My daughter just turned 1 – a cause for a party on its own. Couple it with the fact that I got a raise on the very same day, and we really have reason to celebrate.

The boost in our household income is no coincidence – the first birthday marks a magical milestone. Babies are allowed to quit infant formula and switch to real milk.

Yes, I won the lactose lottery. I’ve never been so deliriously delighted about dairy.

If you haven’t shopped for infant formula lately, you are fortunate and independently wealthy. A gallon of milk costs $4. A gallon of formula costs $4,300. If your baby needs soy or another alternative, double it. The reason the maternity hospital bill is so large is not due to advanced medical care. It simply covers the first 24 hours of formula samples they provide.

To “run out to get some formula” is an expedition that takes no less than three days. Availability is a constant problem. I can’t tell you how many miles I’ve logged in search of a can just to get us through the night. My forehead imprint must be on every empty store shelf in the county. There are many different varieties from which to choose: ready-to-feed, liquid concentrate and powder. Not all grocery stores carry all of the brands – or your version of it. Drug stores and gas stations offer even fewer options. Convenience stores only carry Similac Slurpees.

Once I tried to stock up at a warehouse club. For a suitcase full of cash, I could have purchased a pallet of powdered formula that would have fed the baby for a few days. But it would have cost as much as a Harvard education, so I walked out empty handed. It was all for the better. Because of the drought and the water restrictions, mixing up that much formula would have put us over our annual household quota. (Then again, it might have been cheaper to water the lawn with Perrier over the summer.)

What was our preferred formula? Ready-to-feed, because we are crazy spendthrifts and mixing formula is a household chore that puts me over the domestic edge. Powdered formula is like napalm. If you get it on your skin, forget it. The oils from your epidermis react with it instantly. Suddenly you are coated with a sticky film of milk that smells like baby spit up. If a teaspoon of powder falls on a wet counter, your kitchen looks like a milking barn. You even need a jackhammer to blast the coagulated clumps of powder from the bottoms of bottles. What’s more, determining the correct powder-to-water ratios is intimidating. With my poor mathematical skills, the baby was getting either cream-flavored water or bottles of Cream of Wheat.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me. If that baby needed the platinum edition of formula, she was going to get it at any price. It was just a bit frustrating to be price-gouged on this essential. While most folks are checking their stock portfolios for the latest prices on commodities, I spent mornings looking at the ticker for BOTL$$$. Bottles that is. White Gold. Wisconsin Tea.

And so we celebrated my baby’s birthday and one year of bountiful blessings from my curly-headed angel. We gathered and took pictures. She marveled at the pink balloons and made a huge mess with her pink cake. And to celebrate our raise, we got her a diamond-studded pacifier, Egyptian cotton diapers and a pony.

We even had change to spare.

Tracey Henry is a published author who is featured regularly on www.Backwash.com. To view other columns, click here.