My baby is about 10 months old, which means I’m about 2 months away from being done pumping my breastmilk. I look forward to this phase of life with great anticipation, because pumping sucks. It just does. I’ll plan to nurse my baby until he’s ready to stop, I just won’t pump for him anymore while I’m at work. 
But what should I do with all my pump stuff and the pump itself once I reach this milestone? Last time, I wrote about how I gave the pump and all its parts to my boys to play with. In hindsight, this was sort of a mistake to do before I was done pumping forever. Why? Because I already established the idea that flanges and tubes were toys. So, this time, when my pump bag got left unattended, I shouldn’t have been surprised by what happened.
The other day, I dashed into the living room when I heard the unmistakable wheeze of my breast pump motor. I found my three-year-old sitting on the floor with the tubing plugged into holes in his toy trucks.
“I’m refueling,” he told me when I asked what the heck he was doing.
The baby crawled over to investigate and started gnawing on the “fuel” tubes, and I wondered just how frequently this sort of thing happened without my knowledge.
But, I still plan to repurpose my pump in the same way come August. My pump manufacturer has begun a program to recycle the pump motors, but last time around, my kids had such a grand time exploring the pump’s inner workings that I can’t imagine a better way to give new life to this important piece of machinery.
The fact that my toddler has found a way to incorporate vehicle play excites the other boys tremendously. You see, the neighbors just got a gravel pile, so between the fuel tubes and tiny gray rocks, we’ve got a play construction site that draws all the young men on our whole block.
Who knows what magic will happen when my rising first grader incorporates all his new knowledge of circuits?
What did you do with your breast pump once you were through using it? Leave us a comment to share your story.
