Ice Cream

I have been in a longterm, committed & satisfying relationship for the past fifteen years...with ice cream. We have been best buddies since I was a teenager. I remember telling someone in college that I rarely went a whole day without a bowl of ice cream. That has remained true through past ten years since college. My nightly bowl of ice cream was rarely-broken ritual until about three months ago. When Lydia was just a few weeks old, she began to get very gassy and fussy shortly after feeding. Since the same thing had happened with Caleb, I immediately tried cutting out unprocessed dairy and limiting my other dairy. With Caleb, I only had to do this for a few weeks and then I could eat dairy in moderation.

Not so with Lydia. Initially, she improved within a few days from my diet restriction and was back to her pretty chill newborn self. A few weeks later, I tried eating a bowl of ice cream again. The next day was full of weeping and gnashing of teeth, and I vowed to give it a whole month before attempting even a bite of unprocessed dairy. I tried again after another month, and the result was exactly the same. And this time I ate less than half a bowl! I don't drink milk anyway, I can live without yogurt, and I don't mind limiting my cheese to a moderate amount, but this ice cream thing is killing me! I joke with my best friend that it has actually been ice cream keeping me thin all these years: that nightly treat satisfied my sweet tooth and kept me from munching on junk throughout the day. Now, since I constantly crave ice cream, I have been carrying an extra ten pounds of junk-snacking ever since Lydia was born. I'm finally working that off at the gym, but I still seriously miss my nightly ice cream.

Lydia will be four months old next Monday, and I may give it another try, but only if we don't have any big plans the next day. I have a feeling that dairy will not be a daily part of my life again until she is weaned, and it may not be a part of her life for years after that.