Nursing on the Mass Pike? Sure!

I don't even know how to start this post, but it's a long one.

I promise you it's entertaining though.

While the rest of the Marine Corps got a nice long weekend, my husband got stuck working.

I had this genius idea to cook him a home cooked meal from scratch, and take it to him in Boston.

I spent the majority of my Friday afternoon making home made turkey quinoa meatballs in marinara sauce while juggling a crying infant and a rowdy four year old. 

What should have taken thirty minutes to make took me almost two hours (due to above mentioned crying infant and rowdy four year old). 

Once I was done, I was so excited to take my delicious home made meatballs to my husband for dinner.

Just a side note...

When we were dating, I used to cook him dinner several times a week, pack it nicely in Tupperware, and drive from Oceanside to San Diego at ten in the evening to make sure he ate something.

(He was a drill instructor at the time, and if I didn't cook for him, he lived on Monster energy drinks and protein bars...blech!)

It's been a while since I've done something like that for him (since he has barely stood duty in the last 4 years of our marriage), so I was REALLY excited to get to do something nice for him.

I was dreading the drive into Boston, because Boston drivers are crazy and they give me anxiety.

Top that with driving with an infant and a 4 year old...call me crazy.

 However, I was going to do it for the love of my dear husband.

I figured I would be going against rush hour traffic since everyone is trying to leave Boston in the afternoon, and I was going into Boston.

First off, I hit traffic on the famous "Mass Pike" within ten minutes of my drive, and my irritation level was already rising.

What was supposed to be a twenty three minute drive into Boston turned into forty five minutes, and I had to detour from my GPS because the traffic on the exit I was supposed to get off on had not moved in ten minutes.

Finally, I made it to my husband, and he looked thrilled to be having a home cooked meal.

It made the drive worth it to see his face light up when we arrived with his food (and two Sam Adams...he was not on duty, btw).

My irritation level started to rise again when my GPS would not find me a route home without taking the Mass Pike (because I knew the traffic was horrible going back home on it).

I started to panic as my husband calmly told me alternate directions to get home.

"I NEED my GPS, babe!"

I was irritated with him that he wasn't helping me figure out my GPS, and was rushing me home with directions that he texted to me.

Of course I got lost in Boston and drove in circles around Fenway Park before I said "screw it", and I went off my GPS and made my way onto the dreaded "Pike".

I was literally moving five miles per hour on the pike, the baby was crying because he had just exploded in his diaper, and he hadn't been fed in three hours.

My GPS estimated it would take an hour to get home...irritation level still rising.

There's nothing more stressful than bumper to bumper traffic when you're 20 miles away from home with a crying infant in the back seat. 

We were inching along, when all of a sudden, my Jeep literally stopped. 

It wouldn't accelerate, and my brakes had locked up.

I put it in park, neutral...turned it off...tried to turn it on.

Nothing.

People were honking at me, giving me the middle finger, and yelling at me.

I wanted to scream at them, "If my Jeep would freaking move, I would pull over to the side, idiots! Do you really think I would just park in the middle of the Mass Pike during rush hour?!"

I turned my hazards on, and frantically called my husband.

When he didn't answer, I started panicking hard core, which made Dannika freak out, which made the baby freak out.

I dialed 911, and I'm pretty sure the conversation went something like this.

911 operator: 911, What's your emergency?

Me (in frantic tears): My Jeep just stopped in the middle of the Mass Pike, and I have a screaming infant and a toddler...I mean 4 year old...

(I couldn't decide if Dannika was still considered a toddler at that point....of all things to be thinking about).

I was told to sit still, and that highway patrol was dispatched to me. 

Because of the traffic, the police officer was 25 minutes out. 

I couldn't handle my screaming infant anymore, and that's when I basically thought "F it", I'm grabbing him out of his car seat and nursing him.

He calmed down immediately, which in turn calmed me down a little, and Dannika stopped crying.

I can now say that I have nursed a child in the middle of rush hour, in the driver's seat, at a dead stop in the lane next to the fast lane, on the Mass Pike.

Twenty Five minutes later, the highway patrol finally got to me. 

He called a tow truck for us, and had offered to give us a ride to the nearest police station off the Pike.

He stopped traffic for us, so that I could get Mattis and Dannika safely out of the car on the Pike, and into the back of his squad car.

If I were a bystander witnessing all of this, I would have seriously thought that I (the mother) was being arrested for whatever reason, and we were waiting on CPS to come and take my two children away.

When the tow truck finally got to us, the officer thought it was a better idea for us to ride with the tow truck to our house.
So there I was in a flat bed tow truck.
Dannika sat in the middle (with no seatbelt), and I sat on the passenger side holding the baby in my arms.
We safely arrived home, and my husband came shortly after.
He had left work to make sure we were all ok, and he spent an hour troubleshooting my Jeep.

By the way, he got it running again.
We just have to figure out why it doesn't run when the low beams are turned on.


Seriously though...
I nursed my son in the dead center of the Mass Pike during rush hour....in the driver's seat of my Jeep.

oh yeah...
I made it on the traffic report on the radio too according to a friend.