Well, it finally happened, I had to travel for work last week. I knew it was coming, and when I went back to work after maternity leave, that was honestly my biggest source of anxiety... Work travel!! (Other than: how was I going to handle working from home full time with a 3-month old, 8-year old, and no school for the summer... Had to love MJ's questions about "when was I going to get my summer break??")
I was technically supposed to travel in mid-October, so in about Aug/Sept I started getting psycho about pumping. I was determined to have at least 30 bags of breast milk in the freezer for when I left. since that was Connor's sole nutrition. I also quickly realized I hated pumping, but I managed to store up enough milk for a small army in the freezer... So by some small miracle, October rolled around, and I didn't have to go! I got out of it! That was a relief times a thousand..... :D
Fast forward to January, and another work trip came up. And this time there was no getting around it! I thought back to the breast milk still stored in the freezer that we hadn't made much of a dent in.. And I thought, this will be easy! Connor is 9 months old, he's eating regular "people" food, he'll be fine! Sort of in denial about how hard it might actually be... So I left Todd with the frozen bags of milk from August and went on my merry way...
Long story short, I had a great time. Todd, not so much. And neither of us had given much thought to the breastfeeding situation. So, Connor effectively weaned while I was gone... Todd said he wouldn't really take a bottle/sippy cup much after day 1. And I discovered I needed to pump regularly or else I got engorged. And Madison was sick right before I left, so Connor and Todd both managed to get it... And Todd hurt his back to boot! Sigh. Needless to say, they were counting down the days/hours/minutes til I came home.
I have to add the disclaimer that I arranged 2 playdates for Madison and 2 nanny visits before I left, so I wasn't feeling tooo bad.... Did I mention I was only gone for 4 days? Four days of sleeping all night, staying at my dad's and in a hotel, eating out. Bonus happy hours thrown in there & visiting friends in Richmond! sigh...
T-minus 2 1/2 months till my next business trip!
