The Pooh’s Special Friend

As a mom, I hold a special dark place in my heart for toys that take hours to assemble and are large and awkward to store (think complicated marble runs and large, noisy whirlygigs), and cool craft projects that are beyond the skill set of a child, requiring an adult to make the craft while the child directs and watches.

A good friend of the Pooh recently gave her a poncho craft project from the Seedling company, which prides itself on high quality, interesting crafts for kids. The white canvas poncho came with fabric markers in six pretty colors, bright feathers, bells, and tassels, as well as glue dots, sewing needles, and six spools of colored thread.

The Pooh happily set to work with the fabric markers. When she finished coloring in the poncho, with periodic assistance from me, it was time to affix the decorations. The glue dots were not strong enough to hold the decorations, so we had to turn to sewing.

The Pooh is now seven and takes sewing classes, but she is accustomed to using a sewing machine. She does not yet have the manual dexterity to thread a needle or knot thread. She can sew by hand, but not well or for very long.

She became the fashion designer while I became her humble assistant. I bent over the poncho with needle and thread, grumbling under my breath at yet another project that required significant parental involvement.

Some crafts are okay, but I find sewing to be especially tedious, particularly this kind that involves many cycles of needle threading, thread knotting, and doo-dad placement.

The first hurdle was thread knotting. Canvas is coarse fabric, so a single knot on the thread did not anchor the stitches. I pulled the needle and thread right through the fabric. A triple knot finally did the trick.

After I threaded the needle and triple-knotted the thread for her, she sewed aqua pom-pom edging around the neckline of her poncho as best as she could.

Next, I found that it was impossible to get the sewing needle to pierce the tough shaft of the colorful feathers. My designer insisted that the feathers were critical to the design, so I could not convince her to omit them.

I stabbed the needle through the canvas, sewing the feathers on as best as I could by sewing around the shaft of the feathers to secure them, and hoped for the best.

Next, it was time to add the bells. There I was, hand-sewing 12 individual bells at regular intervals around the bottom of the poncho, trying not to think of all of the other things I should or could doing instead.

As I mentally groused, my neck aching, needle flashing through the canvas, the Pooh suddenly said, “Mommy, Grandparents and Special Friends day is next week. Are you coming?”

I stopped sewing and looked up at my bear. “Are you saying that you consider me a Special Friend?” I asked her.

Call me insecure, but I needed clarification.
“Yes,” she said, matter-of-factly, her big brown eyes hopeful. “So, are you coming?”

My heart loosened up from tight and cranky to soft and mushy.
Regretfully, I had to tell her that I would not be coming, since the day was reserved especially for grandparents and other special people who were not mommies and daddies.

But as I threaded my needle and triple knotted the thread again for the tenth tiny tinkly bell on her poncho, the craft didn’t seem so bad anymore.

As I stitched on the bell, I said, “Sweet girl, you are my special friend too. You always have been, ever since the day you were born. You are so sweet and funny, kind-hearted and smart. I feel so lucky to be your mommy and your friend.”

“Aww, Mommy,” she said, blushing slightly, her new little freckles standing out across her nose.

We gave each other a hug and a kiss. After another hour of work, I completed her poncho, and she was delighted.  “I can’t wait to wear it to school and bring it to sewing class!” she exclaimed.

She wore it proudly into school the following morning, and I smiled as she showed it off to her teacher and little friends.

Granted, this poncho craft was a pain, but sometimes, reminders of affection come in odd packages.  The Pooh’s surprise gift of pure, uncomplicated love also gave me the opportunity to tell her how much I treasured her.

Annoying craft? Sure.

Would I do it all over again just for that moment with the Pooh?

Absolutely.

Happy Mother’s Day, everyone.

Of Monday morning meltdowns and do-overs

Have you ever had one of those mornings with your child when you start the day off fighting about simple things?

The Pooh and I started off that way on Monday morning.

I woke her up at 7 am as I always do, got her dressed, gave her breakfast, and let her watch Sofia the First on Disney Junior.

I packed her lunch, fed Callie the cat and Baby Fish IV, and warmed up the car.

When I approached her to brush her teeth, wash her face, and go to the bathroom before leaving for school, she had not touched her breakfast. She even had the gall to ask for another episode on TV and more time to eat.

Unsympathetic, I refused more TV and informed her that she would have to eat her breakfast in the car on the way to school.

We started arguing, since then she refused to brush her teeth. Breakfast after brushing would taste funny, you see.

After considerable arguing, yelling, and crying, we ended up leaving the house, late for school.

I buckled her into her car seat, but she had not washed her face, brushed her teeth, or gone to the potty. Her hair was barely out of bird’s nest stage.

My only victory was the homemade zucchini bread in her hand, which she ate on the way. I was sure her teacher would think I was the worst mother ever, but I was done fighting and just wanted to get on with the day.

As I left her in her kindergarten classroom, she had joined the circle for her morning meeting. I caught her eye and blew her a kiss. She nodded and gave me a smile.

I wanted her to know that in spite of our earlier battle, I still loved her.

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I did not enjoy my own childhood. It was an anxious, stressful existence and I always felt decades older than my true age. I also did not gravitate naturally towards little kids and babies, and had little idea of how to interact with them.

When I learned that I would become a parent, I was excited but apprehensive. Would I be a good mom? How could I make sure that my little one would be as healthy as possible, not just physically, but emotionally and psychologically? Could I teach her to be more resilient than I was?

So when the Pooh arrived, I fell in love with her instantly, but I had no idea how to be a mother. I figured it out on the fly, and now I know that everyone else does too.

As I have gone through different stages with her, I have found a surprise benefit to parenting: a do-over.

The Pooh gives me a chance to do childhood over again.

The playing, the dancing, the learning of emotional ropes.

The laughing, the silliness, and the discovery of places and people and books.

The flouncing, the giggles, and the grappling with questions, some big, some minute and endless.

I am 44 and she is nearly six, and there are times that I don’t want to play in the ocean or go sledding or play dolls. But I do, and we have so much fun that I wonder why I hesitated in the first place.

Sometimes she asks me questions that I cannot answer.  I confess my ignorance, and I see a flash of disappointment in her bright brown eyes.

The Pooh is strong willed and persistent and logical, and while it is – ahem – challenging to parent her at times, I refuse to steamroll her for the sake of having a docile, obedient child.

I want her to be able to stand her ground and think for herself, instead of going along to get along as I have for so much of my life.

And in the meantime, I work to teach her flexibility and empathy for others, and which important lines cannot be crossed.

As we battle and laugh and play and talk, I see the world through the eyes of a little girl again, and I can’t help but wonder what kind of woman she will grow up to be.

 

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As we approach the Pooh’s sixth year on the planet, I feel a tremendous sense of gratitude towards her. Yes, parenting is tons of work, with highlights and lowlights and tedium and fun, all rolled into one little person and years that telescope into one another.

But as I mother the Pooh, I have learned what it is to also mother myself.

Thanks to her, I’ve had the chance to hit the reset button on childhood.

And what a beautiful childhood it is.

“What do you do?”

“So, what do you do?” asked Claire, as she introduced herself to me in The Corner Bakery. Claire was one of my castmates in the Listen To Your Mother Providence show, which we would later perform around Mother’s Day.

“I am a mom and…uh…I write,” I said, as I squirmed inside. Swiftly, I shifted the focus to her.

“What do you do?” I asked her.

“I’m a psychotherapist in private practice,” she said.

Then, I am ashamed to say, I ran away from Claire. I used the pretense of placing an order for dinner at the register, just to avoid further conversation about my profession. She drifted back to our group.

Fortunately, Claire is a therapist, so she probably just identified me as just another potential client, ripe for the picking. I hope she forgave me for my rudeness.

“What do you do?”

This innocent question sends me into a tizzy.

It is so American, so East Coast, so necessary for new acquaintances to place us. They are simply showing a friendly interest. I know this, but the question still causes me angst for multiple reasons.

The question isn’t a problem for many people.

They are lawyers or doctors or teachers or nurses or software programmers or business owners or artists. They have a clear profession or work for an organization which sparks immediate recognition.

But for those of us who have yet to find professional fulfillment, and who have also left the workforce or scaled back on hours and responsibilities to raise children, this question presents an awkward dilemma.

“What do you do?”

For those of us who are mothers, but also have higher degrees, we find ourselves vulnerable to the judgment of others when we say we are home with our children, or that we have dialed down professionally because of the demands of motherhood.

In my particular case, the feelings intensify because I am still seeking my path.

“What do you do?”

The question makes me feel uncomfortable because the answer feels so amorphous.

Don’t get me wrong. I love being a mother. For some women, motherhood is enough. But for me, it can’t be my only profession.

I feel bemused about still searching for my professional calling. I just celebrated my 43^rd birthday, and I thought that I would be well established in a career by now.

I invested precious years of my life and hundreds of thousands of dollars in my education, and yet here I am, still knocking around, searching for the answer, and paying back student loans to boot.

Here is the other kicker: I have this crazy education that I’m not using directly. I rarely mention my educational background to new people because I feel embarrassed that I am not living up to my credentials.

With an English literature degree from Yale, an MBA from MIT Sloan, and a Master’s from Harvard’s Kennedy School, I’m supposed to be doing…I don’t know…something important. Changing the world. Making a difference. Running something.

Yale’s Harkness Tower

 

Back in my 20’s, I thought I knew what I wanted to do, and was focused and driven. But my ambitions did not work out the way I originally envisioned.

Instead of changing the world, I ended up changing lots of jobs, and later, lots of diapers.  There are proverbial poopy diapers in the workplace to change too, but after experimentation in many different jobs, I never found the right fit.

Now in my 40’s, I have changed tack. I am pursuing a creative path, writing and drawing and painting. It feels good and it feels right, but I still feel conflicted. I have trouble owning my creative side as a professional identity, because I trained to do other things that were more concrete, with a surer paycheck and more impressive title.

In my bad moments, I sometimes wonder if my education was a waste of time and money. Should they have given my precious spot at Yale or Harvard or MIT to someone better able to utilize it?

These are all famous schools that carry certain expectations and assumptions along with them, as a recent article from Slate points out with a good dose of snark: (http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/05/30/harvard_grads_say_i_went_to_college_in_boston_and_call_it_the_h_bomb_get.html?wpisrc=burger_bar) .

When you tell a stranger or new acquaintance that you went to one of these schools, you are playing a form of social Russian roulette.

Will they say something that will instantly stereotype you as a lock-jawed blueblood who casually drops Shakespeare quotes with a superior chuckle, or as a fashion-challenged, socially awkward geek who writes out the proof for E=MC² for downtime fun, a la The Big Bang Theory?

Or will they just nod and move on with the conversation, which is what you pray they will do?

You are loath to reinforce the perception that people from these schools are pretentious a-holes who need to tell you where they went to school, who then become a target of contempt forevermore.

You may also have the voices of family members ringing in your ears, who tell you about so-and-so and how they forget where they came from, and what horrible people they are today.

So you do everything you can to downplay it. You don’t want to be THAT person.

If you are female, a degree from one of these schools complicates dating. It takes a self-assured guy to absorb that information and not say something insecure and cutting when he learns of it, and to look at you for who you really are as a person and a woman.

When I’m with my former classmates, I’m cool. We are friends. We all understand the weight of expectation associated with these names, and how privileged and lucky we are. We know that we put our pants on, one leg at a time, just like everyone else.

We know that these stereotypes do not hold today in the way they once did, and many, if not most, of us are proof of that.

We know that there are brilliant people out there, far more intelligent than we are, who did not attend these schools. Many of them are our own parents. It keeps us humble.

However, if I am being honest with myself, I know that these hang ups are my own and no one else’s.

Even my innocent Pooh, who is only four years old and can’t tell the difference between a Harvard grad and a Heffalump, can trigger an embarrassed reaction from me on the topic.

Last year, when she was just three, we drove up from Providence to visit the Boston Museum of Science. As we were zipping along in Cambridge, the Charles River glistening in the sun, we passed Harvard’s elegant white spires and MIT’s iconic dome. I pointed them out, and told her I had studied at each.

Harvard

“Wow, Mommy. You went to a lot of colleges!” she said from her carseat in the back, shaking her little round head from side to side.

How did I feel in that moment?

I felt…wait for it…sheepish. Not proud.

I felt sheepish in front of a three year old, people.

What is UP With that?

MIT

A year later (i.e., now), I decided to take a hard look at myself. Why was I afraid to own it?

I concluded that it was simply out of my own insecurity and a deep suspicion that I did not deserve or earn this marvelous education, and that my admission was a fluke.

Yes. All three times.

Even though I had no money, no connections, was not a legacy, did not hire professional help to complete my applications, did the all the work for each degree, and even busted my butt to complete two Master’s degrees in three years instead of four.

Absurd, I know.

I then forced myself to look at the Pooh. If she had gone to one of my alma maters, I would want her to claim it and be proud of it. To say to herself and others, “This is mine. I earned it. Thank you. Thank you very much.” Just like Elvis.

Finally, I asked myself the following question: do I want her to remember me as someone cowering in a corner, ashamed to claim her educational pedigree, just for fear of what people may assume about her?

HELL TO THE NO.

I want her to be proud of me, and to think her mommy is a badass.

So here is my new resolution (which scares the bejeezus out of me): I am owning it.

No longer will I relegate myself to the unassuming shadows and say vague things about where I went to school or what I do.

Even though I am still finding my way professionally, I will call myself a writer and an artist. If it changes, so be it. Who the hell cares anyway? It wouldn’t be the first time. If asked, I will say where I studied without apology or qualification.

Because to apologize or hide would be a disservice to all of the inspiring friends, classmates, and professors I have had, and an insult to all of my hard work.

Because I owe to it my daughter.

And because most of all, I owe it to myself.

An Unexpected Gift

After I took the Pooh out of her bath this evening, dried her off, and put her in bed to relax, she busted out with this impromptu speech:

“Mommy, you are the best.

You give me good tubbies.

You cover me with blankies after my tubby.

You give me good hugs.

You read me nice stories.

I love you so much!”

I misted up and managed to choke out, “I love you too, honey. You are such a great little girl.” I gave her a hug and a kiss, and hightailed it out of her room so she wouldn’t see me disintegrate.

It may be a marathon, but sometimes there are medals every few hundred miles.

 

Hear ye, hear ye! Come to #LTYM Providence 2014!

I’m interrupting my regular blog programming to share wonderful news with you: I will be appearing in a live ninety minute show on May 10th in Providence, RI! Called Listen To Your Mother Providence 2014, it features 12 women offering different perspectives on motherhood.

Listen To Your Mother (LTYM) is a series of live staged readings in 32 cities nationwide in celebration of Mother’s Day. In Providence, I will present a short piece along with several other Rhode Island and Massachusetts writers. The show aims to take the audience through a journey that celebrates and validates motherhood in all its complexity, diversity, and humor.

Each piece is fresh and original – as unique as everyone’s experience of motherhood – and there is sure to be at least one story that hits home for you, if not more. Prepare to laugh, cry, feel, and think. (Psst: Bring some tissues. You might need them.)

I went to my first rehearsal last week, and was blown away by the quality of the stories as well as their hilarity and poignancy. You will never forget the hour that you spend with us. And you don’t have to be a mother to appreciate and enjoy what you hear.

Here are the details on the show in Providence:

Date: Saturday, May 10, 2014

Time: 6 pm

Place: RISD Auditorium, 17 Canal Walk, Providence, RI (corner of N. Main and Angell St.)

Parking: Parking is available via on-street meters (very limited) as well as in fee parking lots. Leave enough time to find parking and walk over.

Ticket purchase: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/640494

Tickets are $18 per person and can be purchased via the link above.

The performance is also raising money for The Tomorrow Fund (http://www.tomorrowfund.org/), a local organization which provides resources to families with children battling cancer. Ten percent of our ticket proceeds will be donated to The Tomorrow Fund, and there is also the option to give more at the time of ticket purchase if you wish.

If you are in Rhode Island or the greater Boston area, we would love to see you in the audience!

If you are not in the area, you can look for a listing of the other 31 shows across the country via this link:  http://listentoyourmothershow.com/ . Just click on the “local shows” tab at the top of the page to find your city.

Tickets are on sale now in all cities. This year’s season officially kicks off this weekend in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Milwaukee, and Nashville.

On a personal note, I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to be included in the show.  It’s been two years since I started this blog. While I may have aspired to someday appear in a show like this, it seemed like a faraway dream.

I couldn’t have done it without your encouragement to keep writing. For that, I have to thank each and every one of you who reads this blog. And of course the Pooh, my tiny muse.

Finally, I’d like to acknowledge and thank our two LTYM national sponsors: Blogher (www.blogher.com) and Chevrolet (www.chevrolet.com) #FindNewRoads, which are making this year’s show possible across the country.

Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!

If I Get Hit By a Bus

FROZEN. The Pooh and I have joined the ranks of Frozen-obsessed families. It is the only Oscar-winning movie I have seen this year, but I am not complaining. Not only is it visually stunning, I also loved its emotional complexity and unusual story line, which caused me to wipe away tears more than once.

Fortunately, I enjoy the music too, since the Pooh insists on playing it over and over. And over. And over.

Early in the movie, two Scandinavian princesses lose their parents. The King and Queen embark on a trip for two weeks, leaving their daughters behind. Their ship capsizes during a storm on the high seas, and is lost forever. The bodies are never recovered.

My heart twisted in grief to see the young princesses left alone.

A familiar, but unspeakable, fear visited me once again. What if something happens, and I am not able to finish raising my child?

When you become a parent, you suddenly contemplate your own mortality in a way you never have before. Your child is small and helpless, and needs you so much. You think about the years ahead and all you have to teach this little person to survive and thrive in the world. The thought of not being able to finish the job fills you with dread.

Before having a child, I barely thought about death.

At work, we’d joke about it, but only in the context of projects to be completed, and as an abstract concept.

For example, I’d say, “If I ever get hit by a bus, you can find my files in this Dropbox folder.”

But now that I have the Pooh, these thoughts of mortality worm their way into my head at odd times and with more frequency. When it happens, I suddenly feel an urgency to scoop her up and squeeze her and smell her hair, and pour all of my thoughts and experience into her round little head all at once.

Which I do. Then she kicks and pushes me away and asks me for a marshmallow or whines to go to the playground. So much for that tender moment.

Anyway, I still think about all of the things that I would want her to know. Life is so complicated and messy, and I’m still figuring it out myself. What would I tell her?

After a while, I put the following thoughts on paper as some life guidelines for her to consider. They are in no particular order of importance. I expect that I will revise them over time, but for now, I’m happy with them.

So here we go:

Dearest Pooh,

Since you arrived as a tiny baby, I have often thought about advice I want to share with you as you grow up. This list is neither written in stone nor is it the final word, but it is a set of guidelines I try to follow as best as I can. I hope you find it helpful.

1)      Think for yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you what to think. It’s ok to be wrong; it’s ok to disagree with others; it’s ok if others do not agree with you. Retain ownership of your thoughts, and accept responsibility for them.

2)      Travel outside of the U.S. Nothing opens your mind or heart like exposure to other people and cultures. If you can learn another language, so much the better.

3)      Work hard, but also make time for fun. Take pride in your work, but also remember to find time to laugh, be silly, and let off steam. Avoid tilting too much in one way or the other.

4)      Express your anger. Don’t keep it bottled up. Anger is healthy and normal. It can be instructive and constructive if you learn to manage it. Squelched anger only harms you in the long run.

5)      Love yourself and be yourself. If you are comfortable with yourself, then you will be able to use your energy to live a full life instead of one constructed by the expectations of others. Embrace your strengths and your flaws, and look for the unusual gifts that come with those flaws. If people truly love you, they will also love your quirks. Trust me on this.

6)      Please yourself, not others. Wear clothing and perfume and jewelry that make you feel wonderful. Decorate your home with things you love. Listen to music you enjoy. Study what you find interesting. And so on. If you find yourself doing things solely to please others or to win their approval, take a step back and reconnect with yourself. You can’t please everyone, so you might as well start by pleasing yourself. A happy person is a magnet for good things and good people.

7)      Work for excellence instead of perfection. Perfection is often subjective, and boring as hell besides. Strive to do a great job on important projects. For other things, good enough is often good enough. Neither life nor people are perfect. Once you let go of that expectation, you will be much happier. Roll with imperfection so that you have energy left over to breathe in and enjoy all that life has to offer.

8)      Try new things and make mistakes. Have the courage to try something new and mess up. It’s ok if you are not good at everything you try. No one is. That is how you learn the most valuable lessons. Forgive yourself when you do make mistakes. Forgive others when they make mistakes. And if you have hurt someone with a mistake, don’t forget to apologize with a genuine heart.

9)      Be kind. When in doubt, be kind. If you don’t know what to do, take the kind road instead of the angry or vindictive one. It takes more strength and more thought, but you won’t regret it. Yes, even if the person deserves a vindictive response.

10)   Express condolences. If someone suffers the loss of a loved one, acknowledge it with a simple “I’m sorry for your loss.” And go to the funeral. It means more than you’ll know.

11)   Make time to be alone. Time alone will help you center yourself and replenish your energy and creativity. Find time for it.

12)   Honor your body. Love your body. It is an incredible biological machine, designed to serve you. Respect and honor it with enough rest, exercise, and good food. In return, it will reward you with energy and robust health so that you can live life to its fullest and longest.

13)   Use your natural gifts and pursue your passions. God gave each of us unique gifts. Open up those gifts and play with them. Find the joy in them. Share them with the broader world.  Discover your passions and follow them. You never know where they will lead.

14)   Manage your money wisely. Pay your bills on time, live within your means, and remember to save and invest for the future. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it makes life easier. If you manage it well, you will minimize one of life’s stressors.

15)   Rejoice in your femininity. It is wonderful to be female, and you were lucky enough to be born into a country that has more opportunities for women than most. You don’t have to act like a man to be successful. Men and women are strong in different ways, and both have their advantages. Leverage your feminine strengths, find a comfort level with expressing the traits considered more traditionally masculine, and the world will be yours.

16)   Look for equality in love. Find a partner who respects and loves you just the way you are, and who sees you as an equal. Express your appreciation for each other regularly. No one has all of the answers on love, so you will have to learn by living it, and yes, making some serious mistakes. That’s why people have been singing and writing and painting about love for millennia. No one has it all figured out.

17)   Have a diverse set of friends. This will help you stay open to many viewpoints and also prevent mental rigidity and complacency. When I say diverse, I mean across many lines – race, class, socioeconomic background, religion, political viewpoint, etc. No one friend or partner will give you everything you need, but if you surround yourself with people of diverse backgrounds, you will be stimulated and fulfilled.

18)   Bring food and help with chores. If someone is ill, going through a hard time, or has a new baby, they will appreciate actions that make their daily life easier. Bringing food, washing dishes, taking out the trash, or giving the bathroom a quick cleaning are not glamorous gifts, but they will be appreciated more than you know.

19)   Express yourself creatively. Make time for drawing and painting and singing and dancing and other creative pursuits, regardless of your talent level.

20)   Ask for help. It’s not only ok, it is good to ask for help. You can do a lot on your own. But you can move mountains if you have help from other people.

21)   Remember that no one has it easy and appearances can deceive. Life is unpredictable and challenging for each and every person on earth. No one has a perfect life, even those people who appear to have it all. I had my challenges, and you will have yours, but you are strong enough to bear them. No matter what happens to you, remember that every experience is here to teach you something about being human.

22)   Treat yourself with respect and others will follow. People will treat you the way that you let them. Sometimes, people will be mean or disrespectful or downright awful. Often, it has nothing to do with you. There could be many reasons for this behavior, but do not let anyone mistreat you on a regular basis. If they do, then leave the job/relationship/friendship/group. Ask yourself why it happened, and take steps to ensure that you are respecting yourself so that others do too.

23)   Honor your values. When confronted by a difficult decision, look to your values. The world you grow up in will be more complicated and different from the world your daddy and I grew up in. We can’t see into the future, but we hope that we have prepared you for the challenges and difficult questions you will encounter so that you can make good decisions.

24)   Forgive us. We are working very hard to give you a strong start in life – not just from a material perspective, but more so from a social, emotional, and intellectual standpoint. We will make mistakes as we raise you, and hope that they aren’t too devastating. When you are a teenager, and later an adult, you will discover those shortcomings. We hope that you find it possible to forgive us when the time comes.

25)   Remember we love you. Your mommy and daddy love you beyond compare. NO. MATTER. WHAT. And you can always come home. Your very existence inspires us to be the very best versions of ourselves that we can be. For that, and for you, we are incredibly grateful and blessed.

 Thank you for coming into our lives. Life is so much better and richer with you in it.

Love, Mommy

In the Company of Friends

No one tells you that motherhood is lonely at first. That first year was so hard.

When I became a new mother, I was so consumed by figuring out how to care for a new baby that female companionship fell by the wayside.

I didn’t realize how much I needed my friends until they were gone. When I looked up and suddenly found myself alone, I felt an ache.

The connection to my friends wasn’t about asking questions on what to do for certain child care issues. Everyone has a different answer anyway. It was really just being able to sit there and be someone other than a milk source or diaper changer or baby bouncer.

To just be me again. To talk about topics that interested me or made me laugh.

Of course, my friends never went away. I was the one who dropped off the earth for a while.

Gone were the long, delicious conversations over the phone to connect and gossip and laugh and talk. Too hard to do attending to a baby, and nearly impossible with a toddler in constant mischief and bodily peril, who used screams and incessant whining to get her needs met. Uninterrupted phone calls with friends became a thing of my past. (And still are, if I am being honest.)

Outings to coffeeshops and restaurants were unpredictable and prone to disaster, so that changed too. Meeting up for coffee or a meal could be scheduled, but it sometimes had to be cut short with an unpredictable little one in tow, and with an eye to child-friendly environments.

Even emails fell by the wayside. I used to love writing long emails to friends to catch up, particularly the ones in different countries or time zones. That, too, changed. Just a few lines had to do when I could get to it, and hope that people understood. And if not, well, I had to accept that I couldn’t give as much to my friends as I did before, no matter how much I wanted to.

My time allocation shifted by necessity, and rightfully so. My best time and energy went to my marriage, my child, and my work. Then I took care of the business of daily living and possibly some exercise (always an effort for me to get in.) Then I could decide what to do with the time and energy left over. Most of the time, there was a whole menu of things to do and not much left in my energy piggy bank.

My friendships are still important, but I have had to change my expectations of how I conduct them and the amount of time I spend on them. At first, I felt guilty (it’s so easy to make me feel guilty!) but now, I am at peace with it.

Now, the time that I spend with friends is all the more precious, since there isn’t much of it.

An old friend from college was in town a few weekends ago. A superstar corporate lawyer and married mother of two, it was a rare treat to sit with her, just the two of us, and have drinks and dinner together uninterrupted.

And – it must be said – without the company of our husbands or little ones.

I last saw her over a year ago. We exchange one line texts every six months. We squeeze in a quick phone call about once or twice a year, which always gets cut off.

Yet the lack of communication didn’t hamper our evening together. As soon as I saw her, we started talking and didn’t stop until three hours later when I dropped her off at her hotel.

To have an unfettered, honest conversation with a good friend who gets it, who you don’t need to impress, who you can talk to without fearing judgment – what bliss!

We talked about work, marriage, kids, families, money, friends, dreams, and anything else that came up. We let it all hang out, the fun stuff and the difficult stuff, and the problems we didn’t know how to solve.

I didn’t ask her for advice or what to do, and she didn’t ask me either.

We listened to each other. That’s it.

No need to put up a front of success or happiness or answers. We could just be the truest version of ourselves and enjoy each other’s company.

It’s been over three weeks since I saw her, and I still feel a warm heartlight glow from my time with her.

So, to all of my lovely friends out there, thank you for still being there after all these years and all these life changes. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

MUAH!

Why I Hate Low-Rise Jeans

Recently, Buzzfeed featured a piece called The 17 Worst Things to Ever Happen in Fashion. I scrolled through, sure I would find my nemesis of the past five years: low-rise jeans.

The jeans weren’t there.

Which leads me to wonder: am I alone in despising this fashion trend?

The only people who look good in them are teenage girls between the ages of 17-19 with perfect bodies, and bootylicious people like Beyonce. Which leaves the other 99.9% of the population to wear low-rise jeans whether they want to or not, because there is nothing else in stores.

Beyonce, perfect as usual

For the record, I am 42, petite, and a normal body type – not overweight, not super-fit. I am not a taut-bodied teen, nor am I Queen Bey (obviously).

I am a mom, which means I do a lot of bending, squatting, and lifting of toys, toddlers, and groceries, often all at the same time. Low-rise jeans leave me feeling exposed, a constant reminder of how unsexy I am.

And I would like to be a sexy mamma jamma. I just don’t know how, when my jeans fall far below my mommy pooch and show off my soft little love handles. Surely there is a better way to be stylish, but I haven’t found it yet.

So I am forced to choose among three options:

1)      Flaunt my assets (regardless of what they look like)

2)      Layer shirts and scour stores for exceptionally long blouses that cover the exposed skin from midriff to hip

3)      Wear high rise jeans from the 90’s that remind everyone of old Mad About You reruns

Let me tell you a story.

Last summer, I took my daughter to the playground. There was a new mother there with her newborn. She bent over to lift her baby out of its stroller, and her ass promptly fell out of her jeans.

I’m not exaggerating.

I saw it all: her purple thong whale tail, her dimpled cheeks, her butt cleavage, her love handles. She revealed more of herself than I ever wanted to see from a complete stranger. I don’t even look at MYSELF in the mirror this way.

The image was burned forever onto my retinas.

Besides thinking, “Oh my god, isn’t she COLD?” (we are in New England, after all), I couldn’t help but be embarrassed for her. She should have been arrested for indecent exposure, yet she was just wearing the current trend, squeezing a post-baby body into clothing that made her look more sad than sexy.

Then I thought to myself, “Ack – is that what I look like too?” In a move that is now second nature, I pulled down the back edge of my shirt to cover my backside, and hightailed it out of the playground.

Here is another story.

Over the past six years, I have periodically gone shopping for jeans.

It all started in 2007, when my friend, Kim, looked at me critically and told me in no uncertain terms that I needed “ass pants.” I was single at the time, and didn’t want to stay that way.

I hauled into Diesel. When the sales clerk brought me jeans that were so low I felt embarrassed to even step out of the dressing room, they reluctantly brought me their highest waisted jeans, making me feel like I had just asked them for Geritol.

I slid the jeans on. The hip gay sales clerk looked approvingly at me from all angles, and assured me that my ass looked great.  They were dark denim, low-rise, skinny-leg jeans. They were expensive. I had to admit that they looked good – as long as I didn’t bend over.

In 2011, I went to Nordstrom’s. All of the stylish jeans were low-rise. Beaten down by the lack of options, I invested in expensive jeans once again. The clerk assured me I looked foxy. The metal buttons on the back pockets happened to be placed in painful spots so that you can’t sit down for long, but that’s fine, because if you do, both your husband and your toddler will be tempted to stick their fingers down your butt cleavage as they walk past.

I have concluded that it is just best to remain standing at all times.

A few months ago, a Madewell store opened up in our local mall. I went into browse, and mentioned my frustration with low-rise jeans to a salesgirl. The sweet thing introduced me to their high-rise skinny jeans. I tried on a pair. They were like buttah – soft and comfortable. They even made friends with my belly-button, which had been sad and lonely for years. The jeans were expensive (naturally)! But I figured, hey, I finally found a pair of stylish jeans that are high-rise. Hallelujah! Sold!

I went home. After wearing them for an hour, don’t you know those damn jeans crawled down my hips and left me with a low-rise look?

I can’t win.

So I performed the fashion equivalent of jumping into a DeLorean. I went into my closet and excavated my old pants and jeans.

I am wearing an old pair right now, and I am really comfortable. I may look like Elaine from Seinfeld, but at least no one knows what kind of underwear I have on.