WARNING: This post mentions the womanly art of breast feeding in a positive and loving way. If the idea of a woman using her body in the way Heavenly Father intended her to offends you tune in at a later date for a future post on Whimsies of the Wee.
For the last few Summers I have had a unique opportunity to teach gifted students at a local university for a three week period. I love the chance to interact with other people's Wees for awhile and my Wees love getting rid of me for a bit too.
The program is located in the heart of Atlanta which means that my family's normal routine is turned on its head. Instead of telecommuting I join the regular herd of disenchanted workers on their lemmingesque migration to the place which provides them the income to do all the fun things they would rather be doing than allowing the 95 year old postal worker with their blinker STILL on to merge into their lane.
In order to make this adjustment as painless as possible for Weeland we hire a live in nanny who provides continuity of care and fun for the kids for the period I am out of the house. This year's nanny is my college aged sister who my girls haven't had the chance to spend much time with up till now. While I am racked with "mommy guilt," they are gushing at the opportunity to "hang" with a "sophstipated" (Bella's word) coed cooler and younger than good old mom.
Of particular angst to me is leaving the littlest Wee for anything longer than his normal 30 second nap. As momma bears go on a scale of one to ten I am a 15. I nearly beat an old woman to death last week with a package of celery in the grocery store. In retrospect it was clear that she was merely handing Reid back his plush toy, but in the heat of the moment she looked like a scary babynapper to me. Her walker should have been a clue as to her harmless nature, but my motto is "better safe than sorry."
To be sure that Reid has everything he could possibly need in my absence I have been pumping extra bottles for him like mad. This means that despite attempts at modesty Wees 1, 2, and 3 have seen me using a breast pump at least once in the past few days. Wees 1 and 2 expressed mild amusement at the sight. Victoria even made the charming observation that I looked like a cow on a dairy farm.
But Maddie has been captivated by the process and ferrets me out to get a front row seat. There is no hiding place safe from her playtex sniffing nose and no lock secure from her constant handle jiggling. As soon as I try to pump in solitude I hear her firm stomp coming down the hallway and her belowing voice chanting "Are you milking mom? Where are you milking - can I see?" To her credit she is a motivator and routinely claps and cheers me on when a bottle is topped off.
One day last week I was loading the dish washer and the house was quiet - too quiet. The kind of quiet which means a mess that would shame the explosion at Chernobyl was being made somewhere. While mentally weighing whether or not the tranquility was worth having to get a back hoe out to clean up the play room later, I heard Wee 3's blood curdling scream coming from my bed room "My milkers!!! My milkers!! HELP!!!"
I sprinted down the hall throwing my weight against my bedroom door and burst through only to collapse in a heap of convulsed laughter. Maddie had taken her shirt off and was seated in the middle of my bedroom. She had somehow pried off the protective outlet cover on my bedroom wall and plugged in my breast pump. The pump was cranked all the way up to "Superhuman Suction" mode - a level I have personally never been brave enough to try. The pump was sucking and releasing like a steam engine on steroids and in her panic Maddie was pressing the cone of the pump harder against her chest instead of trying to pull it away.
I crawled with tears streaming down my face to the outlet and unplugged the pump. Wee 3 was not amused. She pulled the pump off tenderly fingering the welt appearing around her "milker" and threw down the pump in disgust. Giving the dirtiest look a 3 year old can, she yanked her shirt over her head and stomped out of my room. As her little perturbed body rocketed down the hallway I heard her mutter "I am never cooking for Reid again!"
A wee bit pumped,
CarrieAnne
For the last few Summers I have had a unique opportunity to teach gifted students at a local university for a three week period. I love the chance to interact with other people's Wees for awhile and my Wees love getting rid of me for a bit too.
The program is located in the heart of Atlanta which means that my family's normal routine is turned on its head. Instead of telecommuting I join the regular herd of disenchanted workers on their lemmingesque migration to the place which provides them the income to do all the fun things they would rather be doing than allowing the 95 year old postal worker with their blinker STILL on to merge into their lane.
In order to make this adjustment as painless as possible for Weeland we hire a live in nanny who provides continuity of care and fun for the kids for the period I am out of the house. This year's nanny is my college aged sister who my girls haven't had the chance to spend much time with up till now. While I am racked with "mommy guilt," they are gushing at the opportunity to "hang" with a "sophstipated" (Bella's word) coed cooler and younger than good old mom.
Of particular angst to me is leaving the littlest Wee for anything longer than his normal 30 second nap. As momma bears go on a scale of one to ten I am a 15. I nearly beat an old woman to death last week with a package of celery in the grocery store. In retrospect it was clear that she was merely handing Reid back his plush toy, but in the heat of the moment she looked like a scary babynapper to me. Her walker should have been a clue as to her harmless nature, but my motto is "better safe than sorry."
To be sure that Reid has everything he could possibly need in my absence I have been pumping extra bottles for him like mad. This means that despite attempts at modesty Wees 1, 2, and 3 have seen me using a breast pump at least once in the past few days. Wees 1 and 2 expressed mild amusement at the sight. Victoria even made the charming observation that I looked like a cow on a dairy farm.
But Maddie has been captivated by the process and ferrets me out to get a front row seat. There is no hiding place safe from her playtex sniffing nose and no lock secure from her constant handle jiggling. As soon as I try to pump in solitude I hear her firm stomp coming down the hallway and her belowing voice chanting "Are you milking mom? Where are you milking - can I see?" To her credit she is a motivator and routinely claps and cheers me on when a bottle is topped off.
One day last week I was loading the dish washer and the house was quiet - too quiet. The kind of quiet which means a mess that would shame the explosion at Chernobyl was being made somewhere. While mentally weighing whether or not the tranquility was worth having to get a back hoe out to clean up the play room later, I heard Wee 3's blood curdling scream coming from my bed room "My milkers!!! My milkers!! HELP!!!"
I sprinted down the hall throwing my weight against my bedroom door and burst through only to collapse in a heap of convulsed laughter. Maddie had taken her shirt off and was seated in the middle of my bedroom. She had somehow pried off the protective outlet cover on my bedroom wall and plugged in my breast pump. The pump was cranked all the way up to "Superhuman Suction" mode - a level I have personally never been brave enough to try. The pump was sucking and releasing like a steam engine on steroids and in her panic Maddie was pressing the cone of the pump harder against her chest instead of trying to pull it away.
I crawled with tears streaming down my face to the outlet and unplugged the pump. Wee 3 was not amused. She pulled the pump off tenderly fingering the welt appearing around her "milker" and threw down the pump in disgust. Giving the dirtiest look a 3 year old can, she yanked her shirt over her head and stomped out of my room. As her little perturbed body rocketed down the hallway I heard her mutter "I am never cooking for Reid again!"
A wee bit pumped,
CarrieAnne
This was hilarious. Thanks for a good laugh!
ReplyDeletehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe...
ReplyDeleteOMG! I'm at work, and it's SO hard to not burst out laughing out loud! I have tears streaming down my face!
ReplyDeleteMy older son is fascinated with the pump. I only have a manual one, so we have not had this kind of an experience, but I have found him holding the pump up to his belly button.
That was so funny! You have the cutest little babes and Reid will be no exception! Thanks for sharing yet another hilarious chapter in the house of Wees, Carrie Ann!
ReplyDelete