Was this the message Bnos Basya was teaching its students?

The only problem with goat’s milk is that you can still taste the goat. But the benefits are more than worth the price. And if I get the strawberry yogurt, it’s not so bad.

“Moooommmmmmy! Why is there no toothpaste in this house?” Rina, my oldest, whines as she pads into the kitchen in her uniform, slippers slapping the tiles.

We happen to have at least four tubes of open toothpaste — one in each bathroom and at least two in the kids’ bathroom (regular and tutti-frutti for the younger kids) — but Rina wouldn’t dream of sharing a tube of toothpaste with her flesh and blood family. We must’ve run out of spares in the bathroom cabinet.

I debate responding and decide against it. Rina is not a morning person — and especially not a Monday morning person.

She pads over to the fridge. “Why is there nothing normal to eat? Only go—”

She stops mid-word and takes the goat yogurt. She wouldn’t dream of complaining about the goat products in our fridge. My size is too important to her.

A few years ago, a new company offered a month’s worth of goat-milk products as a prize in a Chinese auction. No, I didn’t put a ticket into that, but I won the jackpot, and wouldn’t you know it, the only thing I won the entire night — despite having used most of my maaser to put tickets in for the sheitel and the European vacation — was that farshtunkaner supply of goat products. Well, I wasn’t going to let them go to waste. So for a month I substituted goat’s milk products for all my usual dairy.

By the end of that month, my clothing was falling off of me. My doctor thinks my body may have reacted with the growth hormones in cow’s milk. Obviously, I continued with goat products. It took about three years, but I never need a cane anymore. Never get dirty looks when I can’t manage to fit on only one chair and I’m shopping in the regular stores. I’m not a size four or anything, not even an eight, but finally in the realm of average. People probably think I’m on shots. Let them. I’ve lost weight and avoided the health risks.

I’d been to doctors, tried every diet. Nothing was ever like this — painless (well, except for the taste… but you get used to it), easy, and lasting. Rina’s still young, but I know she’d been embarrassed by me. Now she can finally admit she has a mother. I’ve been welcomed into the human race.