Pump it Up
It felt odd to be getting dressed for the first Christmas party of the season this past weekend, it was a party for the salon Cole works for, they throw their big shakedown before the super insanely busy holiday season hits and nobody has the energy or the want to "party". The salon always does this event right-- and everyone looks their best! It was the very first time that Cole had left the house without babies since last years Christmas party (besides our one dinner date this summer). So it goes without saying that this girl was excited and looked smoking hot. The short of it was that the food was amazing, the company fun and light, everyone really vibes well together, the whole thing is one big recipe to stay out till the sun comes up and have a hundred wild stories about the night. Our friends Jason & Gabi were super excited to baby sit for us, and they actually had an unexpected willing participant request to join the babysitter club that wanted to spend her evening with the Tangerine as well. So we knew that Tessa was well taken care of and surrounded by interested eyes all focused on her silliness. So we were set. We had the night. It was ours.
She looked great! I mean Cole looked unbelievable, I wish I would have had time to just skip the party and take pictures of Cole, but I only managed a couple shots outside our backdoor before we left...
* For Central FL readers- The party was in this adorable little town called Gotha, the restaurant is called Yellow Dog Eats and the whole thing is just completely unexpected and a real find. One of those places that you keep scratching your head thinking "I can't believe this place is hiding out here and so fabulous" it's just far enough out of town that it feels like a real "get away from it all" outing, but not far enough to dread going. It's perfect. If I was hired to write a review for this place I would take a picture of the premises and just write the word "perfect" underneath it. Be sure to tell them that Pacing the Panic Room sent you, they will have no idea what you're talking about.
So the party. It had it all, amazing food, music, drinks, people, energy, dancing on furniture, there was no danger of things slowing down at all. We had left the house at 5 and by the time we had all met, drove to the location, got settled, mingled, snacked, dined, secret santa gift exchanged, it was around 9PM. Cole's laughing silly mood sort of melted away at the stroke of 9 and she looked at me and said "Oh my Gosh I'm sleepy?!" haha she looked sleepy. She also looked like she was a little uncomfortable. She would twist her shoulders and pull at her dress. Her boobs had been filling with milk and we had completely failed to think ahead and bring along the breast pump. FAIL. Normally it would not have become an issue so soon, but this hot little dress she had on left little room for engorged milk breasts. A couple of the girls had caught on to what was going on as we were realizing that we needed to say good night and get out of there before her boobs turned into pumpkins, (and that is when it started) some of the girls trying to talk me into taking Cole into the bathroom and set to draining her boobs so they could keep hanging out with her. Are you kidding me? "NO! No way." Like I want that to be the topic at the salon next week, "So Ryan totally went to town on Cole's boobs at the party so she could stay out and dance with us." As funny as Cole thought the idea was, and enjoyed watching me squirm when the idea would be presented, she couldn't dream of wasting the milk, and she was already missing the baby so much at that point that we both just took it as the time to get home. Despite all of the perfect elements in place it just couldn't compete with how much we missed the baby. It actually felt reassuring to have natural instincts drawing us back home.
This little girl was a beacon calling us home...
So take this entry as a reminder that no matter how hot your dress is, make sure your bag is big enough to fit a breast pump into it. There may or may not have been an attempt at making a Macgyver type of contraption that involved the pump from a soap dispenser and a plastic soufflé cup, and some chewing gum. It is unconfirmed. And never being admitted to.
Any experience with this scenario, be sure to leave your funny/awkward/painful stories behind for sharing with the group :)
All the Love in the Universe ~ Us
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45 comments:
I've heard tell of nursing friends milking themselves over toilets because of such circumstances!
Your wife is stunning and your babygirl is mesmerizing. I'm glad you know what a lucky guy you are!
glad the two of you enjoyed your evening away. it's so important to take some time for yourselves when you're constantly giving to everyone else.
erniebufflo... funny you should mention that! i actually had that experience with some friends at the coachella music festival in indio, ca! i had left my still nursing daughter back in orlando (here comes the mama guilt) to jaunt through the desert... breast pump in hand. luckily, the paramedics were sympathetic and allowed me to pump in their rv, to give me some privacy... i did this while listening to an incredible set by Arcade Fire. anyway, this worked great until my pump failed... leaving me to hand express milk over a sink in the bathroom. guess it just makes for a good story in her baby book!
LOVE the pics!!! Cole has the most mesmerizing eyes....!!!!! Tess is beautiful!!! Glad ya'll had a FUN night out =)
Funnily enough I have also heard of people milking themselves over public toilets (as erniebufflo mentioned). I wonder if this is the unseen/unspoken part of nursing.
Myself, I had a hard time getting away from my babe for more then an hour at a time because [embarrassing story coming] my breasts would basically spring a leak every two hours and soak thru any type of absorbent padding I had tried to use. It was either party down with two wet rings or appease the fountain breasts by staying near the babe.
I still tease one of my friends for 'milking' herself in the restroom at a bar... we brought the pump with us but one piece of the contraption was left behind, thus making it useless...
my friend tried to 'relieve' her breasts over the toilet, but had terrible aim... needless to say, things got messy and she'll never live it down.
And it goes without saying... your family is just beautiful!
I will match your Macgyver contraption and raise you hand squeezing boob milk into a (sterilised) glass juice bottle after being trapped at work for an extra hour and a half.
Oh gosh... Been there done that.
Then there was that time I was all dressed up looking fab & remembered the pump and pumped on time but my boobs went all crazy anyways and leaked right out my dress. Good times, good times.
Its so good to have time away though isnt it!?
Ah HA! I can absolutely relate to the boobs turning into pumpkins remark. Aptly put Ryan.
I am out of this discussion today, Cole is reading and responding to comments here today :)
I cannot feel your pain.
Yep, totally been there, in fact when I read your tweet, I knew exactly what you were talking about. I do not miss that part about those days- so painful, and I could never self-express to help "ease" matters into the toilet as others described, not for lack of trying, though!
Well, of course I can feel the pain, although it really wasn't pain, I was just wearing a really pretty dress that didn't have any give to it, so once my boobs reached a certain point there wasn't anywhere to go besides just getting naked. Unfortunately since I am breast-feeding I wasn't allowed to drink enough alcohol to think that getting naked was a good idea. So the part that Ryan left out is that he and I DID go into the bathroom together where he DID try and make a pump out of a soap dispenser (OMG HILARIOUS!) then he sat on the toilet while I squirted milk into the sink. This was the first time that he had ever seen the milk just spraying everywhere. Then one of us said, I don't remember which said, "Oh, it is spraying all over the sink." Shortly after that I realized that my efforts weren't going to be worth the trouble, because by the time I could have milked enough, it would be time to leave anyhow. So we exited the bathroom together, and of course there were these people I didn't know standing outside that thought we had bathroom sex that resulted in "something" squirting all over the sink. HA can't wait to explain that one to my boss. YAY for milkly titties.
Cole
@ coleface- Yes! That may have happened that way, but you forgot to say that I was all fussing about saying. "We have to clean this up and get it off the sink" and you were like, "but it is still squirting." and that is the part that was embarrassing for the party standing outside the door heard. Ugh. I really thought I could make that pump work. What a jackass.
hahaha, this post (and Cole's comment) made me laugh out loud. I had a hard time going anywhere for more than a couple of hours....because well, I just had incredibly powerful boobs when it came to milk....there was only ONE kind of breast pad that worked...for 2 hours. That's it. I only nursed for about 5 months...but it was a LONG 5 months.
PS - lookin' awesome Cole!
Dude. This is like a MILF Penthouse Pet Forum. Maybe I've just been married way too long but all this talk about hot Moms and Boobs and bathrooms is killing me. Call me when it's safe to come back. The kid is beautiful by the way, as is your wife.
Cole, I'm in awe of your dainty, naturally refined beauty. You looked smoking and very French with the little scarf and beret.
That story is REALLY funny...! Never really had to do that. The one remotely similar thing that happened to me was taking my 2 month old to a dinner and a friend who also had a baby but had left her home asked me if she could nurse my son a little to relieve her. I didn't do it.
Oh for the love of God, man. Cole is over the top beautiful. And Tessa is just ridiculous in her cuteness.
And this is petty and so trivial and whatever, but it's a girl thing so maybe she'll understand: Cole-Your eyebrows are absolutely perfect.
Cole is drop-dead gorgeous! As is your little Tangerine. I love your family to bits!
yo gabba gabba, while kind of cool in theory, scared the living shit out of me. tessa goes crazy for it, though. like, screaming with happiness crazy. especially in that bouncy chair. on that note, do they make those for adults? because that think looks so comfortable..
anyway, check your email for photos of jason the masseuse.
I did the toilet "milk" as well a couple of times but I used to 'leak' at the drop of a hat - I swear someone else's baby would cry for food and I would have milk everywhere - I think everyone thought I had turned into some sort of hippie goth (as opposed to just my usual hippie self!) as I had to wear black flowy tops for a while and numerous breast pads to cover it up - the irony is my daughter hated breast feeding! Lovely photos x
2 weekends ago< I went away for the weekend taking my breast pumo with me. My son is 14 months and the plan was to wean him while I was away. When I got to the point of uncomfortable, I went to pump and realized I had forgotten the part you use to suction the pump to your breast. So...I did the squeeze over the sink thing until my boobs were so huge (like enormous and very painful) and then took a look at them to realize I had red streaks running through them. I sat on the bed with them propped on a pillow with a towel draped across my lap and squeezed them all the while talking with my friend and wincing. It sucked a duck big time. When I got home I was so relieved to have a child to suck the milk out...and my breasts were so sore for a week. Anytime my milk let down or I was cold it was just painful.
Cole looked gorgeous indeed :)
Cole is so very, very beautiful. And I will keep this story in mind if I am ever lucky enough to have children, heheh.
Wow she does look awesome! :)
"There may or may not have been an attempt at making a Macgyver type of contraption that involved the pump from a soap dispenser and a plastic soufflé cup, and some chewing gum."
hahahahahaaaa that totally cracked me up!
Oh, and Tessa looks awesome, too! Your shots of her are so lovely!
steam me up kid- Thanks for the compliment, I am always worried about these dang brows.
Octohawk- You are the best for being in love with my kid. it is cool.
Amber- Sounds like that was a serious ordeal. I guess that means it isn't time to wean quite yet. Breastfeeding such a nice thing anyhow, even at 14 months.
thank YOU cole. following your pregnancy and getting to interact with the resulting lifeforce you created helped in a large way to reverse the lifelong hatred, disgust and general apathy i felt for procreation. i love that chubby drool monster (and you and ryan).
beautiful!
Okay, I have so been there, but the story I must (MUST!) tell did not involve me. Promise.
Soooo. My BIL works in security at Disnyland. One time he received a complaint from a disgruntled nursing mother who had attended the park a few days earlier. Apparently, she brought along bottles of expressed milk for he day, but got engorged and needed to take advantage of the mother's room.
She was writing to say that she was quite furious about the mother's room no-men policy. She was engorged, she explained, and without a pump. So she NEEDED her husband to "even her out" but they wouldn't let him in.
I kid you not. There is a woman running around who breastfeeds her husband and would willingly do so in public. How ridiculous is that?
aww, Cole- Idk if my last comment went through :( but It's so nice to see hot, well dressed mommies. Love the hat.
ahhh.. yes tricky boobs!
I did a photoshoot 10 days after my little one was born.
It was cold outside so I was wearing a long sleeve fitted top and a black jumper. When I arrived at their house I got to work and suddenly I was boiling hot... however when I went to take of my jumper I realized that my boobs had been leaking all over my top so jumper MUST stay on!
As it got hotter and hotter I had a red face and rolled up sleeves NOTHING was going to make me take off my jumper!
As I left the shoot I noticed milk was now soaked through the jumper and running down my tummy to my pants.
TALK about unprepared! EMBARRASSING TOO!
(this was only a 2hr shoot too!! - had way too much milk in the early days)
Beautiful, beautiful family!
I can only remember one funny/weird breastfeeding story. My son was born 5 weeks before our anniversary and I was exclusively pumping (straight from the tap would have been awesome but didn't happen). We just did dinner and a movie and I figured I would pump in the truck on the way to the movies. All was well and good because it was night and I had a cover over me. We get into the parking garage and the guard on a bike kept following us looking at me crazy. I couldn't just stop or I would have drown us both in boob juice! I can only imagine what he thought I was doing.
unrelated, but the new header is lovely! did you make it yourself? or will there be a separate post about it?
Ah, I remember those days. Five weeks after my first child was born, I was a speaker in the wedding of one of my best friends. My sister- and brother-in-law babysat, and the wedding was about 45 minutes away. My husband and I went to the wedding, had a great time, the reception was fabulous, but then, as the night went on, I started to get tired, and uncomfortable. We left, but on the drive home I swelled so much I started leaking horribly. The dress was a casualty, but the whole thing was a great laugh, and we were happy to return home to our baby boy. (Especially me.)
You've got a beautiful family, Ryan. Thanks for sharing it all with us.
Your family is so gorgeous! Can't get over it.
Don't know if I have any interesting boob stories. I actually worked with a woman who was SO strange. She claimed that holding a baby ANYTHING (including puppies, kittens, etc) would cause her to lactate, even 15 years after her last child. So bizarre!
okay here it the condensed version on you tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJE55o2kCY8
first off i love your blog everyone in the family is just gorgeous
do you guys watch weeds? you have to watch this scene. the episode is called, "suck and spit" it's hilarious. i'm a nursing mama and my husband and i just peed ourself watching this scene. start it at 16 minutes in.
http://www.cucirca.com/2009/08/04/weeds-season-5-episode-9-suck-n-spit/
just spent my lunch hour pumping and eating lunch sitting in a toilet cubicle! and then the batteries died with many more hours of work and engorged breasts to follow. Oh yes they do have parent rooms where I work, but noone bothered to install powerpoints for plugging in pumps, or even a chair to sit in.
also - have you noticed the amount of ska/punk bands that play on yo gabba gabba?? like the aquabats. i saw them on there! and the ting tings "that's not my name".
and the guy who sings "you.. you got what i neeeeeeed." and jack black was on there.
I love the look in cole's eyes in the last picture. combined with that smirk.
as if she's thinking how good YOU make her feel.
Woodstock...1999....4 month old baby at home, breast pump would not cut it for a couple of overnights.....(I think I was the only person trying to squeeze a breast pump through security)....lets just say that there was one husband at Woodstock that year very full on breast milk ;)
Also, though, one funny pumping story. My first day back to work. I share an office with a lady, and when I pump, I cover up before whipping them out, and we shut the door. Well, the door doesn't lock, so we just put a sign on it that said "please do not enter, busy", and posted it at EYE LEVEL ON THE DOOR. Well, her boss (a man) came busting up in our office and took one look at me as I yelled "HEY! CAN'T YOU READ!??" and started stuttering, "oh oh oh, i'm s s s so sorry" and stammered out the door. The look on his face was priceless. He shut the door and said "you should put the sign where people can see it" to which I responded, "it's at EYE LEVEL!!!". From then on (before we bought a lock), i taped it to the doorknob and we pushed our trashcan in front of the door. Because, apparently, some people can not read.
Luckilly, since I exclusively pump and do not physically nurse, forgetting my pump is not an option. If I leave the house, IT leaves the house (unless I"m just running to the store). My pump and me, we're bestest of friends. Have been thankful for that thing on many occasions and it was the best $150 I have ever spent.
That said, this being my first holiday season with an infant, and therefore a pump, will prove interesting when I have to make time during the really busy days with family to sneak off and pump. I'm sure I"ll manage.
So I am 27, have no kids, have no immediate close friends with kids, and I knew nothing about this. How did this kind of stuff escape me? Eesh. Well mom's, you've once again proven you have a stronger will than I do. I'm just going to pop another birth control or two and work on my queasiness.
Really though, great entry, it's a story for all times.
Jessica
If only I had a dollar for every time the ex had to "milk" me over the years... Jeez.... talking about bonding.
You have such a beautiful family!
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