There's No Use Crying

So, D left this morning at 7:30am for an out of town conference for work.  He comes back home Thursday evening which makes me a single mom of three for the very first time (thank goodness it's only for 58ish hours)!  He texted me this morning asking how it was going.  My response, "you don't want to know."  You see this is how my morning went...

I woke, fed the baby and pumped while the big kids watched 2 shows on PBS.  So far, so good.  Then I headed to the bathroom to get ready for the day.  It was then that I heard the garbage truck driving down a side road outside.  Suddenly I wondered if D had remembered (whilst making sure he had all he needed for this conference and 3 days away from home) to take the two full garbage cans to the curb before leaving.  I ran downstairs to peek out the front window...nope, no garbage cans.  Now, I didn't know if that garbage truck had already been by our house or not so I quickly grabbed the full garbage bag sitting in our kitchen, threw it in one of the garbage cans and ran outside with both garbage cans in tow.  Now remember, I had just headed to the bathroom to get ready for the day so I'm still in my pajamas at this point.  Am I feeling embarrassed?  Yes.  Hoping and praying that all of the neighbors are at work or otherwise occupied?  Absolutely!  But if that garbage truck doesn't pick up our garbage, we are stuck with it for another week plus all of the garbage that we'll accumulate this week and then what??  Now the garbage is out, but I still don't know whether or not they've already passed us by so I ran to the side yard (still in my jammies) and tried to wave down the garbage man to tell them I had just put our garbage out.  He nodded but didn't seem to hear me.  After finishing with the neighbor's garbage, he drove closer and rolled down his window at which point I again told him that I had just put the garbage out.  He said, ok and they drove around and got it - phew!  Crisis averted.

But then, then...I made breakfast for the kids (after getting dressed) and gathered bottles so I could wash them.  At some point, I realized that there were three more bottles on the other side of the counter so I leaned over to get them only to hear a splash.  It was then that I realized I had never put the cap on my freshly pumped breast milk.  "No, no, no!" I yelled.  But it was too late!  There on the counter lay a puddle of 2.5 ounces of liquid gold.  I wanted to cry.  I almost did, but then I thought 'maybe I can save it.'  Surely I could put it in a bowl and get it back in the bottle, right?!  Grabbing a bowl, I wiped the spilt milk off of the counter and into the bowl.  I had done it!  No harm, no foul.  But, could I really vouch for the cleanliness of my kitchen counters?  Really?  Was I willing to feed my 2 month old questionable milk?  Um, no.  Sadly, I poured the lost milk down the drain. 

Again, I wanted to cry, but as the old saying goes...

there's no use crying over spilt milk

...even if it is breast milk. 

So, I didn't cry. 

Instead, I put the cap on what remained of my milk, finished washing the bottles, texted D back and cleaned up the breakfast dishes. 

I helped L get the caterpillar-like creature she found outside into her bug habitat and read to the kids so we could log some more minutes on our summer reading charts from the library.

I fed the baby, pumped some more liquid gold, made lunch and gave the kids baths. 

And then, I wrote this blog post to remind myself not to take this 'mom life' too seriously. 

And of course, to give you a good chuckle and plead for your prayers for the next 51ish hours!  ;)

Hurry home D, we miss you already!!