biggest CD manufacturers, and that the diapers go through SOOO MANY rinses that no bleach remain on the diapers. So we're in the last hour of a six hour process, those diapers smell great, and hopefully this will help my little man recover a bit.

I made dinner... My family LOVES my crockpot lasagna, and it makes plenty of leftovers for lunches, which I think is bonus since it's at least one less peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I have to make.

School and work lunches, for the rest of the week! 

Finally... so, yeah I'm saying that I only did 3 things and I count that as a productive day...anyways....

I made my Milk Makin' Lactation Cookies

...but you'll have to wait 'till tomorrow for the recipe. 

You Call That a Souvenir?

Uggghhh! Mommy Commentary has only been up for a couple of weeks and I've already gone a whole week without posting.  For shame!

Well, it has been an interesting week around here.  Thing 2 got his first tooth!

I swear it's there...

...and I'm pretty sure the second tooth will be joining us by the end of this weekend.

Hubby went out of town for a few days... and he went to to HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH! Ehh, if we were to get technical about it, he went to Orlando; and since it was business, he was in meetings like, 94.7% of the time.  

Here's the thing, Thing 1 has been asking for years to go to Disneyland (we live closer to California, and she probably doesn't realize that there is a difference).  So when it came time for Hubby to get her a souvenir, anything Disney was completely out of the question.  She would have lost her mind thinking that he went to Disneyland/World without her.

So he got her a NASA t-shirt.... ಠ_ಠ

Now I have nothing against NASA. Hey, they put a man on the moon <cue patriotic music and crowd applause>...

But, NASA today doesn't quite seem like the NASA of yesteryear, or even the NASA that secretly has Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck tucked away in a hangar somewhere learning how to drill in space (umm that was 16 years ago, bt-dubs, geez I feel old).  Besides, Thing 1 is a seven-year-old little girl obsessed with all things girly and princess-y.  

I'm not trying to pigeon hole her life choices, but really... a NASA t-shirt... I suggested a key chain so she can be one of those obnoxious kids whose key chain collection weighs 8x the backpack that its hanging off of.  I mean, from my perspective, any of these would probably have been better choices..

It has pink and purple

...alright, so maybe she wouldn't understand the the last one, but it's still better than a NASA t-shirt...right?

After all, what is NASA really up to these days? Studying Space dust to help explain the origin and evolution of the universe.... psshhh, I study dust daily. Launching a new field study campaign to assess climate change in the Arctic... wish I could have spent my summer flying around the Arctic, would have been a pretty nice alternative to this Arizona heat.  Planning which performances to catch at SXSW 2015...? Umm, hells yeah! I'm down to hit up SXSW, in fact it's on my bucket list.

OK, ok, so maybe since the shuttles were grounded in 2011, NASA has been finding more productive ways to occupy its time than I first assumed.  Maybe I was a little hasty to reject my husbands heartfelt gift.  Granted she had to ask what NASA was. And I was surprised that after husband's matter of fact response of "National Aeronautics and Space Administration", she knew that it was "the people who put people into space".  

If I know my daughter, this shirt could go one of two ways.  It will sit on its hanger and collect dust, maybe not interstellar dust, but dust nonetheless.  Or maybe, just maybe, she'll go the road less traveled (for her) and want to learn more about space and all the other various arenas that NASA is working in these days.  Maybe she'll go college and study some kind of engineering, and then she'll help develop the next rover to navigate the desolate landscape of Mars.  Perhaps she'll major in one of the many -ology fields, and will gather more evidence of climate change, or better yet, maybe she'll come up with a solution!  Or maybe she'll stick to her current plan of being a nurse that is also a gymnastics coach.  

All I know is, I was pleasantly surprised when I woke up this morning to see this...

Hubby says she picked it out all by herself. You did good babe, you did good.

Weekend Plans

A few years ago my weekend plans would have included the local farmer's market, brunch with a girlfriend, laying by a pool with a cocktail (or 3), some retail therapy, and maybe a nice dinner out or a movie.  Despite my grandiose expectations, my weekends as a mom are a balancing act of Thing 1's gymnastics schedule, making sure everyone has clean clothes by Monday and I consider it a true accomplishment if we get one family activity in, like going to an indoor rock climbing gym, or getting a bike ride in before it hits 2,000º.

And I put  a gold star on my toothbrush chart if I feed my family at least one meal that doesn't come from a box, or includes sliced bread.

Yummy Triple Berry Salad

I don't want to jinx anything, but it is monsoon season here in the desert, so maybe we'll get to do this again...

Thing 1 puddle jumping a few years ago.

But lets face it, between my teething 5 month old and my moody 7 year old, if I'm REALLY lucky, this will be the high point of my weekend....

Whether your next couple of days are jam-packed with activities, or none at all, I hope you have an awesome weekend.

World Breastfeeding Week

In the next few weeks I plan on posting more in depth about my family and myself  giving you a chance to know us a little bit better.  In the meantime, and in between introductory posts, I will be sharing about what's currently happening in our lives... And today is a milestone of sorts.

Thing 2 is FIVE MONTHS OLD today...blare the horns, cue the confetti and streamers. But what is even better is that I have been able to exclusively breastfeed this whole time.  In honor of this, and the fact that it is World Breastfeeding Week, I thought that I'd do a post about breastfeeding.  Don't be surprised to see more posts this month, since it is also Breastfeeding Awareness Month, about my experiences with Thing 1 and Thing 2.

5 Months and going strong, even through the pinching.

It seems that the term Exclusively Breastfeeding (EBF'ing) covers a whole range of  ways to feed a baby breast milk depending on who you ask. Perhaps your baby only takes milk directly from the breast. All. The. Time. Or maybe baby only ingests breast milk, indiscriminate of delivery method (i.e. the breast, pumped milk from a bottle, syringe, cup, etc.).  With Thing 2 I'd say that he has fed directly from the source over 90% of the time.  I have a supply of pumped milk that could last my son a few days, if necessary.  But really it is so much easier to feed him directly from the source. And ultimately it is something that I love doing, I mean I LOVE it.  

I love the looks that we share.  For a good portion of his life, his only knowledge of the world has been my face.  I set the ground work for him learning shapes and colors and body parts.  He looks up at me with these eyes so big and curious about the world, and I love seeing this innocence when he is at his most vulnerable.  I love hearing the slurps and gulps. I love it when, for whatever reason he unlatches and pops off my boob, and it sprays him.  It makes us both laugh, and who doesn't love a laughing baby.  I love seeing him grow, and THRIVE, and I love knowing that it is because of nourishment that I am making. Finally, the thing that I love the most is when he's nursing, and he just stops and smiles at me.  Granted there are times that I may do something that he thinks is funny, but this smile is different.  It is deliberate and thoughtful even for a 5 month old.  It is his way of thanking me, even though he doesn't even know what thanks is yet.

Laid back, with my mind on my mommy ,and my mommy on my mind.

*disclaimer*

I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL, but I am an self-described expert in "Paranoid Parenting".  I have spent hours upon hours online researching countless topics, including breastfeeding: Is my baby eating enough? Is he in the right position? What is the RIGHT position? What are the guidelines to pumping and dumping? Why is he eating every 45 minutes? Do I have oversupply? How can I increase my supply?...I think you get the picture.  I have joined dozens of Facebook groups dedicated to breastfeeding and breastfeeding support, and thank goodness because those ladies can be amazing support at 3 am, when your nipples are cracked and bleeding and your panicked that you're doing everything wrong. Whatever I write is solely based on my opinion and off of my personal experience, and whatever internet research I have done as a "Paranoid Parent". 

Breast Feeding Information and Support:

• World Health Organization - Infant and Young Child Feeding Fact Sheet
• La Leche League International
• United States Breastfeeding Committee  Protecting, Promoting, Supporting