And Why Not Wear Diapers Until Age 12?

For reasons I don't need to detail here, we (that is, my kids' mother) barely breastfed Jackson and didn't breastfeed Sasha at all. So we (again, by that I mean "she") didn't have to worry about when to wean the kids off the boob.

Fortunately for me and my eyes, I have never actually witnessed much breastfeeding, let alone the breastfeeding of a 3-year-old, LET ALONE breastfeeding of a kid aged 4 or older, but apparently that still goes on in exotic parts of the world, like Great Britain and the United States, as the Chronicle's "Mommy Files" blog reports.

The blog also delivers the news that some UK mom has written a book about how proud she is that she breastfed her daughter until the ancient age of 6-and-a-half, as if I'd need to read an entire book about this activity.

The name of the book is Breastfeeding Older Children, three words that should never run consecutively unless it follows the phrase "That's as crazy as."

I'm not a woman, nor do I claim to be unless it's Ladies Night at the local bar, but I think a few things would alert me that it might be time to stop breastfeeding junior:

1. He bites my breast and loses a baby tooth.
2. He tries to watch SpongeBob SquarePants while taking a drink.
3. He brings his classmates around to have a taste.
4. He asks Grandma what hers tastes like.
5. >He asks for chocolate milk.

Or, as one commenter put it: "A kid that's old enough to make a sandwich on his/her own doesn't need milk on tap." Read more...