J'Espere

Oh, sweet friends who are due in the year of a royal birth, take note.   Don’t forget to bring your favorite heels and hairdresser to the hospital. I mean, I love Kate as much as the next person, but seriously? TEN HOURS after birth she appears, radiant, as if she had happened to be passing by and dropped in to scoop up a bundle of joy. Not as if she delivered an 8-pound baby. See below (taken from people.com)             Looking at the photos and then comparing them to George’s birth photos, I did see that she looked, oh, slightly more polished this time around. But….I am actually having trouble finding the words for this…maybe I just need one…HOW? I saw lots of comments about how she had a team of people, blah blah blah, and wanted to just say (but resisted)…yes, but SHE was the only person who DELIVERED A BABY.    No one else, as good as their intentions may have been, were able to get that child out of her ...

            Last week I had to be a grown-up. Again. Normally I can squeak by in what I lovingly refer to as “pseudo-grown-up” world. That’s where you are technically at a physical age in which you are considered a grown-up, but secretly you are still treating said activity/excursion/event in the same way a much younger version of yourself would.   I live on the edge.             But last week I had a realization. I would call it an epiphany, but I like to think those refer to something positive and this wasn’t.    So I will call it a realization. Months ago, on a high from running the 4 mile Fleet Feet Run in Chapel Hill, I signed up for the 10 miler (at a steep discount, I might add!) KNOWING that if I could run 4 miles with a 10 month old, I could doubtless run 10 miles with a 22 month old! Because 22 months is much easier than 10, right? In my head she would already be a p...

     After reading that you are probably wondering how you missed the part where my sweet baby, the one who just celebrated a birthday,   grew up. Fortunately, dear readers, you haven’t. She’s still a little bit, though she regularly grows in her sleep, surprising me and Matt in the mornings with a little extra height, useful for things like trying to turn the doorknob on her own or reaching for things from the counter when she shouldn’t.             She has always had a ton of baby dolls- some from when I was little, some from shower gifts, some from Christmas and then one from our delightful neighbor, who is seven and the official “babysitter”.   This is by far the most important object she has ever owned, besides Lambie and Bunny.   She calls her “Baby” and carries her high on her shoulder, gently patting her back. She has adapted quite well to only using one arm to do many things, such as build...

True Story. I am not a minimalist. Don't be shocked. Over the years, I have read a ton of books about organizing, decluttering, making room for more by having less. I went through a phase when I was a teenager (thus procuring me the nickname "Buddha") when I tried to get rid of everything. I remember reading some novel in which the main character's sister did this, and the parents ended up just sneaking all of her stuff up into the attic. In the story she subsisted on something like three pairs of socks and a pair of jeans. It didn't work out for her. It didn't work out for me. I was fantasizing about living out of a backpack, kind of like a hitchhiker. Doesn't fly for a southern girl. In what kind of world do you not hang on to your mother/aunt/grandmother/someone you met once's....something.     If you've been a reader for a while, this might not sound like anything exciting or new from me. "She's reading a new organizational book, she...

     Today is SL's second day of daycare. You might be wondering why, considering I'm still off for the summer and have a few weeks left. But right now, as I sit and type this, my baby is being fed lunch by someone else. A delightful someone else, but someone else nonetheless. And so, the house is silent. I will explain.      We learned last spring that our current babysitting arrangements were not going to be able to last this year. So we did what any American working family does. We panicked. I spent hours after school driving from daycare to daycare, each time leaving in tears at the thought of my sweet baby being one of many in a room of cribs. Sweet women led me down hallways and showed me curriculums and play areas, and children who were having fun or eating or sleeping or simply waiting for their parents. We talked about tuition payments and deposits and if they would put on sunscreen and naptimes. And I would smile and take my packets and walk to m...

 Over the last few weeks, I have heard the term "misogyny" more than any other specialized word in the English language. It has been all over the news, the internet , and of course Facebook. Misogyny: the hatred or dislike of women or girls. The word has come up more and more in the last few weeks because of a terrible crime in the US, but also the world. In the last month, there has been the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian girls, the stoning death of a pregnant Pakistani woman fighting for her right to marry for love, and the shooting of seven people in Santa Barbara by the now known Elliot Rodgers. What did all of these have in common? Hatred of women.     I hate the word hate. It's so strong and sounds so final. But I also think it perfectly describes all three incidents. Originally I didn't think much about the connection. They were so horrific individually that it was hard to fathom that there was a connection. But there is, and since I now have a sweet, prec...

                Good news, y’all. Our social calendar is finally filling up again. After months of wondering what we would do with the death of our social lives, we are finally being reintroduced to society. But if you’re thinking it involves margaritas and a late hour, you are mistaken. It now involves high chairs and sippy cups. We are finally being welcomed into the world of baby socialdom.  For you who think it’s a joking matter, think again.                 For a while I worried that SL would not get enough social interaction, since she is at home with a sitter during the day and not with me. I was concerned about the detrimental effect on her long term development and every time she kissed a photograph of a baby worried that she wouldn’t know what to do with the real thing. This is why we started going to Baby Story Time. Baby Story Time is, to put it lig...

    Becoming a parent has meant having to accept certain "situations". Like, one glass of wine with dinner instead of a margarita (apparently babies frown upon hard liquor, or maybe adults do). And when a friend asks you to a movie, you can only imagine a panicked babysitter texting you in the middle of Ryan Gosling removing clothing (don't judge- you know you watch too) to call you home. So you end up staying home a lot more. BUT, and there is a BUT, you become much more in tune with your home. You start really thinking about what it means to be in a home. Equaling a breakthrough.     When I was younger (Oh. My. God. this makes me so sad) my "home" was essentially a crash pad. Trust me, I added things to make it more "homey"- like my fish tank in Greensboro, or posters in Raleigh, or the Carolina gnome that has been mysteriously missing for the last few years. But overall it never really mattered what was happening there because there was so much els...