Ever feel like you’re stuck in a Twilight Zone episode of I Love Lucy. Ricky thinks Lucy does nothing with the kids and she feels working at Club Babaloo is all glitz and glamour. You’re both short on sleep and patience and that’s when the battle of the bottles occurs.
It’s childish. You know it is, but now it’s come down to the principle of the thing. That and your sanity.
Dr. Brown BPA Free Natural Flow bottles. They’re good for your baby, but bad for your dish pan hands. Definitely need to buy gloves for these bottles and the multiple pieces that go with it. One bottle is just fine, but four bottles at the end of the day with its four assembly parts each in addition to breast pumping materials adds up to 22 pieces of plastic that you have to wash and sterilize. Some with a mini brush. That’s over 150 parts a week. You wash about 146 of them and wake up in the middle of the night because Ricky has to play the bongos at Club Babaloo.
It’s then at 3:30 in the morning that you begin the battle of the bottles. You tell yourself just today you’re going to let him wash them. Throughout the day they begin piling up. You don’t hyperventilate as they sit there one after the other smelling of stale milk because some of them weren’t rinsed out. It’s getting close to feeding time and there are no bottles. No parts. He makes his way toward the sink. You think he’s going to wash all the bottles, but he just grabs one, washes it in warm water. Apparently no sterilization required. And no little brush. It takes two minutes. Then he makes his way toward the couch and pops open a beer. You do a double-take because you can’t believe what you’re seeing. But there he is on the couch and there the bottles remain on the counter.
It’s on.
Next feeding I wash one. But with little brush and sterilization.
Next feeding he washes one.
Next feeding wash one. Sterilize. Repeat.
Next feeding he washes one.
Same amount of bottles dirty, none clean.
Looks like there are a lot bottles there, he mentions as he passes by the refrigerator.
Yeah looks like.
Hmmm. I’m so exhausted I’ve been on my feet all day. I think I’m going to bed.
I’m tired, too.
We both look at the bottles.
But you’re not exhausted.
You think he might do a retraction. You know, like when politicians say something stupid. But he just goes up the stairs.
22 pieces on the counter. Baby crying in the middle of the night. Son wakes up. Husband asleep. Mom awake. Sigh.
Battle of the bottles continues.
The Wish Factor 