Our first Christmas with a child, Mr B was 7 months old. Sure, he didn’t have a clue who Santa was, or even know how to open a present. But we were excited all the same. I went overboard with presents. I strung lights on our house for the first time. We had a real tree. It was perfect.
We celebrated an early Christmas in Denver because we’d be spending the holiday with Jon’s family in Indiana. Two days before our flight was to leave? Denver got hit with a massive blizzard. I’m talking 24 inches of snow.
At first it was beautiful. Jon and I layered Mr. B and ourselves up and headed out to the park to frolic in the winter wonderland. We made snow angels. Snowballs were thrown. And when Mr. B’s snot started to freeze to his upper lip, we headed home.
Only, when we got to our doorstep, Jon reached in to his pocket and started to panic. Yes, we had been locked out of our house. Somewhere in the two feet of snow in the park, the key must have slipped out in the flurry of angel making.
Dangerously close to feeding and nap time, we really didn’t know what to do. Our neighbors invited us in to make a call to a locksmith, and I contemplated nursing Mr. B there. But the stench of a lifetime of cigarettes, merged with cat urine and dog hair made me verp at the thought.
An hour and $125 dollar check to a locksmith later, and we were back in our home, warming up and laughing it off.
And yet, the calamity didn’t end there that season. We still had to travel to Indiana to celebrate with relatives, and recommendations were sent out to arrive at least four hours early. Yeah. Have you had to hang out with a wiggly infant in a cramped airport for hours on end? Not a party, people.
Thanks to Jon’s international traveling, he was a member of United’s Red Carpet, so we camped out in the lounge, feasting on processed snacks and waiting things out.
The plan was to nurse Mr. B a couple of times before getting on the plane. Mr. B had boycotted this idea, far too interested in what everyone else was doing in the United lounge to focus on getting fed. Same deal on the plane. So by the time we made it to Jon’s parents’ home almost 10 hours later, my boobs were so engorged I was busting out of my bra.
My mother-in-law had rented a hospital-grade pump for me so that I didn’t have to fly with mine, and I frantically hooked myself up to that puppy as soon as I walked in to the house. Only, this pumping session was unlike anything I’d ever experience, my milk shooting out like a fire hose, getting almost 20 ounces out of one session.
Merry Christmas, little buddy!
But despite all of the mishaps of the holiday, something happened that erased them all. On Christmas Day, I was in the bedroom fielding phone calls from relatives, when I hear this bizarre noise coming from my child in the living room. And this? This is what I was greeted with:
