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The Green Bottle

As the mother of a pair of little girls who are now officially two, I am enjoying certain new freedoms. Such as the freedom to dance in front of mirrors like I’m a complete idiot. It’s called the Silly Willy Nilly Dance and the girls and I are very good at it. In fact, it might be the only dance I’ve ever really mastered. So that’s one freedom I’m taking complete advantage of. The other one I’m really quite happy about is the freedom of the bottle. The milk bottle, that is.

Why? What were you thinking?

Anyway, now that Zoe’s two, the girls can officially switch to “low-fat dairy.” In other words, whatever the family normally drinks. Before the age of two, the brain is so rapidly that a high fat diet is essential for connecting all the bits and bobs in our heads. After age two, though, a child should adopt the same healthy life-style recommended for the rest of us.

Now, I’m going to stop here and say that I’m actually quite terrified by this recommendation. Because frankly, if the girls’ neural pathways are finished myelinating, and from here on out we are going to see a rapid slow down in cognitive development, then, to be honest, my children will not be going to Harvard. However, I will remain hopeful that we’ve just been laying the foundation and the sum total of their abilities will not involve eating ketchup by the fistful and counting to 12. (Skipping 3, 7, 9 and 10, of course). Anyway. Back to my point.

Which is that I can now stop buying that artery-clogging full-fat stuff and allow our family to bond over a steaming mug of sensible low-fat cocoa. Except that I drink skim. Don’t sneer your nose at me. I grew up in California. It’s the law out there.

Not to say that I be pushing the girls too fast on their road from creamy deliciousness to blue-tinged water. We’re going slowly. I swapped out the blue lids for the green ones. And the girls seem okay with it.  Zoe calls it her “Green Milk.” Which is as far as we’ll go for now.

And I’ll enjoy the freedom of knowing that worst thing I’ve done if I accidentally pour my red capped bottle on their cereal is just confuse them. After all, they’re used to seeing actual milk on their Cheerios. Not that stuff their mother drinks.

Dr. Lara Zibners, Feb 01, 2012

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