I don't care how long it's been since I last pumped. I'm still MAD.

This is a post about nursing and pumping so if this is the kind of thing that weirds you out or you think is gross, this is your opportunity to leave.

Go! Go now!!

If you are a mom, empathize with a mom, plan to be a mom, plan on feeding a baby breast milk, or are just plain interested in understanding how a grown woman can cry over spilled milk, well this is the post for you.  It is closing in on a year since I last pumped and it has been nearly three months since I last nursed but each and every drop of the precious milk I produced for my child was just as I described, PRECIOUS.

Maybe for people who have never pumped or didn't struggle to pump this may not be a big deal to you, but I despised pumping.  My severe aversion for the pump started the second I hooked myself up to those uncomfortable cones at the hospital.  The hospital kept sending me lactation specialists to check on how I was nursing my daughter.  We had no problems nursing.  What they should have been sending them for was to teach me how to pump.  Nursing just kind of clicked with me.  Pumping did not.

The number of problems I seemed to have endured in the beginning could have been taken as signs that I should quit.  I'm stubborn so I didn't.  I bought different size cones, inserts, soothers and even a new pump.  I bought creams and oils for days.  I Googled and YouTubed so many how to videos I started to feel like I was in my internship to be a pumping consultant.  Finally there came a point where I'd gotten good enough that I could deal with whatever discomfort came that day.

Most days I pumped 6 times or so while still nursing in between.  I carefully bagged and labeled each and every ounce.  I froze and bagged each Lansinoh bag into a gallon size bag for careful transport and to know if my supply every got low.  My goal was to get my daughter to one year with no formulas or other supplementation.  I didn't it but it definitely did not come easy.

These bags were my favorite of all the milk storage bags that I used. Never once did one of these bags leak or break like some of the others.

I made sure that I pumped until there would be enough milk until she turned one.  Nursing wasn't so bad for me so we still nursed in the morning and before bed at night until she was 15 months or so.  

I remember the day I quit pumping.  I just couldn't bring myself to pump one more time.  It definitely wasn't a planned date or anything.  That day, I'd packed all of my pump supplies, lugged it all to work and even gone to the room where I normally pumped.  I sat down in the chair, I pulled out all of the supplies.  Then I just stared at them.  I sat there for a good five minutes before I picked up my phone and called my husband.  The first thing I said to him was, "I quit."  

Those words could have been taken in a few different ways but he immediately knew what I was talking about.  His response was, "Good.  How do you feel?"  How could he have known that was what I was talking about?  Well, because he knew the struggles I'd had with it.  Maybe he didn't know the full extent of the tears that came with it but he knew that I hated it.  

See this bottle?  This was 45 minutes of torture.

Here is the part where I cry over milk...

Now, I have knocked over nearly 4 ounces of milk and nearly lost my mind.  I eventually got over it but I never forgot the carelessness that caused it to happen.  It never happened again.  

There have been two times where I found milk in bags that got wasted.  Once, I found an entire gallon sized ziplock bag full of the smaller Lansinoh bags in the trunk of my husbands car.  The other time came just earlier this week.  I found four small bags of curdled milk in a lunch bag that had been in the trunk of the car for 6 months or more.  I know we all make mistakes and forget stuff but those hurt.

The rational me had to convince the enraged pumping mother me that it was just a mistake and it happens.  I don't care how many times I tell myself it was totally unintentional that it happened, a little part inside of me starts balling like a five year old who's ice cream cone fell on the grimy sidewalk in a pile of cigarette butts.  

If you have never felt complete disdain for your pump, pumping, or have no idea how someone can be so irrational about milk just remember this post.  There are actually people who put their blood, sweat and tears into pumping.

Complainer's Corner

Sometimes when I think about this blog, it seems like I have a lot to complain about.  I really don't.  I have a lot to be very very thankful for.  My husband is great (not perfect, but neither am I!), I have a happy, healthy daughter who I think the world of, my job is definitely more good than bad, I've got a nice house, the list could go on but I think you get the point.  However, I think it is fair to say we all have something to complain about.

Please voice your complaints here

This morning I was thinking that sometimes we all need to put ourselves in the Complainer's Corner.  That way you can be there and get all of your complaints out without putting other people in a funky mood.  You know how if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed you somehow can dampen other people's bubbly mood.  That's just not fair.

I have been in a FUNKY ASS mood these last few days.  I'm not sure if it's work, lack or sleep or something else.  I'm leaning towards a combo of the three.  Either way, I am just not a ray of sunshine and I need to be put somewhere.  At least I know it.

Sometimes we need to look at ourselves and our mood and reassess the situation.  Currently, I am aware but sometimes I just am not.  If things just don't seem to be going your way maybe the world isn't against you but really you are just not in the mood for anything.  If you feel like that, go put yourself in the Complainer's Corner where all the grouchy asses can be together so that they don't put anyone who's in a good mood in a bad one.

Grown-Up?

I'm 30... yup, 30.  At what point do I consider myself a grown up?  I'm sure that all my little cousins consider me an old fogey but I'm not sure I consider myself an adult.

Yes, I realize that I do grown up things like work a full time job, got married, had a kid, and even bought a house.  Does doing all those things really make me an adult?  I'm not sure.

This past weekend my husband and I were talking about goofy moments and the one that keeps cracking me up is from my brother's wedding.  I didn't do anything at the wedding but after.  Sometimes I can be entirely way too serious but I've kind of always been that way, even as as little kid.  Every once in a while I get really goofy and the jokes and pranks just don't stop.  

My brother's wedding was fun.  We did all the regular wedding festivities early morning picking up the bride (who is one of my best friends) going to the hotel, hair, drinks, make-up, etc.  Then of course the wedding, dinner, then the after wedding stuff at the bar.  Well, I had to head back to the hotel to put my daughter to sleep.  Once she was asleep, we left all the kids with my best friend's mom and all started to hang out.  Well, we were all goofing off and I don't know what came over me but there were these teenage girls walking down the hall and I snatched the door open and growled, "no laughing!"  If you could have seen the look on their faces... They were stunned.  I did follow it up quickly, as I laughed, "Just kidding!!"  

It was even funnier because even one of the people in the hotel room with us stopped laughing.  I've know this guy since I was like 15 years old and I guess I've never played jokes around him, he just about died after I said, "just kidding."

It occurred to me that I maybe regressing in life.  I think I'm turning into a teenager.  

Even if I am dressed like an adult...

I guess, I have been learning to live life a little less serious each day.  

I'm getting pretty good at it.

And don't forget to socialize

I read something today that rubbed me a little wrong today. In a very nice letter from one stay-at-home mom to another and one of the points was not to forget to socialize. I am a full time working mother and let me tell ya, finding time to socialize is definitely one of the hardest things to do. And yes, it can be very isolating.

Now truly I know what the woman was saying.  However, at the same time, in the context that it was written it made it seem like, now that you are no longer chained to your 40 hour a week job, you will be just home and find yourself never leaving the house and talking to only your children and your husband.  As someone who still works a modified full time job, my social interactions are extremely limited (unless you count Instagram and even that is questionable).  I work, so while I'm at work, you are not going to find me standing at the water cooler chatting away my day with minimal work.  I'm grinding.  I'm doing my job which happens to be one that doesn't involve much interaction with others unless I'm at a meeting or discussing work.  

We don't even have a water cooler at my job

After my day at the office commences, the next thing I do is fly over to pick up my daughter.  As we try to stick to a semi-schedule, I only get a few hours a night with my baby.  I cherish those moments.   I try to remember that the dishes will be there and the dog hair that needs to be swept up can wait until someone is fast asleep.  It is a struggle, I don't get to clean up from breakfast and prep lunch and dinner while a two hour nap happens.  All of those things get crammed into the few hours from when I get home from work before I have to send myself to bed for the next early morning.  

I never look this happy when I clean... may that's because my house is never this neat.  I need more cabinets!

I'm sure there are plenty of houses that are neater and cleaner than mine on a regular basis but sometimes things must wait until the weekend.  The weekend where society expects that since you aren't working that you must have time to do things like have breakfast with your closest girlfriends and dinners with your college pals.  Alas, you aren't doing those social things, you barely remember what your own phone ringtone sounds like because it's been so long since you've had a social call and all the unknown numbers in your phone have a different tone so that you know they are probably telemarketers.  

Man this looks fun... to bad my excitement for the day was going to the Laundromat to wash blankets.  

Woo hoo!!  You know you are jealous ;-)

Keeping friends as a working parent is no easy task and making new ones is nearly impossible.  I searched for months on end for a parent group to join up.  One of the criteria I tried to look for was one that had working parents.  There were plenty of groups that said, "yes, we have working parents."  However once you looked at the schedule of activities for times and days to meet up you may find that you could make it to one weekend meet up every two months.  Why is that you ask?  Well, my dear parents (and anyone else reading this), that is because the rest of the meeting times were Monday through Friday somewhere between the hours of 10am and 3pm.  I'm sorry, but what kind of working parents are you talking about??  I don't sell products through my social network or telecommute and make my own hours.  I am in an office most weekdays from 8:30am to 5pm.  

Grind!

So don't fret parents, it doesn't matter if you work or don't work you may find that you are feeling quite isolated.  Don't let your perception of someone else's life or their advice make you feel like you've done something wrong.  Being a parent is isolating until you realize that there are a bunch of other people just like you who did the best they could with the time they have and socialization was not at the top of their priority list.

I Lost My Camera

I'm so annoyed with myself.

Sometimes, I can be such a tornado and lose things but I'm mad about this one.  I lost my point-and-shoot camera.  It didn't even make it a year.  So sad...

This cute little Canon camera

It's been missing for some time but I've finally decided that I've actually lost it.  I've accepted it.  If my brother were to read this he would think this is so like me.  I can be a tornado, he is the one who actually started calling me a tornado.  I've always been a little flighty when it comes to locating my stuff, I mean, I'm the person who found out that there is a limit to the number of insurance claims you can have on a cell phone when you lose them.  It's so bad.

I shouldn't really complain because I still have other cameras to use but I lost the memory card and everything.  I probably didn't have too much on the card but it still sucks I really like all the memories that I catch.  My phone is a perfectly capable of taking pictures but it's not always the fastest.  There is also my trusty Canon T2i which has been a great camera for many years but it's big and it is not the camera that you can take everywhere without looking like a tourist.  Oh well.

I'm really struggling with the idea of buying another camera but I'm not one of those people who easily justifies spending money.  Plus if I'm going to buy a new camera I need to do research and check to see what cameras are best, the pros and cons, battery life, memory cards...  Oh goodness I turn everything into a research project.  Gah!!

Part of me hopes that it is in my truck under a seat or something and I just overlooked it.  Hopefully my purse fell over and it just slipped under something.  I'm going to give my truck and my house a good once over (again) this weekend and hope that it just magically appears.  Keep your fingers crossed! 

More adventures of the girl who is a tornado...