011/365

Thoughts on the becoming of a sisterhood:

When I told people that I was pregnant with another daughter, it was rare I didn't get told how lucky Marlo was to be getting a sister.

"What a gift you're giving her!" Luck of the draw, really.

"She is so lucky! Sisters are the best." I wouldn't know... don't have one. 

"She's got a best friend for life!" They'll both be teenagers so they're bound to hate each other at some point, right?

There were also fearful, sympathetic undertones in their well wishes, too. People often have an inexplicable instinct to create competition between sisters (and women in general, for that matter). Someone once had the audacity to tell me, "Well, I'd really hate to be known as Marlo's little sister. She'll never be able to measure up to her because she's so beautiful." Mo also was made fully aware of how dreadful her life would become once the new baby comes. "Uh oh! It's not just about you anymore!" 

Since I didn't grow up with a sister, I had no frame of reference on these matters. Maybe I was naive but I chose to believe (and still do) that Mo would grow up being the kind of girl we simply encouraged and supported her to be and I intended to apply that same tactic to sisterhood if only because it made the most sense.

After Edie was born and as I watched Marlo adjust to this new world we were all trying (and mostly failing) to navigate, I often cursed the well-meaning people who ever told me that giving Mo a sister was the best thing we could ever do for her. Liars! All of them! It wasn't a blessing. It felt like a curse for all persons involved. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done and still failed miserable at. It was even more painful (for Edie, mostly) to watch Mo become so frustrated with us and her new role but not be able to communicate it in a way that didn't involve hitting or scratching her sister. I'm not sure who cried more those first few hazy months: me, Edie, or Mo. 

Sorry, kid. I hate to break it to you but she's here to stay. 

About a month into the game, I had a complete breakdown. I weeped to Joe, convinced we made a mistake having another kid. I remember accusing myself of being selfish for wanting another baby, for wanting to disrupt Marlo's life just as it was really getting so good (I had yet to meet the threenager she'd soon become). I was certain that I'd ruined Marlo's life beyond repair and that she would never accept, let alone like or love, her little sister.

Mind you, I may have been slightly hormonal and irrationally over-dramatic but I was also understandably devastated. Sibling-hood looked nothing like I pictured it and my expectations were shockingly realistic. I expected and prepared myself for an adjustment period but I didn't think that Marlo's heart would actually be broken by bringing "that baby" into the world.

She wouldn't even say her name for the longest time. Edie was That Baby. 

That baby pooped. 

That baby won't stop crying. 

That baby needs to eat so it will stop crying. 

Looking back, I know that I had only yet to see the light at the end of tunnel. We weren't there yet-- we weren't even remotely close and in such dark, difficult to navigate times like postpartum, whether it be for the first time or the third, ignorance ain't bliss. That tunnel turned out to be eleven months longer than I had hoped. (Hey, just because I was realistic, doesn't mean that I wasn't optimistic for a best case scenario.) 

When I became pregnant with Mo and began thinking about the kind of mother I wanted to be, I promised myself that I'd always let my kids figure it out on their own time, never rushing them into being something they weren't ready for. In this case, all I could do was follow through with that promise and hope for the best, whatever that best looked like. 

Two weeks ago, as I walked into the girls' playroom, I watched Mo lean in and whisper to Edie, "You're my best favorite girl ever. I love you so much, Edie girl."

As my heart began beating outside of my chest in total awe (and an immeasurable amount of pride for Mo) like one of those lovestruck cartoon characters, I realized that the people who once told me how magical it would all be... well... they couldn't have been more right. 

010/365

Some people, if not most, look forward to the weekend. I, unlike most, am not one of those people. I don't have something against Saturday or Sunday, per se. They're great, in theory. But as most mothers are well aware, your job doesn't stop come Friday at 5. In the world of parenthood, the weekend is just another two days for your kids to be giant assholes and prove, yet again, that you've got a little less than nothing figured out. 

It's like they know. My beautiful, sometimes satanic, little spawns have somehow managed to figure out that the two days their parents desperately rely on to refill their engines and emotional energy reserves are the two days they choose to give them the proverbial middle finger. 

Hey, mom... Fuck you!

Hey, dad... Fuck you, too!

Mo takes it upon herself to fill a personal toddler jerk quota over the course of those two days. I think it's actually pretty sweet of her to want to include Joe in on the jerkiness. It wouldn't be fair to leave him out of such a raging good time, now would it? Why she maintains a vendetta against the two people who created her is beyond any level of my comprehension.   

And Edie? Oh poor, pitiful Edie. That kid just can't catch a single break. She's basically had a double ear infection for almost two months now which makes her the very far opposite of pleasant. She also appears to be either cutting a new tooth or having a massive growth spurt constantly. Oh. And, to add insult to injury, she doesn't sleep. Well, she does, just not consecutive hours through the night. I love that face of hers, but I love even more NOT seeing it for more than four hours at a time when I am supposed to be comatose under cotton sheets. Is that really too much to ask after eleven months? I surely don't think so.   

But this weekend wasn't like most weekends. 

This weekend was different.

It was good. It felt easy-- well, as easy as a busy weekend with two kids can feel. It felt like pieces of a puzzle slowly coming together, like the fog of the first year of being parents to two kids began lifting. It felt like the unvocalized question of "why did we have another kid, again?" was starting to become clear. 

Because it can actually be really, really good. 

To end the weekend, Joe and I sat beside each other on the ground at a local park. A man played bongos somewhere in the distance. Mo shocked the pants off of us and played independently while Edie crawled around the grass, pausing only to eat a handful of dirt or crunch winter-recked leaves between her palms. We then had our best friends over for a "possible last meal before you have a baby" dinner. I went to bed before ten p.m.  

It was downright dreamy. 

Jim Gaffigan once likened parenthood to drowning but, instead of a rope, someone then throws you a baby. Most days feel just like that. Like a struggle to keep my head above the water and the deliberate picking of battles with an irrational and manic toddler and an infant who appears to be allergic to sleep, both whose goal, I often believe, is to just fuck with me. 

So, not only was this weekend dreamy, it was earned. 

009/365

So much for writing every day, huh?

I could feel badly about it but I don't. Or, at least, I won't. Because you know what? Life happens. 

Other assignments and work you committed yourself to- commitments that actually pay a few bills- happen. Kids get sick (and stay sick). You get sick (and stay sick). You travel. Your husband travels. You take your kids to the zoo. Your infant decides it's a good time to grow more teeth (pesky asshole bastards.) You drink too much wine while binging on old episodes of Scandal, episodes you swore you'd never watch because you likened it to drinking the Thursday Night kool-aid and, goddammit, you're better than that. (You are not better than that.) You go to the gym to "work out" only to lay on the mat and pretend to stretch for forty-five minutes and get approached by three different personal trainers because you obviously appear to "need some help in the motivation department."

 You see? 

Life.

It happens. 

But, there are also the other times, the inevitable and far too frequent occasions every writer fears, the occasion you find you have absolutely nothing to say. 

Zip.

Nada.

White noise. 

Blankness where there should be words. 

Empty word clouds. 

You become frustrated, of course. You're convinced that writer's block is the universe giving you the finger. But instead of writing to meet some arbitrary quota you set for yourself in the hopes of following through for the first time in, I don't know, ever-- the exact thing you promised yourself you wouldn't do because quantity bears no heavier weight than quality in the World of Word virtues you live in-- you don't.

You wait. You sit in front of a blank computer screen and. you. wait. 

And you wait.

And you wait some more. 

While you wait, you wonder if the words will ever come. You wonder why the words won't come even though the thoughts are there. Those fucking thoughts keep you up at night but are the cock-block of the literary world, never delivering the goods they promise you at two a.m.. 

You wait until you have something to say. You wait until the words flow and it feels once again therapeutic instead of stressful, no longer making a mockery of the one single talent you claim to possess. And then, after you've waited and wondered and waited some more, you find yourself sitting in the dark one early morning writing while everyone else dreams.

You drink your coffee and you write feverishly, your fingers tapping manically. You feel an abundant sense of relief. You breathe wholly and deeply, feeling the mental muscle memory kicking in. Your shoulders feel lifted, even in that all-too-familiar-hover-over-the-keyboard slouch you would stay in forever as long as the words keep coming.

You write all the words that have been bottled up for the past two or three weeks driving you completely mad-- the words that couldn't manage to escape from your brain without making not a damn bit of sense. You remember how good it feels to find just the right word or words. You, once again, realize that you don't know how not to write, and your fears of not ever having anything to write about ever again are emphatically shushed.

Ironically, you find yourself writing about writing. 

You write more.

Then you laugh out loud at how often you, figuratively speaking, beat the shit out of yourself for not doing et. al. You laugh because somewhere deep inside of you, within the marrow of your bones, you know that you try your absolute best. You accepted long ago that your best is almost always good enough. But, just like the Type-A tyrant that bubbles beneath your psyche's surface, threatening to show her stress-zit covered face, scratching through a To-Do-List item is embarrassingly life affirming.

It says, "Look at me! I did the things! See that scratch? Those scratchES!!! I did ALL the things. Yes, I sure did! You go, girl. Fist bumps. High fives. Butt slap-and-grabs. YOU DID ZE FINGS. You wrote something-- anything-- because you said you were going to write. Good motherfucking job. Salute me, To Do's!" 

You know... it's very likely that I shot myself in the foot when I said (I promised, actually) that I would write EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. If that's not setting oneself up for failure, I'm not sure what is. It's not because I don't want to because I very much do. It's has nothing to do with finding the time to write because I make time a priority for the things I want and need to do.

I failed because writing doesn't always work this way. At least, not for me and my kind of writing. It doesn't work for the kind of writing that has no purpose other than being written because I wanted it to be. And since this is a personal capsule of words, that's the only writing I plan on doing here. 

So, maybe I won't write every day. Maybe my inner Tracy Flick will just have to sit the fuck down for a bit and accept that failure isn't always losing. If failure helps me figure IT all out a little bit more, then I'm fine with that. 

I hope you are, too. 

008/365

Shall we talk about Birkenstocks? 

Birkenstocks are a far cry from the platforms of yesteryear, a time during which I sacrificed my only two ankles' wellbeing for the optical illusion of height and a perkier badonkadonk. Some call Birkenstocks hippy though I prefer Old Testament chic. They're not the most flattering, sure, and you can't wear them to a nice dinner (trust me, I've tried). But I just ordered another pair, my third, and I couldn't be happier about it. 

In Brooklyn, you couldn't walk a single block without seeing a mother and/or her child in THE UNIFORM-- cut-off denim shorts, striped tees, Birkenstocks, and a Herschel back pack. I don't know anyone in Charlotte, the land of Lily Pulitzer and monograms, who wears Birkenstocks. Birkenstocks aren't typically one's footwear du jour when a neon pink, knee-length, pineapple-covered dress is your preferred sartorial choice of the day. Don't forget the pearls!

As you may have guessed, I don't wear Lily Pulitzer, though I have considered it as my next halloween costume as a Stepford Wife. I don't wear pearls either. I did for a semester my freshman year of college-- the pearls, not the fruit dresses-- and I looked like a real fucking idiot.

Pearls aren't foolish, of course; they're classic and lovely. They are also far too civilized for someone who doesn't brush her hair on a daily basis or ever. But Birkenstocks? Birkenstocks are my kind of shoe. They are for the girl who always appears slightly disheveled, for the girl who has given up on wearing white because-- hello-- stains. Birkenstocks are efficient. Also, guess who won't be seeing an orthopedist before turning sixty? THIS GIRL. 

This is all to say that you can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but maybe more of Brooklyn stayed with the girl than she ever expected. 

007/365

"I have a theory that children remember

two things-- when you weren't there and when 

they threw up." Nora Ephron

Marlo, if given the chance, really enjoys telling everyone-- and anyone-- about this time she threw up into my hands in a candy store. I thought it was just the wrapper she was trying to ingest along with the piece of candy she snatched off the shelf and popped into her mouth before I could stop her. I remember thinking, "Well, that will teach her!" Turns out I'm an asshole and it was actually a stomach bug that lasted for the next two days. 

She recalls it with such vivid memory you'd think that it happened last week. No. It happened over two years ago in Brooklyn. Oddly enough, when she tells strangers about the time she threw up as they inch their way away from her, she leaves that tiny bit of vital information out. 

But, hey! At least she remembers that I was the one there catching her throw up, right?!