The end of breastfeeding. This may seem to personal for some people to talk about, but it’s an important milestone in a breastfeeding mother’s time line of her baby growing up: When the milk runs out.

It’s a happy and sad day all in one. I have to think it’s like letting your child go off to school … you’ll finally get to change his/her room into that creative space you’ve always wanted; you can run around the house naked; you can do whatever you want, when you want. You’re excited he/she’s grown into the beautiful person you always knew he/she’d be. But, and I know it’s a big but, you’ll miss him/her to pieces. This is not unlike the end of breastfeeding.

Gone are the long middle of the night wake up calls when only you can feed the baby.

Gone are the sore nipples.

Gone is the struggle to get your baby to latch on properly.

Gone is the worry of leaking through your blouse during a business meeting.

No more carrying around a nursing wrap to shield the public from seeing your breasts.

No more pumping milk when you are away from the baby to make sure your milk supply keeps up.

No more washing out the pump parts and lugging the pump to work, on trips, and storing the milk with a cooler so it won’t spoil.

So, you’d think I’d be ecstatic that I have all this free time on my hands.

Then I think there will be no more alone time, bonding with my baby, watching her nuzzle at my breast, drinking the magic milk that only I can provide. No more antibodies for my baby when she’s sick. No more passing along all the good nutrients from breast milk. But I’ll have time. Lots of time.

What the hell am I going to do with all this time?  I’ll hold my baby and feed her a bottle and tell her of the time I used to breastfeed her. Hopefully she’ll look up at me with the same sweet smile and give me a giggle just like she did when it was just her and me.

I’ve had a copy of Jessica Seinfeld’s “Deceptively Delicious” cookbook for months now and haven’t made anything from it so I decided it was finally time to try something out. What better way to start than with dessert — here come the brownies.

Seinfeld’s book is based on adding vegetable and fruit purees into regular recipes to add nutrition to every meal. The brownie recipe calls for carrot and spinach purees. Stay with me here, folks.

It all starts with the raw food. I chopped the carrots into 3-inch pieces then zapped them in the microwave.

Put these suckers in your processor of choice. I tried them all (as seen below).

This is what my kitchen looked like after I did the pureeing.

The bullet-like machine I have didn’t quite give me the consistency and it was waking up the baby, so I switched to the food processor (pictured on right.) That only chopped the carrots, no puree, so I moved on to the third kitchen appliance — the blender. It didn’t quite do it either, but I’d run out of machines to try so I added more water and blended the heck out of those carrots. I wonder if I had microwaved them longer if that would’ve helped.

They finally became smooth enough that I stopped blending and measured out a 1/2 cup.

I pureed way too many carrots so I put a 1/2 cup each in separate plastic zip top bags to freeze and use in future reciopes — and I gave some to the baby. Man, did I feel like super mom after that. Nothing like the feeling of giving your baby true homemade baby food. Gotta do that again.

Next came the spinach. I used frozen spinach and the blender. It was still a bit stringy, but I don’t think I could have blended it anymore so I stopped when it looked like this.

Here they are together: spinach and carrots. Don’t they look beautiful together? I love the colors.

Next came the butter, cocoa powder and melted chocolate. I also had to add flour, baking powder and salt to this.

Once it was all mixed together you can kind of see the spinach, but honestly I didn’t notice it until I looked at this photo. This went into the oven and I said a little cooking prayer.

OK, these look decent. They look like brownies. I cut them up and let them cool. In her book, Seinfeld says to not eat them until they are totally cooled otherwise you’ll be able to taste the spinach. So, what do I do? I cut a small, warm piece and taste it. Yep, you can taste the spinach.

Wait until they cool and they taste fine. The chocolate overwhelms the other flavors. My only complaint is the texture isn’t the best for a brownie. The best way to describe it is heavy. But not too much.

It looks delicious. It tastes good.

My son loved it. He had one of these everyday until they were gone. Granted, if they had been a traditional brownie they wouldn’t have lasted in our house as long as these did, but I have to say that when my son asked for a brownie I actually felt OK about him having one of these. After physically putting the veggies in there I know that he is getting something healthy while, at the same time, getting a treat. It’s a win-win.

I think next time I’ll try the Sneaky Chef’s version of brownies with blueberries, spinach and applesauce.

Related:

• Get the “Deceptively Delicious” brownie recipe.
• Get more recipes from the book.
• Sneaky Chef’s brownie recipe.

It’s true, Thomas the Tank Engine, the useful blue engine, gets his own voice. He was even interviewed for an ABC News story.  Is this going to be like when Blue from Blue’s Clues started talking? Or when Sesame Street’s Snuffleupagus became visible and changed his name to Snuffy? I’m not sure I can handle that.

Up until now, Thomas’ voice was narrated and his facial features were limited in movement. In this change, Thomas has his own voice and is computer animated, along with his friends and the Island of Sodor.

Is it wrong to want our favorite characters to stay the same? 

Part of me wants Thomas to stay the same. To keep the old-school style animation and effects. I mean, it’s worked for 50 years. But, I guess it’s time to move on. After all, change can be good.

I’m sure the kids will love the changes. I can’t wait for my son to see the new version of the show. I wonder if he’ll even notice the difference though.

Related:

• See the interview here.
• Thomas the Tank Engine is Ruining My Night
• Our Day Out With Thomas

The beautiful thing about orchids is that for months on end you walk by the pot and see only the green leaves. No buds, no flowers. Sure, when you bought the pot it had a magnificent flower on it. Then, it disappeared and left you with only green. After awhile you nearly abandon the growing experiment thinking you must have killed it. But, you leave it and continue to water it. Or not.

Then, one day you’re in a hurry, on your way to work, trying to juggle carrying all that stuff into the car. Wondering what you have to do that day. Probably running late. You are rushing to get to your car and then you see it.

*BOOM*

*WHAM*

*POP*

You walk by that once sad little plant and see this:

And this:

And you know your day will be alright.

Between sips of coffee and putting my make-up on, I caught a segment on TV this morning with Linda Evans talking about her “Dynasty” days and what she’s done since those times in Hollywood. She’s made mistakes (plastic surgery), and moved out of Hollywood. Sounds like she’s moved on from her days as a famous TV star. She lives in Washington state in a sprawling setting and is content being by herself in life. She speaks briefly about her long-term relationship with musician Yanni and how she’s come to be OK without him.

What I enjoyed about the interview isn’t all that she spoke about the TV show she was on — I never watched it — but what she has come to believe in life. She loves people and loves cooking. You could hear the passion in her voice. “Forget acting,” she says about her own life.

She leaves us with some empowering words:

Dream big.

There is nothing you can’t have.

There is nothing you can’t do.”

– Linda Evans

“Good Morning America”

September 14, 2009

Watch the entire clip on ABCnews.com.