Weaning In

Hi. How’s your day going? I have cabbage leaves in my bra.

And no, this isn’t some fancy new way to make coleslaw I learned from Gwyneth Paltrow on Goop (although I wouldn’t put it past her). Oh no. My bra is stuffed with produce because it allegedly has healing powers. Which I need because after nine long months, I am …(drum roll, please)… finally weaning my youngest, and last, baby!

I’m WEANING, you guys!

And I’m WOVING it!

Well, not the actually weaning part. Weaning, for those of you who have never experienced it, is incredibly painful. Sure, you look like a porn star for roughly five days, but you can’t enjoy it because when you turn off the spigot and don’t tell the 500 gallons of breastmilk that is still trying to squeeze into your medium-sized chest, it makes even breathing a daunting task. Here’s a horrific visual for you: Take any body part or organ and imagine you can blow it up like a balloon to mass capacity. And then blow a little bit more air into it. And then a little more. And then imagine that area is constantly under attack from tiny, yet brutally sharp, little elbows.

But I am loving that my breastfeeding days are coming to an end.

My boobs are mine again!

All mine!

I am the Boob Nazi! No boob for you!

Now, according to every other “last breastfeeding post” ever written, I should be sad. Very, very sad. Oh, my last baby is growing up. Boo hoo. I’ll miss the closeness and the blah, blah, blah. I want to remember every moment of my last time. Tear. Sigh. It all went by too fast.

But not me. Oh god, not me. I am practically jumping for joy (and would be literally if my boobs weren’t currently two swollen beach balls straining to explode off my chest). As soon as my nipple was out of her mouth that last time, I started running around the house screaming “FREEEEEEDOM” like Mel Gibson in “Braveheart.”

Don’t get me wrong. I love babies. My own especially, but pretty much all other babies as well (except for my neighbor’s baby Jaslynn…she knows what she did). It’s just that babies are so. much. work. The best, most rewarding, work I’ve ever done. But the hardest. With absolutely no overtime pay. Or any pay. Or even a lunch break.

So I tend to celebrate as my own kids grow older and become more independent. I mean, that’s the goal, isn’t it? Getting them to the point where they can navigate the world without me? As the old saying goes, a mother’s job is to make her job obsolete. So, as much as I adore being my toddler’s No. 1 Juice Bitch, I look forward to the day he can get his own and I can drop that title from my resume.

And as amazing as it is that I was able to provide food for my baby using my own body, I’m glad to no longer be her main source of nourishment. Mostly because I just want to be able to eat a cheeseburger with two hands again.

Of course, this attitude will most likely change the second my kids are old enough to no longer want to cuddle, or hug me in public, or realize I am not, in fact, the funniest person on the planet. I guarantee I will immediately turn into the dad from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and start wailing “why you want to leave me?”

But for now, I am celebrating. With cabbage leaves. And vodka. And a series of nude selfies I’ll be sending to my husband because, seriously, my boobs will never look this amazing again.