Sticky Situation

So, bottles. I don't talk a lot about bottles because this baby is all about the boob. Well, I'm all about the boob, because as hard as it is to breastfeed, pumping sucks even worse. It takes up a ton of time and isn't as efficient as a baby, so while I'm sitting on the couch hooked up to the pumping machine like a dairy cow for twenty minutes, and I can see it's taking every ounce of willpower my baby daddy has to not softly moo at me, and all that comes out is three measly ounces I feel like I just got bamboozled. Three ounces! THAT'S IT?!?!

Some women are super milk producers, and good for them. I don't get enough for one feeding, but they make enough to feed their baby FOR DAYS. Do you also shoot sparkles out of your vagina, because I'd probably be jealous of that too!

Just kidding. I'm jealous in a nice way. I really wish I could pump eight ounces at a time, but I just don't. And I know my baby is getting more than three ounces at a time when she nurses, a) because she's not still 7 pounds, and b) because when we give her a five ounce bottle she drinks that sh*t like it's a shot of Jager and she just broke up with her boyfriend and is looking to get just hammered enough to make out with anyone close enough to make out with.

But I do it, a few times a week I pump enough so that her dad can give her a bottle at night. They get to bond, and I can trust in the fact that by the time I work up the nerve to leave her for more than an hour and a half at a time she'll survive because she won't have nipple confusion. (Nipple confusion by the way. Something I didn't even know existed until I had a baby, and even then I was in such a hormone-high state when the doctor mentioned it that I immediately pictured a very confused nipple standing on a street corner going, "How did I get here?!", adjusting his little nipple hat, "I'm so confused. I'm just a nipple people! How about a little help!")

Anyway, so bottle time is good, and it absolutely MELTS MY HEART to watch her dad feed her, because you can tell by the way they look at each other that they love each other so much, and that they get a kick just being around one another. They're in cahoots. They're cohorts. They're friends. They're pals. They're so comforted by one another. They're father and daughter.

So, it's all magic and rainbows until things go horribly, horribly wrong.

You know that moment when things start to move aside so that the shit has a direct path to the fan? Well, that's what happened the other night. The little lady was screaming her head off because she was hungry, and I was hooked up to the breast pump so I could get a few drops out while the bottle was being used, so her father got all comfy and settled on the couch and stuck the warmed bottle in her mouth, all confident-like, when I noticed she wasn't screaming anymore. Except that she was. But I couldn't hear it over the other, very loud, super grown man screaming, because when he tipped the bottle over HALF THE MILK spilled all over the two of them.

HALF THE MILK.

That's like watching gold melt and vanish right before your very eyes. You can't get it back, and no matter how much wringing of shirts you do, there's no way you're going to get more than a splash of t-shirt tasting, watery, milk-like stuff which seems totally unfair because you know more than a few drops went onto those shirts and so you secretly start cursing physics, or chemistry, or whatever it is that makes things liquid not as liquid anymore, and you keep wringing it out but that stuff won't even make it into the bottle, it'll just dribble down the side and instead of being rational and just letting it go, you'll lick it off because, I don't know why, it's not like I was going to spit it into her mouth like some sort of weird bird-human-hybrid, it's just that my instinct was to save the milk, SAVE THE MILK THAT TOOK ME THREE DAYS TO PUMP, before I realize I'm still hooked up to the pumper and it's pulling me back down because the power cord only reaches so far, so while the baby and her dad are both screaming bloody murder, he starts running down the hall and I'm like, "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!" and he's like, "SHE'S SOAKED!" "I don't think now is the time to change her," I say motioning to her with my elbows because my hands are attached to the whirring plastic on my boobs, and she's so pissed her face is now eggplant colored, and so he comes back and I notice his shirt is soaked too and he's probably not thrilled there's breast milk seeping into his belly button right now, but there's NO TIME FOR THAT, the baby is still screaming, so I sit back down and shout, "TAKE WHAT'S IN HERE!" and he's all, "BUT YOU'RE NOT DONE YET!" and I'm all, "IT'S OK. SAVE YOURSELF!" so I unhook, pour what I have just laboriously pumped into the half empty bottle, all the while the dog comes over and starts jumping up and barking because he can't understand what sort of fun we're having without him, and finally we manage to get the bottle in the baby's mouth, and my pumping started up again, and the dog settled into a very confused state on the floor, all three of us sticky, and scared, and silently hoping it was all a bad dream.

That was not the best bottle night.

Note to self: check bag of breast milk is secure in bottle BEFORE feeding child. Dork.

Oh how I secretly wish we had a camera installed in our vents because I'm pretty sure we looked like someone had just dropped poisonous spiders on us and set our feet on fire.

But it's all worth it for this little pork chop. I mean, a laughing baby? I'd spill breast milk every day for that.