I have the best husband in the whole entire star sprinkled galaxy. Yeah. I know. Everyone says that. (About their husbands, that is.) Right before they write about something fabulous that they did. I am writing about my wonderful husband as a preface. An introduction to the unmentionable:
I could have killed the best husband in the star sprinkled galaxy on Saturday.
I’m not sure how I would have gone about executing said murder. I’m sure a few options would have presented themselves so that I may off him ever so successfully. Bonus points for making it look like an accident so I could keep my current lifestyle through the support of life insurance. The best husband in the world was going about his extra husbandry duties, and cleaning out the fridge on Saturday after lunch. Such things are not exactly outlined in our marital agreement. Extra efforts are simply filed away under brownie points for the W.H. (wonderful husband). Changing the diapers, bathing the kids, beating the children so I don’t have to…he’s an excellent brownie-point earner. People often marvel at what a wonderful helper he is. I probably take him for granted sometimes, since this is just his nature. He is quite fabulous. And I love him very much. But all b.p’s aside, I could have killed him.
Back to the cleaning out of the fridge part: He cleaned out the fridge. Yeah. I mentioned that. And at least two to three hours after alleged cleaning, I happened to walk into the kitchen. I stopped dead in my tracks. There, sitting innocently on top of the GE were two breast pump parts. Filled to the brim with my breast milk. Let’s take a moment to pause, shall we? Any breastfeeding mother has now stopped to gasp a little. Perhaps to clutch at her throbbing heart and her aching milk producing woman parts, out of sheer empathy for this very situation. But for those of you who may not understand, let me clarify. I am nothing more than a milking cow. And pumping milk…is the exact equivalent to human gold. I measured it. On a magical human value scale I keep in my house. I was going to place said milk in freezer bags, to store away for later. Only we had run out of bags. So they were stored in the fridge until I got around to it. Once human milk is removed from the fridge, it is no longer safe to re cool. These bottles had been out for at least two hours. These bottles held nearly 12 ounces of precious, once-viable, nutrition enriched human milk. For my baby. And that took a lot of work.
I stopped for a moment as the room began to spin. Clutching the walls for support, to fight the overwhelming urge to scream (the children were sleeping) The raging hormones threatening to take over my body and with a violent shudder, morph me into a chainsaw welding banshee. “Is that my MILK on top of the fridge?” I asked. Keeping my voice calm and unwavering.
“Oh.” He replied. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Sorry? Sorry?! SORRY!???? You have no idea, DO YOU?” I think at this point, literal red beams began to shoot from my eyeballs and to his throatal area. Threatening to penetrate his jugular. I have mad super powers like that when I’m amped on some serious woman juice and sleep deprivation.
It pained me to pour out my human gold. PAINED me. I could have cried while I did it. I watched each drop descend the drain to their final resting place, and then I held a small funeral procession in its honor at the sink. I invited the neighbors. (They said they had plans.) I know he’s not perfect. But I could have KILLED him. Have I mentioned that? I almost did. It took me nearly an hour to recover from the loss. I’m still, quite honestly, reeling from it. We may travel to the beach this next spring sans kids, and I’ll still be rambling about how I had to pump an extra bag because we were ONE SHORT. But hey…at least the fridge is clean.
While we’re discussing faults, he also abandoned me yesterday with the children so he could go to work. I mean who does that? (Don’t answer that one. I know. Everyone.) Abandoned me without a drop of caffeine in the house. But that story includes me calling him at work and threatening to gouge his eyeballs out with an ice pick. Yeah. We’ll blame that one on the hormones, too. He was gracious enough to come to my rescue shortly after lunch with a diet dr. P.
Bless him. He has redeemed himself.
As usual:
Jamie says
Love the stationery…you are very talented!
Abbie says
I would have killed Ben if he had done that too! Pumped milk is worth MORE than gold!
kate says
I was cringing as I was reading it. Oh the thought!
Julie says
I don’t blame you one bit! I would have killed Jud also!
Kera says
Let me say, before I got to that paragraph I thought, Please don’t say he poured out her breastmilk!
I had about 5 months of milk stored for my first and it all spoiled in the freezer, so my hubby bought me a deep freezer. I still have some from #2 that I just can’t throw out yet. Not sure what I will do with it, but you just never know when there might be a need.
My husband also suggested throwing some out once. But, only once.
Tiffany says
Thanks for the clarification! I had no idea what the problem was! Or what a complicated process all that is. Dang.
melissa ward says
I’m feeling your pain. You can’t truly feel the hurt of this until you’ve pumped that precious milk that takes you like 4 hours to get 2 ounces! As I read this, I could feel that same pain in the pit of my stomach as you poured it down the drain. Hurts me just to think about it again.
Whitney says
Justin did the same thing… He had gone to pick Hayes up from my parent’s house and they put 8 oz of frozen milk in the diaper bag and one full bottle. He was to come home and immediately put the bottle in the fridge and the bags in the freezer. The next day, when I was cleaning out the diaper bag, I saw 2 freezer bags and the bottle of my precious milk. I had a breakdown. Justin was lucky he wasn’t in the house. I called him in tears. Between sobs, I informed him of his crime. "I’m sorry" was all I got. I never could get him to pump those 13 lost ounces HIMSELF.
Whitney says
Oh, and this may be worse. One time he put some of my precious milk in the MACARONI AND CHEESE!!!! 1. How dare he steal my liquid gold. 2. Grosssssssss!
Hannah says
I laughged out loud so many times that I just read this to Michael! He resisted at first because he spotted the image of breast pumps on my screen out of the corner of his eye, but then I informed him that the post was about you almost killing Jamin, and then he was all, "by all means."
I’ve never pumped. It intimidates me. Tried it once and it hurt. But I’ve nursed 2 kids so far, and by nursed I mean nursed exclusively without giving a single bottle. Which means that I am completely shackled to my ball-and-chain bundle of joys for at least the first 6 months until others can stave off their hunger with jars of baby food. Seriously need to give pumping another try this time around though. So sorry about your loss. I’m still seized with jealousy that you can actually leave a nursing baby though. I never get to leave EVER. Where I go, baby goes. I’m over it.
Lori says
i started wincing for you as soon as you said "cleaning out the fridge". i’ve been around enough moms to know how hard-earned that breastmilk is. sad.
btw, your announcements are so cute!
Kimberly says
My first day back at work after having Henry, I knocked over a full bottle of breast milk that I had just pumped. I had been so proud of myself (up until that point) for not crying on my first day back. Well after I spilled the milk, I lost it!
I would have been mad too. 12 oz is priceless!
Kara says
That’s painful. After I had Jack, the doctors had to give me some kind of medication that had to do with all my delivery problems and they made me "pump and dump" because the medicine was one that went through to the milk and could hurt Jack. It was so mentally painful though because you know how amazing that first bit of breastmilk is. It killed me, but what kills me even more is when I hear of mothers who pump and dump so they can drink alcohol while having a nursing baby. I guess that’s better than sending the alcohol right on to the baby, but all of that lost milk. AH! I do have a story for you that I can’t really share on here that your story makes me think of…..will tell later.
Holly says
I still can’t get over that HE was cleaning out the fridge!!! I wasn’t aware that anyone with testicles could do such a thing. I’m having Bert read this post, for two reasons: 1. MEN are capable of cleaning 2. Never throw out breast milk. I’ll go ahead and forward it to my brothers and girlfriends husbands as well. All my girls will appreciate it.
Dana says
yeah, he should sleep with his eyes open for a while.