45 Seconds

Allow me to set the stage:

The girls need to take a bath and I need to pump (for newish readers-I pump and bottle feed my baby), so I decide to kill those two proverbial birds with that old proverbial stone and pump while I watch them in the tub. I put the kids in the water, get the old pump bra out (if you don't know what that is, don't worry about it-just know that it's a hands free way of pumping) plug in my pump, and commence lactation.

Five minutes later Addison poops in the tub. She has a rash, so there is Aveno Oatmeal soothing bath stuff in the water. The oatmeal bath made the tub quite slippery, so every time Ella tries to evacuate the befouled water she slips back in. I yell for Steve, who helps me fish both kids out of the tub-turned-sewer and wrap them in towels to wait for the tub to be drudged and then drained before they could return to it. A new bath is drawn and the girls are placed in the fresh water in order to cleanse them of any fecal contamination. Steve assumes the situation is back under control and leaves the room.

Readers, start your watches. On your mark, get set, go!

Addison stands up in the tub
tick, tick, tick

slips
tick, tick

flops into the water,
tick, tick

rolls
tick, tick

and comes up sputtering.
tick, tick, tick

Now she's really mad and wants out, so I pull her out of the tub.
tick, tick, tick

On her way out she pulls out the tubing on the pump.
tick, tick, tick

Realizing trying to lactate while the kids were taking a bath isn't going to work after all, I disengaged from my pump.
tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick

By now Addison was crawling all over me, so rather than stand up and place the bottles somewhere safe, I reached up from the floor and set them on the counter.
tick, tick, tick

The counter was crowded though, and they ended up falling into the sink and spilling all the hard earned milk.
tick, tick

While I was reaching for the counter, Addison reached for something to use to pull herself up. What she found were my, ummm, lactation tools, if you will.
tick, tick

Yowza! I react to her grab by jumping back, causing her to pull harder so that she didn't lose her balance and fall.
tick, tick

It didn't work and she toppled over, hitting her head on the floor.
tick

Now the crying starts again.
tick, tick, tick

Ella wants a better view of what's going on, so she tries to get out of the tub by herself.
tick, tick, tick

This, of course, doesn't work and she gets stuck straddling the side of the tub.
tick, tick, tick, tick, tick

Steve, who heard all of the commotion, came running back into the room to see what had happened. He finds milk everywhere, Addison crying, me womanly wounded, and Ella in tub limbo.

"Lord! How did all of this happen? I was only gone for a minute!"

"Actually, honey, all it took was 45 seconds."

Celebrate your freedom to read during Banned Books week! Our family is Just Barely reading the following banned books:
Just Barely the Dad just finished: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)
Just Barely the Oldest just finished:And Tango Makes Three
I'm currently reading: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Just Finished: Achingly Alice
Next Up: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
For more of my favorite banned books, see the list above!



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