Gaga

For some reason pregnant people ask me for advice on newborns. I don't know why because I hate newborns (I mean--I love my children more than life itself ...they know this and exploit my weakness and try to kill me with sleep deprivation torture and boob infections.)

My advice is this and it sucks because it's not advice:

The weirdest thing about having a baby is not that a human lives in your house who didn't exist last year, it's BOOBS. Boobs rule your life.

NOW LET ME BE CLEAR: Your baby needs food to live and if that food is formula, PLEASE FEED YOUR BABY AND DON'T FEEL BAD ABOUT IT omg staaaaaaaap with the mom-shaming, boob tyrants (I'm looking at you, Le Leche League).

Either way, the first week at LEAST, your boobs rule your life.

You will feel your feelings in your boobs.

You will feel your baby's feelings in your boobs.

You will feel the fucking weather in your boobs.

Your boobs own you.

My boobs took ownership on March 22, 2014 at about 1 am when a nurse put the girl baby on me and she bit me so hard my nipple folded in half (bad pronoun. The baby, not the nurse. Nurses don't bite). It bruised that way, in a straight line, and then cracked and developed mastitis which tried to kill me a little bit. MOTHERHOOD IS A BEAUTIFUL FUCKING MIRACLE lol auuugggggh.

Then everything got easier. I made enough milk, she drank enough milk. Breastfeeding became easy and convenient and I loved it. Not everyone feels this way, including Queen Victoria.

And she was the QUEEN! But I liked it. It went well.

The girl was easy to wean. At 17 months, she stopped asking and I stopped offering. She was a Le Leche League poster child. My body didn't even go back to "normal" yet when my boobs (not my brain. Most definitely not my brain) made me say to my husband, "I wouldn't mind being pregnant."

Here we are. 2018. My second child, the boy, is almost 20 months old. And it's happening. He's weaning.

On Monday night he nursed.

On Tuesday morning he asked for a waffle instead of Gaga.

Gaga is his name for my boobs. I don't know why or how he came up with that name but everyone knows because, every time I picked him up from daycare in the last six months, he would jab his cute, stubby finger into my breast bone and yell, "Gaga!" until I either whipped it out or forced him, hysterical, into the car seat so we could Gaga in the privacy of our own home.

On Tuesday night my husband put him to bed and I tried to work up some emotion about the end of the era but I felt nothing but glee. I would be free! I could take ALL THE DRUGS (jk hugs not drugs)! I could drink all the alchomahalz (jk I can't drink more than one unit or I fall asleep)! I can get a tattoo (maybe)! I can buy REAL BRAS (DEFINITELY)!

On Wednesday, at naptime, the boy remembered Gaga. "GAGA GAGA GAGA!" He screamed. But it was too late! Wasn't it? My boobs began to question, threatening to break free from their sports-bra enclosure. I left him to scream and put the girl down for nap. When I came back in he reached for me. I picked him up, feeling like I was going to crumble. I was going to do whatever he asked of me. And he just let me hold him. He didn't ask for anything at all. I put him down and he went right to sleep.

I sobbed. I blubbered. I was breathless, unable to utter a sentence. My husband insisted on video chatting me. He praised me for being strong (he has selfish motives, of course, but also pure ones). I cried and cried and cried and ate chocolate to chase away the Dementors and read some articles online that made me feel bad (LLL....I SEEEEE YOU) and some that made me feel better (Kelly Mom, way to go), and did some work, and...

It's over. No more Gaga.

It was my boobs that were sad, not me. Lady Gaga was crying, not me. She was gonna miss being of use. She was going to miss being gloriously resplendent, unable to be contained by a simple underwire. She was going to miss spending time with that sweet little baby, who always held my hand as he fed. She didn't want to deflate into withered old hag bags. It wasn't me! IT WAS GAGA!

I was gripped by a crashing wave of loneliness. My husband told me I'd feel better soon. He agreed it was the hormones making me hysterical, not me. I'm FINE. I'm HAPPY.

Nearly as long as a one-term presidency (here's hoping), Gaga was commander in chief. And it's over. I'm in charge now.

Thank you, Gaga.

The Symbolism of the House aka I HATE POTTERY BARN

Is your home a symbol of your mindset? In a dream, yes, maybe. In real life?

My house is a complicated thing. It's large, unwieldy even. It is always a little messy and a little disorganized. It is hard to arrange furniture in it so that the children will not murder themselves. It is full of unfinished projects.

My house is a constant domino effect of broken appliances.

First and biggest was the furnace. The first time we went to turn it on for the season, we realized it wasn't turning on. I had someone come down and look at the old guy. He opened it up and said, "Well that's not good." I texted my husband, "Prepare to buy a new furnace today." Turns out my 1964 furnace had finally, quietly died in the springtime, alone and unnoticed in a (very fortunately not deadly to the whole household) blaze of internal fire. Basically it fried itself and all its wires and was unfix-able. Bring in the estimates. We ended up getting a new furnace and putting in AC and giving them allllllll our money.

Then went the fridge. It stopped working during a heat wave this summer and right before we were having ten people over for dinner. The guys fixed it and we went on our way. Two more calls and we got a new one.

Next the stove. This one turned out to be a quick ($80) reset because it was not actually broken, just flooded.

And the washer and drier decided to take turns three or four times this year, too. A baby sock was stuck in the washer and caused the water to fill but not drain, which is catastrophic when you're trying to wash out your son's blankie that he puked on. The dryer had a potpourri of fixable ($80 each) problems but has been mercifully soldiering on without need of replacement.

The appliance guy must think I have a crush on him with how often I call.

Oh and let's not forget the window. My husband tripped on a kid toy and put his head/shoulder through the kitchen window. He's fine. It looked like he mostly pushed the glass out of the frame with his body and then it shattered on the way down.

For some unknown reason though this, my husband decided we should update our lighting fixtures and have an electrician see to the lights that randomly don't work. So we hired a guy and bought fixtures from several stores including Pottery Barn. Now I'm in lighting limbo because we started the project but the damn Pottery Barn fixture refuses to ship. Every time I track it it has a NEW date two-weeks into the future for shipping and customer service is straight-up lying to me about it. I'm being ghosted by a lamp!

FUCK YOU POTTERY BARN NEVER AGAIN!

I bought another lamp and now have to wait for the electrician to come back to finish/take my money.

Cost of all of this: infinity.

Is it symbolic? Is there something cosmically wrong here? Or is it just the price of home ownership (reminder: the price is infinity)? Does everything break around me as a test? What are they testing? My sanity? Aren't we testing that enough with the whole two toddlers thing?

Someday I dream (and pinterest) of a home with all functional appliances and lamps, where there is never a random pile of cheerio dust and where you don't find one million toy cars littering the hallways, just asking to be ridden upon like runaway roller skates. I dream of a house where the cats and children will allow an undisturbed house plant to thrive, where photos are on the walls, straight, well-spaced.

No...I don't. Doesn't that sound so boring? Like a fucking Pottery Barn catalog from hell? The chaos is lovable, in its way. I will look back on this phase of insanity with fondness.

I see you out there, trying to be perfect. You might be better dressed. You might have that infinity money to have a perfectly functional house straight from FUCKING POTTERY BARN. You have professional photos of your family done every year and they actually look good and your children actually smile in them (the one time we did professional photos the girl glowered in every. single. one). Your body does all the normal things without incident. You and your children eat spinach on the reg. Do you exist? Or are you a facebook facade? I don't care. I'm not perfect and I don't care so much if you are.

This is it. My messy house. My messy rooms. My messy me. Also fuck you Pottery Barn.