To say that my first day back to work was somewhere between “Lemony Snicket” and Alexander’s “no good, very bad day” would be an understatement. I swore I had it all mapped out, after all, I had been planning the return all week! I heard from so many people that the more preparation the better so that’s just what I did. I laid out Amari and my clothes the night before. I bathed both of us. I packed my breast pump, Amari’s diaper bag and prepacked his frozen milk to send to the babysitter. I cooked the night before and made lunch for the next day. We had been on many outings to my mom’s house, the pediatrician and the store, this isn’t so different right? Wrong! There’s a saying that goes “Show me a man who plans, and I will show you a God who is laughing at him.” Well no matter how much I planned for my first day back, boy did he laugh.
The morning of the big day we woke up on time, I dressed myself and Amari and we were on track. I just needed to pump and we were out the door. Wait a minute… I packed my breast pump. OK, no big deal. Pull my breast pump out of its bag and pump. I had added a few more minutes to account for a “just in case” so we are still good to go. Grab Amari, throw him in his stroller, grab my pocketbook, his diaper bag, my breast pump bag, my lunch bag (goodness we can’t be serious with all of these bags!) and head for the door. As I place my hand on the doorknob I hear the loudest rumble coming from my baby’s butt *bbbrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmm*. He decided right at this moment to take a dump that would rival a horse! I can’t believe this! I debated leaving him with the soiled diaper and let the babysitter deal with it, but the thought of leaving my little guy in this diaper made me want to call child services on myself. So I put down the lunch, diaper bag, breast pump bag and my pocketbook and headed to the nursery to change Amari’s diaper. No big deal… guess again, huge deal! This kid decided to poop not only through his diaper but also through his onesie and through his clothes. Now I have to strip the boy to his bare bones, hose him down and start all over. As we are preparing to outfit his bottom with a new diaper, Amari felt that this would be a perfect time to pee, because of course, he didn’t do that at the time of his number 2 avalanche. Remember guys, he doesn’t have a diaper on so naturally he had no choice but to pee all over me (and my work clothes). Now here I am with my fresh golden shower continuing to complete this mission to dress my boy. By the time I finished re-dressing Amari and myself an additional 45 minutes passed and I was officially late for work.
OK finally drop Amari to the sitter and make my way to work. Aside from the snide “late on your first day back?” comment from my boss, everything was back on track. Cool, I will pump at 11 and be done in well enough time for my back to back 12 and 1pm meetings. Pull my pump out and begin putting it together when I realized that I was missing my breast flanges… at some point after my morning session and washing my parts, I forgot to put them back in the bag! I’m now in a meeting with my boobs throbbing and little to no patience to hear what anyone is saying right now. There is no way that I am going to make it through an entire day like this. I am just going to have to run to Buy Buy Baby during my lunch break… LUNCH… BREAK… where the hell is my lunch?!! Oh yeah, its still on the kitchen counter where I put it down to change Amari’s diaper! SMH
By the time I picked Amari up from the sitter and made it home, I was EXHAUSTED!!! It was a nightmare of a day. I barely had the energy to bathe my little guy, read him a story and put him to bed. Too tired to cook. Thank goodness I still had my lunch from earlier! Did I mention that in my mad rush I didn’t put the top on my finally pumped milk properly so it all spilled out into the pump bag??? Yea, talk about a no good very bad day.
I refused to cry over spilled milk (literally and figuratively). There was no way I was ever going to go through that again so I did several things to fix the situation. First things first, we need to get rid of some of these bags. So I went online and purchased a 2nd breast pump and additional parts. Now I have one to keep at work and one at home. One bag down. Then I made a cubby at the babysitter’s house complete with a week worth of diapers, a week worth of frozen breastmilk, a giant tub of wipes, several changes of clothes etc. Another bag gone! Lastly, I moved my kitchen apron to the nursery so that I can wear in the mornings in case Amari decides to grace me with a 2nd morning shower. Now I can’t guarantee that all my future days will be much better, but what I can guarantee is that I won’t get caught in this snicket again!!
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