Wel­come to the Feb­ru­ary Car­ni­val of Nat­ural Par­ent­ing: Par­ent­ing Essentials

This post was writ­ten for inclu­sion in the monthly Car­ni­val of Nat­ural Par­ent­ing hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our par­tic­i­pants have shared the par­ent­ing essen­tials that they could not live with­out. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other car­ni­val participants.

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I can­not imag­ine par­ent­ing with­out my instincts.

It seems that every­where we look, there is some­one align­ing a par­tic­u­lar par­ent­ing prac­tice or belief with a label.  Are you a breast­feeder?  Bot­tle feeder?  Work­ing mom?  Stay at home mom?  Attach­ment par­ent?  A Baby­wiser?  The labels go on and on.  Each label can lead to assump­tions about other par­ent­ing beliefs and prac­tices that “go with” a par­tic­u­lar decision.

Those labels and assump­tions don’t work for me.  I have three chil­dren, and I have made dif­fer­ent deci­sions with each child based on each of my sons’ indi­vid­ual needs.  Through­out our par­ent­ing jour­ney, my hus­band and I have main­tained our belief in respond­ing to each child’s needs with sen­si­tiv­ity and allow­ing each child to be respected and main­tain dig­nity espe­cially in their more dif­fi­cult moments.  How­ever, each of our sons has had a dif­fer­ent per­son­al­ity and dif­fer­ent needs.  Breast­feed­ing, cosleep­ing, and nur­tur­ing touch have looked dif­fer­ent with each child.

The beauty of nat­ural par­ent­ing is that while it encom­passes a vari­ety of top­ics and philoso­phies, it isn’t a list of dos and don’ts.  In fact, instead of telling par­ents how to raise their chil­dren, nat­ural par­ent­ing holds the phi­los­o­phy that each par­ent knows his/her child best and is the expert on that child.

Being a new par­ent can be hard.  Read­ing all the par­ent­ing books, mag­a­zines, blogs, arti­cles, and columns doesn’t always make life eas­ier.  In fact, for some peo­ple (like me), it can make par­ent­ing even harder.  When I was preg­nant with my first child, I read both Baby­wise and the Baby Whis­perer on the rec­om­men­da­tions of friends.  As I was read­ing them, I thought they sounded like good, man­age­able plans.  I was wor­ried about know­ing what to do when my son was born, and both of these books gave me a (seem­ingly) easy to fol­low and (seem­ingly) prac­ti­cal plan for par­ent­ing.  Great, right?  Well, appar­ently not for me.  As soon as my son was born, the plans began to fall apart.  We dealt with pre-term birth, jaun­dice, and a sleepy baby who had trou­ble latch­ing.  Almost as soon, I real­ized that those books weren’t going to work for me.  For quite a while (and even once in a while now), I still strug­gle with the feel­ing that I’m not fol­low­ing “the plan.”  I know it’s silly, and I know that it didn’t work for us then, and it wouldn’t work now.  Once in a while, though, I still feel a twinge of doubt about my decisions.

Then, I remem­ber what I’ve heard again and again from oth­ers who also choose nat­ural par­ent­ing.  “Fol­low your instincts.”  “You know your child/children best.”  “Your body was meant to birth and breast­feed.  Trust your body.  Trust your baby.”  Over and over, I have been reaf­firmed by the nat­ural par­ent­ing com­mu­nity in my abil­ity to par­ent my chil­dren.  Nat­ural par­ent­ing and its empha­sis has sup­ported me where tech­niques and plans did not, and it was through nat­ural par­ent­ing that I learned that my instincts are good.  I need to trust them in order to par­ent.  With­out them, I would be lost!

This doesn’t mean that I’m per­fect, that I always make the right deci­sion, or that I don’t need any other help.  When those times arise it’s essen­tial to have friends, fam­ily, blogs, and resources to con­sult, but in the end it comes back to my instincts.  Hav­ing expe­ri­enced the ben­e­fits of using my instincts to par­ent my child has been invalu­able to me, and I know that as my chil­dren grow and we encounter new expe­ri­ences, chal­lenges, and tri­als I’ll be call­ing on them again and again.

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Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can par­tic­i­pate in the next Car­ni­val of Nat­ural Parenting!

Please take time to read the sub­mis­sions by the other car­ni­val participants:

• Not With­out Him — The love Starr at Tak­ing Time shares with her hus­band is the foun­da­tion of her parenting.
• I Can­not Imag­ine Par­ent­ing With­out B(.)(.)bs — From an une­d­u­cated dreamer to a breast­feed­ing mother of a tod­dler, nurs­ing has for­ever changed Kristy at Strings to Things’s rela­tion­ship with her daugh­ter and her out­look on life.
• Rais­ing a Child in the Inter­net Vil­lage — When Jenn at Mon­key Butt Junc­tion has a ques­tion or con­cern about par­ent­ing, she turns to the Inter­net. What did par­ents do before Google?
• Part­ner in Crime and Par­ent­ing — Bethy at Bounce Me to the Moon can’t imag­ine par­ent­ing with­out her husband’s sense of humor — he brings her laugh­ter and love every day.)
• I Make Milk — Patti at Jazzy Mama can’t imag­ine try­ing to mother her babies with­out her breasts, but she could do it if she had to.
• New Per­spec­tives Bring New Begin­nings — MJ at Wan­der Won­der Dis­cover, who is a for­mer author­i­tar­ian mamma, has gained per­spec­tive via parenting.
• Time Out! — Mrs. Green at Lit­tle Green Blog explores how time apart can increase your capac­ity to give unconditionally.
• Unimag­in­able With­out Him — Kristina at heyred designs is cel­e­brat­ing her amaz­ing part­ner, with­out whom none of her par­ent­ing expe­ri­ence would be possible.
• My Par­ent­ing Neces­sity — Claire at The Adven­tures of Lac­tat­ing Girl needs “me time” in order to be the Mama she wants to be.
• Baby­wear­ing As a Way of Life — Dar­cel at The Mahogany Way talks about the ben­e­fits of baby­wear­ing in every­day life.
• Par­ent­ing Part­ner­ship — Some­times Abbie at Farmer’s Daugh­ter doesn’t appre­ci­ate her hus­band enough, but she def­i­nitely couldn’t imag­ine par­ent­ing with­out his help.
• Par­ent­ing Essen­tials — Momma Jorje loves her par­ent­ing prod­ucts, but she needs you even more.
• My Par­ent­ing Must-Have: Sup­port — Joella at Fine and Fair wrote a let­ter to her daugh­ter about the role that sup­port from friends and fam­ily plays in her mothering.
• It’s More Than Just Hair — Think doing hair is full of fluff? Too girly? Use­less? Karli from Curly Hairdo Ideas used to think so too.
• The Min­i­mal­ist Par­ent — The par­ents at Liv­ing Peace­fully with Chil­dren embrace a min­i­mal­ist per­spec­tive when it comes to baby gear. A good sling is all they need.
• With­out My Breasts — Charise at I Thought I Knew Mama can’t imag­ine par­ent­ing with­out her breasts; here’s why.
• Loves Books, Loves Peo­ple — Seon­aid at the Prac­ti­cal Dilet­tante dis­cov­ers that the library is a per­fect fit for her family’s needs.
• An Ode to the Maya Wrap — RevMama’s next child might be named Maya, because of her fond­ness for the sling.
• Avoid­ing the Padded Room — Pecky at Benny and Bex is here to tes­tify that it takes a vil­lage to raise a child.
• My par­ent­ing essen­tials, from Tivo to battery-operated mon­strosi­ties — Lau­ren at Hobo Mama presents a list of par­ent­ing essen­tials you didn’t even know you needed (and prob­a­bly don’t…).
• Attach­ment Par­ent­ing Through Sep­a­ra­tion: It Makes It a Lit­tle Bet­ter — Jes­sica at This Is Worth­while talks about how she couldn’t sur­vive her sep­a­ra­tion with­out attach­ment par­ent­ing and the bond it’s afforded her with her 3 year old son.
• Par­ent­ing Essen­tials — Deb Chit­wood at Liv­ing Montes­sori Now shares the prin­ci­ples she used to par­ent her chil­dren from infants to adults.
• My Par­ent­ing Essen­tials — The things that are truly essen­tial to Kim at In Des­per­ate Need of Enter­tain­ment aren’t things at all.
• I’m No One With­out My Sling — How baby car­ry­ing is essen­tial to the par­ent­ing of Jes­sica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama.
• I Can­not Imag­ine Par­ent­ing With­out… — Isil at Smil­ing Like Sun­shine talks about what she needs to raise her children.
• Feb­ru­ary Car­ni­val of Nat­ural Par­ent­ing — Through her expe­ri­ences over the last five and a half years, Casey at Love What Is has dis­cov­ered her most impor­tant tool for par­ent­ing is using her instincts.
• CNP: I Can­not Imag­ine Par­ent­ing With­out __________. — The Art­sy­mama dis­closes the one thing that gave her back con­trol of her­self as a parent.
• Laugh Until I Cry — Laugh­ing with her sons keeps Aca­cia at Fin­ger­paint & Super­heroes con­nected and grounded.
• I Can­not Imag­ine Par­ent­ing With­out — Luschka at Diary of a First Child real­izes what the one thing she can’t imag­ine par­ent­ing with­out is, and it turns out it’s not a thing after all.
• It Takes Two — Here are a few of the rea­sons why Jenn at Adven­tures Down Under can­not imag­ine par­ent­ing with­out her fab­u­lous husband.
• Stop­ping to Lis­ten — Though it wasn’t easy at first, Knocked Up — Knocked Over can­not imag­ine par­ent­ing her daugh­ter with­out lis­ten­ing first to what she is telling her.
• The Essence of Par­ent­ing — There are many won­der­ful resources that make life eas­ier for Michelle at the Par­ent Vor­tex to par­ent, but the essence is the rela­tion­ship between par­ent and child.
• What I Can­not Live With­out — Sybil at Mus­ings of a Milk Maker con­sid­ers her com­puter to be a par­ent­ing lifeline.
• True Bless­ings: White Noise and Grand­par­ents — Kat at Lov­ing {Almost} Every Moment can’t live with­out her white noise machine and the sup­port of her parents.
• The Neces­si­ties! — What “stuff” does a nat­ural par­ent like Lily, aka Witch Mom really need? Not much, it turns out.
• Mama Showed Me — Mama Mo at Attached at the Nip writes about how par­ent­ing wis­dom is passed on by example.
• Ode to the Loo — For Joni Rae at Tales of a Kitchen Witch, the bath­room is her safe place, where she can take a minute to calm down if she is feel­ing touched out.
• Go, Mama. Go! — Andrea!!! at Ella-Bean & Co. has been able to inte­grate her many roles through her get-up-and-go par­ent­ing essen­tial, exercise!
• My Other Half — Becky at Old New Legacy real­izes what a relief it is to have her hus­band par­ent along­side her.
• Grace, Love, and Cof­fee — MrsH at Fleet­ing Moments real­izes that life­lines can take the form of the pro­found, or the mun­dane. Both are ok.
• Sup­port­ive Spouse, Check! — There are so many par­ent­ing tools and gad­gets that are super­flu­ous, but the one essen­tial, for Danielle at born.in.japan, has been her sup­port­ive spouse.
• Why I’m a Baby­wearer — Mered­ith at Becom­ing Mamas reflects on the ways baby­wear­ing has enhanced her mama baby relationship…and made life eas­ier to boot.
• It’s Mar­velous Out Here, Kiddo! — Rachael at The Var­ie­gated Life can’t imag­ine par­ent­ing in the big city with­out the mar­vels of Prospect Park to share with her Critter.
• Yes, Thank You — Amy at Ank­tan­gle offers tips on how to ask for and accept help, an essen­tial for suc­cess­ful parenting.
• Par­ent­ing Essen­tials Check­list: Mom’s Inner Rebel and Her Kids’ Voices — Olivia at Write About Birth reflects on rais­ing global cit­i­zens and say­ing no to soci­etal norms.
• Eco-Mama Online! — An Eco-Mama liv­ing in the moun­tains of a nature island, Terri at Child of the Nature Isle finds it essen­tial to con­nect to nature and to con­nect online.
• Sorry, We Just Sold the Last One — Nev at The Adven­tures of Lime con­fesses she missed out the day they handed out patience.
• Laugh — Tash­mica at The Mother Flip­pin’ Blog reveals her super power, her tal­is­man agains mean mommy.
• My Price­less Par­ent­ing Resource — What do books, a mag­a­zine com­mu­nity, my mother and the local play­group have in com­mon? Lucy at Dream­ing Aloud tells us…
• The Gift of Shared Time — Tree at Mom Grooves strives to expe­ri­ence the world from her daughter’s perspective.
• Fol­low the Gig­gles — Dionna at Code Name: Mama can’t live with­out the sound of her child’s gig­gles — come watch her video and you’ll agree!
• Can I Mommy With­out Boob? — Emily at Crunchy(ish) Mama shares her fears about wean­ing and los­ing part of that the mother/child bond.

Wel­come to the July Car­ni­val of Nat­ural Par­ent­ing: Let’s Talk About Food

This post was writ­ten for inclu­sion in the monthly Car­ni­val of Nat­ural Par­ent­ing hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our par­tic­i­pants have writ­ten about their strug­gles and suc­cesses with healthy eat­ing. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other car­ni­val participants.

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**This post was writ­ten on July 5 in prepa­ra­tion for the Car­ni­val of Nat­ural Parenting.

Suc­cess.

This sum­mer will be a sum­mer of amaz­ing veg­eta­bles in our apart­ment (I hope). Jason and I decided that we would share a com­mu­nity gar­den plot with some friends and also join a CSA (Com­mu­nity Sup­ported Agri­cul­ture). Our CSA is from a farm about 40 miles from where we live.  While I would like to give some great rea­sons like grow­ing tech­niques or pest man­age­ment tech­niques for choos­ing this par­tic­u­lar CSA, but that’s not the case.  It was the only one we knew about.  So, we signed up for it.

While I hope one day to be able to rely on my own gar­den as our family’s pri­mary source of sum­mer veg­eta­bles and to be able to store other veg­eta­bles for the rest of the year, it’s a good thing that we are not rely­ing solely on the gar­den for this summer’s veg­eta­bles for a few rea­sons. First, North Dakota isn’t exactly known for it’s long grow­ing sea­son. Between some late frosts and early June rain that left our gar­den plot with stand­ing water for quite a while, we only planted our gar­den on June 16th! Sec­ond, we have a 20x20 gar­den, and I’m a novice planter. I didn’t use any sort of space sav­ing meth­ods. I didn’t do a square foot gar­den. My par­ents and I went to the gar­den one night. We made some rows, put down some seeds, and cov­ered them up. Last, if we hadn’t put sticks in at the ends of the rows it would be nearly impos­si­ble to tell where any of our (tiny) veg­eta­bles were start­ing to grow in the midst of all the grass and weeds. While I’m cur­rently in the process of weed­ing the gar­den by hand, it will be at least another week of work before I get through all the rows the first time.  To give you some idea of the amount of weeds and grass I am remov­ing, imag­ine a gro­cery bag 3/4 full.  I am about 40% of the way through the gar­den, and I have pulled that many weeds.  Twice.  While I am grate­ful to be able to have a gar­den while liv­ing in a north fac­ing apart­ment, it’s frus­trat­ing to me to spend hours upon hours upon hours pulling hun­dreds of weeds from our plot.

Thus, a few of the rea­sons for the CSA. Over the past cou­ple years, Jason and I have also been talk­ing about things we want our chil­dren to know and one of them is where their food comes from. We want them to be able to enjoy eat­ing a vari­ety of fruits and veg­eta­bles and to under­stand how they come to exist. So, in addi­tion to hav­ing a gar­den, we decided to join the CSA. We have been fre­quent­ing our local farmer’s mar­ket more and more, but with our chil­dren being as young as they are (just about 3 and 4 1/2), we weren’t sure they would dif­fer­en­ti­ate between buy­ing broc­coli from a local farmer at a stand and buy­ing it at the store. One of the ben­e­fits of the CSA is that the farm is pretty close and the farmer is open to vis­i­tors. At the end of the sum­mer he hosts a potluck at his farm, and he put out an open invi­ta­tion for his CSA mem­bers to make an appoint­ment to come visit him. I’m hop­ing we’ll do this at least once.

This week was the first week we received a deliv­ery from our CSA. We picked it up on Wednes­day, and I’m happy to say that we ate most of the veg­eta­bles we received! We got a con­tainer of deli­cious, melt in your mouth straw­ber­ries, a bunch of spinach, a head of let­tuce which I believe was romaine, and a bag of some kind of let­tuce. The straw­ber­ries received imme­di­ate atten­tion from our fam­ily. They were gone within 2 meals. The romaine (?) was used in sal­ads for Kael, Jason, and myself. Unfor­tu­nately, Asa hasn’t yet come to love sal­ads yet. I’m sure his day is com­ing though. The spinach was used to make green smooth­ies which the boys (and Jason and I) love. The other let­tuce was eaten in both salad and wraps. We didn’t eat all of it though. Tonight, I took it out of the fridge to add to our taco salad and found that the con­den­sa­tion in our fridge had caused it to get limp and slimy. I’ll be work­ing on another stor­age method for next week’s greens. All in all, I would say our first week of eat­ing from our CSA was a suc­cess. I’m def­i­nitely look­ing for­ward to Wednesday’s drop to see what comes in our next box.

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Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can par­tic­i­pate in the next Car­ni­val of Nat­ural Parenting!

Please take time to read the sub­mis­sions by the other car­ni­val participants:

(This list will be updated July 13 with all the car­ni­val links.)

• Wel­come to Two — All About Food — In case you hadn’t heard, there is a con­spir­acy afoot from the two year olds of the world. Shana at Tales of Minor Inter­est stum­bled onto their newsletter!
• Four Sea­sons of Eat­ing Locally — Jenn at Mon­key Butt Junc­tion has point­ers for what fresh pro­duce can be found year-round. (@MBJunction)
• Happy Fam­i­lies Can Have More Than One Diet — Deb Chit­wood at Liv­ing Montes­sori Now has fig­ured out a way for her fam­ily to live hap­pily as veg­ans and veg­e­tar­i­ans with rel­a­tives who eat meat. (@DebChitwood)
• My Own Omnivore’s Dilemma — Seon­aid at The Prac­ti­cal Dilet­tante pri­or­i­tizes respon­si­ble con­sumer choices for her family.
• No Gluten — No Cry — Joni Rae at Tales of a Kitchen Witch Momma learned to cook bal­anced meals when her son’s food sen­si­tiv­i­ties prompted a diet over­haul. (@kitchenwitch)
• Try, Try Again — Ste­fanie at very very fine has become an enthu­si­as­tic con­sumer of locally grown food.
• CSA — Week 1 — Casey at What Love Is wants her chil­dren to know where their food comes from, so she joined a friendly CSA. (@CBerbs)
• Food: Par­ent­ing or Home­mak­ing? — Michelle at The Par­ent Vor­tex sees food as part of a parent’s nur­tur­ing role. (@TheParentVortex)
• 5 Tips to Help Kids Develop Healthy Eat­ing Habits — If you strug­gle with healthy eat­ing, help­ing your child develop healthy habits might be a chal­lenge. Dionna at Code Name: Mama shares five easy tips that will help your kids learn to make good food choices. (@CodeNameMama)
• Fam­ily Food: Seek­ing Bal­ance Between Healthy, Sus­tain­able & Afford­able — Kristin at Intre­pid Mur­mur­ings has a whole list of ideas for how she can improve her family’s eat­ing, both now and into the future. (@sunfrog)
• Whole Foods in, Whole­some Feel­ings Out — Jes­sica at This is Worth­while has turned her back on the processed, preservative-ridden food of her child­hood. (@tisworthwhile)
• When to Splurge on Organic (and When It Is Okay to Skip It) — Becom­ing Mamas tell you what foods to pri­or­i­tize when buy­ing pricier organic food, and where you can find it cheaper. (@becomingmamas)
• A Locavore’s Fam­ily Meal — Aca­cia at Be Present Mama tells a story in pic­tures of her fam­ily tak­ing a trip to the local organic farm­ers mar­ket and then prepar­ing a sum­mer meal together with their bounty.
• Eat Your Food, or Else — Why should we not bribe a child to eat? Twin­Tod­dlers­Dad from Lit­tlestom­aks (Sci­ence Dri­ven Real Life Tod­dler Nutri­tion) explains. (@TwinToddlersDad)
• Food, Glo­ri­ous Food! — Luschka at Diary of a First Child describes three easy ways her fam­ily has started eat­ing health­ier. (@diaryfirstchild)
• Cel­e­brat­ing Food — Mrs Green at Lit­tle Green Blog believes in food as med­i­cine and thinks it’s worth pay­ing more to keep healthy. (@myzerowaste)
• Oil and Yogurt — What have you been moti­vated to do with the cur­rent oil spill cri­sis? mid­night­feed­ings has started mak­ing her own yogurt. (@midnightfeeding)
• Growth-Spurt Soup (AKA “Bean­nut Stew”) — BeanMa has a spe­cial stew to help her baby through growth spurts that keep her up all night. (@thebeanma)
• Why I Love The Real Food Com­mu­nity — Much like many peo­ple who fol­low AP/NP val­ues, Melodie at Breast­feed­ing Moms Unite! takes the parts of the “real food” phi­los­o­phy that work for her fam­ily and leaves the rest. (@bfmom)
• Feed­ing a Fam­ily of Six — Mandy at Liv­ing Peace­fully with Chil­dren gives help­ful tips for feed­ing a fam­ily of six.
• Start­ing Solids at 6 Months — Did your doc­tor rec­om­mend that you give your baby cereal? Sheryl at Lit­tle Snowflakes dis­cusses how whole foods are so much health­ier (and more deli­cious) than tra­di­tional cereal. (@sheryljesin)
• Am I What I Eat? — Andrea!!! at Ella-Bean & Co. has fig­ured out a way to avoid gro­cery stores nearly altogether.
• Are We Set­ting Our Kids Up To Fail? — Megan at Pur­ple Danc­ing Dahlias found that cut­ting out the junk also trans­formed her sons’ behav­ior problems.
• Chang­ing your family’s way of eat­ing — Lau­ren at Hobo Mama has tech­niques you can try to move your fam­ily grad­u­ally toward a health­ier diet. (@Hobo_Mama)
• Real Food — What kinds of fake foods do you eat? And why?! Lisa C. at My World Eden­wild talks about why she chooses real food.
• A Snackaholic’s Food Bat­tle — Julie at Sim­ple Life wants to stop snack­ing and get into the old ways of cook­ing from scratch and rais­ing her own food. (@homemakerjulie)
• Food, Not Fight — Sum­mer at Find­ing Sum­mer doesn’t want her kids to grow up like her hus­band: hat­ing every­thing green. (@summerm)
• How Do You Eat When You Are out of Town? — Cassie at There’s a Pickle In My Life wants some tips on how to eat healthy when you are out of town.
• Car­ni­val of Nat­ural Par­ent­ing: Food! — Sybil at Mus­ings of a Milk Maker hopes that by serv­ing her chil­dren healthy, bal­anced meals, they will become accus­tomed to mak­ing good food choices. (@sybilryan)
• There’s No Food Like Home’s — Navel­gaz­ing­Ba­jan at Navel­gaz­ing rev­els in the Bajan food of her upbring­ing. (@BlkWmnDoBF)
• This Mom’s Food Jour­ney — Kat at Lov­ing {Almost} Every Moment made a jour­ney from not pay­ing atten­tion to food to grow­ing her own.
• Who Knew Eat­ing Was So Hard? — The chal­lenges involved in chang­ing to health­ier eat­ing habits take on a whole new dimen­sion when you have a child who has dif­fi­cul­ties eat­ing. kadiera at Our Lit­tle Acorn shares her own expe­ri­ences. (@kadiera)
• Lov­ing Food — Starr at Earth Mama truly believes food is her family’s med­i­cine and is will­ing to spend days prepar­ing it the tra­di­tional way.
• Food Mind­ful­ness — Danielle at born.in.japan details how her fam­ily spends money on each cat­e­gory of food. (@borninjp)
• Food for Lit­tle Peo­ple — Zoey at Good Goog wants to bless her daugh­ter with happy tra­di­tions built around good food. (@zoeyspeak)
• Eat Like a Baby — Have you been told that you should not equate food with love? Kate Wicker at Momopoly shows us why that’s not nec­es­sar­ily true. (@Momopoly)
• Food — Deb at Science@Home tries to teach her chil­dren three rules to help them eat a healthy diet. (@ScienceMum)
• Healthy Eat­ing Lactose-Free — MamanADroit gives us tips on how to eat healthy if you are lac­tose intol­er­ant (or just don’t want cow milk). (@MamanADroit)