The Daily Fuss

HBO Girls

Wouldn't it be great to be 24 again?

Absolutely NOT.

In a commentary clip preceding HBO's new series Girls, the creator, Lena Dunham describes the age of 24 as (and I'm paraphrasing here) "not old enough to be in a position to get what you want" and "not savvy enough to know what you should want for yourself."

Eleven years senior to Miss Hannah Horvath, the main character, I can sympathize with her journey of good and bad decisions that will likely inspire personal growth along the way.

At 24 I was just out of school, dating the wrong guy, staying out too late, spending all of my money on shoes and ... let's just say I do a decent job of painting that picture here.

My parents didn't need to support me at 24. I had already graduated from law school and was working at a big firm in the city. Unlike others who have panned the show, I am not going to get bogged down in the whole "Generation-Y-bad-economy-excuses, can't-get-a-job, parents-support-me, I'm-entitled thing."

I don't relate with Lena to that degree, but the age of 24 felt vague to me, just the same. I didn't know where I fit into the bigger picture of life. To that end, 24 year-old Hannah isn't much different than 24 year-old Jen.

One of the characters kicks off her exposition with a diatribe about which Sex and the City character she's most like, "some Charlotte, definitely some Carrie, with a little bit of Samantha" from time to time.

I can relate. It took me years to resolve my inner Carrie Bradshaw. I just can't believe 24 year-olds are still identifying with that show. Moreover, those Carrie worshippers will likely have trouble identifying with HBO's Girls. Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna don't embody anything a 24 year-old girl wants to be. In fact, even after a few episodes, the viewers have no handle on the girls' potential.

Girls focuses intently on the opposite and champions the the painful art of "becoming" a woman - something that you can only truly appreciate with (at least) a decade of distance from the reality of your former 24 year-old self.

Life, like any good TV show, is so much fun when you can look back after a few years and say with full sincerity, "Look how far we've come."

If Girls can stick it out for a few seasons, we will review it fondly in retrospect. Good job HBO. I think you have a winner here.

Photograph courtesy of the New York Times.

Identity Crisis Part IV: Resolving My Inner SJP Character

I am not going to go full smelly English major on the topic of the working mom, but I cannot pass up the opportunity to comment on a few gut-reaction observations to the cultural themes present in I Don't Know How She Does It.

I'm a little peevish and I can't put my finger on why that is, exactly. So, I am going to sort it all out in this post with two interrogatories and two narratives:

1) Is This Really Something New? Is the shock and awe spurred on by a working mom who seemingly has her shit together a new thing? It's relatively new to me, so I am truly wondering. It's tough to be committed to my work, and have amazing kids, and be an awesome wife and manage my clients and remember to brush the dog's teeth and throw birthday parties and breastfeed six times a day and pay the bills and sow a garden and procure all necessities for the household and blog and make dinner and put my fantasy team in for the week and take the kids to the zoo, but that's my life. I suspect this type of motherhood has existed for some time. Chicks rule. Duh.

Why this book? Why this movie? Why now?

2) And, why SJP? I have spent the past four years mouring the passing of my inner Carrie Bradshaw. "She was a cheating, self-indulgent bitch," my husband will tell you. He's intent on this because he fancies himself my Aiden, but no matter. I identified with her on a number of levels. His reaction is annoyingly caveman, and I fastidiously defend the iconic character accordingly to this day.

Four years of marriage, two kids, one suburb and one minivan later, I am no longer Carrie Bradshaw worshipping skinny jean girl. I have made my peace with the woman I was a decade ago. I was fun and thin and hot and knew the best restaurants in Chicago and stayed out too late and smoked cigarettes and spent my money on shoes. I also dated my Mr. Big - a cheating, self-indulgent bitch in his own right. There was a tumultuous time and place for all of that. Where I am now is so much blissfully better, and there is no reason to look back at all of that drama with anything other than a very distant fondness of personal growth.

3) I don't know why I would want to see this movie. In I Don't Know How She Does It, Sarah Jessica Parker resurfaces as Kate Reddy, a finance executive desperately trying to balance her job, husband and two kids. It's the classic ultra-thin working mom with high-stakes career (SJP) wins huge, new account while husband (Greg Kinnear) finally lands his dream job, type of story. Throw in the similarly situated best friend (Christina Hendricks) child-hating assistant (Olivia Munn) and adulterous temptation (Pierce Brosnan) and you have the recipe for one movie I don't want to see.

4) Working Mothers Have Varying Degrees of Tolerance. People (mostly women) love to comment on the busy-ness of other women. I'm guessing we have all heard "I don't know how you do it" on several occasions. I think it's something women say as a compliment of sorts. I have come to realize that the number activites a working mom can juggle at any given time is more akin to a fluctuating pain tolerance. Sometimes we're firing on all cylindars. We are amazing. Everything is working. You could tear off a limb and we wouldn't flinch. Other days, a mere sliver is enough to shut down the works - there is no food in the fridge, no clean underpants, the dog peed on the carpet and the one bill not on autopay is late.

5) I Know How I Do It. There are no secrets to maintaining a successful life as a working mom, and no measure of that success other than personal happiness and satisfaction. I am happily satisfied, so I am doing well by my standard.

How does this working mom do it? With help, of course. I outsource a few things and increase efficiencies wherever possible:

I have a full-time nanny, who also handles laundry duties. I have a cleaning lady. I have my hair professionally cut and colored. I keep my nails short. I have some groceries delivered. I work from home. I do 90% of my shopping online. Our bills (wherever possible) are on autopay. I send our taxes (and a giant stack of papers) to the accountant. I make big batches of soup, lasagna etc. and freeze portions in containers so there is always something to eat in a pinch. We watch all tv shows after 8pm on the DVR and skip commercials. I blog at night. My family members watch the girls from time to time so Ryan and I can do grown-up stuff.

Under this scheme, I pick up enough extra time to teach my children to be intelligent and compassionate citizens, make party invitations, take the car to the shop, share a glass of wine with my husband, pick and preserve tomatoes, balance the checkbooks, call the roofer and spend a bit of time here and there with friends. I realize not everyone can afford some of the help listed above, but without the help, I couldn't keep my job and without my job, I couldn't afford the help. That, in and of itself is a balancing act.

Putting my obvious reservations aside, I will eventually see this movie and compare myself to Kate Reddy and say "Oh yeah right - that would never happen in real life," in much the same way I pick apart every objection made during trial on Law and Order. And, I will identify with Kate in a way that will cost me another four years of reconciliation with my inner self.

Happy Birthday



In honor of The Daily Fuss's second birthday, I poured a glass of wine and sat down to read through two years' worth of nostalgia. Here are some of my very favorite musings from the past seven hundred and thirty three days:

January 27, 2011 | Identity Crisis Part III: How Did I Get Here?

September 1, 2010 | Howdy Neighbor

August 18, 2010 | House

May 5, 2010 | Identity Crisis Part II: Work Life Balance

April 23, 2010 | Identity Crisis Part I: Suburban Living

March 19, 2010 | Un-Apology

March 3, 2010 | Daddy Wisdom

February 5, 2010 | Self-Evaluation

December 21, 2009 | Fungineer

September 11, 2009 | Urbane

September 5, 2009 | The Darker Side of Love

August 18, 2009 | Handy Dandy

August 7, 2009 | Parachuting Philosopher

August 1, 2009 | The Difference Is Four Percent

July 25, 2009 | Mess E. Nest

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

Jen

Anniversorry Part II: Imposters

Given the anticipation created by planning our anniversary celebration, it should not come as a surprise that the events of the evening did NOT transpire as intended.

We arrived at the hotel at 2pm for an early check in. There is nothing better than a toddler and infant-free nap in a freshly cleaned, fancy hotel room. So we ordered lunch up to our lair, enjoyed a Sprecher Amber and Usingers sausage sticks and snoozed. Hard.

In readying for dinner, Ryan tested the rain shower ... complete with translucent glass. Interesting.

Here is a stock photo from the hotel. This shower leaves little to the imagination. One can only hope there are other accommodations for individuals staying with friends or small children or Amish folk.

Honestly, I felt that at this point we were in over our heads - kidding ourselves that we (the proud parents of two teeny tots) could pull off a normal romantic moment or several without laughing at some point, or feeling like a couple of imposters.

Once we were primped and proper, cousin Pete and his fiancee Leah met us for pre-dinner cocktails. They live in Milwaukee, we haven't seen them for a spell and we fully intended to use this time to formally ask them to be Mairin's Godparents. We enjoyed a bottle of wine in our room, then a beer at the hotel bar. And, once my mom called, we forgot to ask them anything.

"Mairin hasn't eaten since you left. I've tried several different bottles, different nipples, different batches of frozen breastmilk and even formula. No dice."

Not wanting to: a) Appear overly concerned; b) Foreshadow the fact that this may ruin the whole night; or c) Fail our plan, I told her to give Mairin Tylenol and cross her fingers.

Ryan was jumpy and sweaty and seemingly paranoid through cocktails and the call from my mom didn't help. We hopped a cab to dinner and the pavlovian effect usually created by the ride to Bacchus was nearly impossible to attain.

Other than spying John Malan (local meteorologist since childhood) at the bar, the twenty minute wait for our table was spent desperately trying NOT to talk about Mairin's appetite over our own. Ryan's jumpiness overpowered the voice of reason in my head that should have assured me both girls would be just fine for the evening.

"I wonder why she's not eating."

"Maybe she's eating now."

"I'm sure everything is fine. This meal is going to be awesome."

"I can't wait."

"Me either."

"Too bad Mairin's not eating her dinner."

"I know, right? It's so strange. Poor baby."

"I think I want the filet."

"Me too."

Tick. Tick. Tick. Drink. Drink. Drink.

Our collective worry must have accelerated our collective metabolic rate because at this point in the evening we had each had two beers and three glasses of wine.

We were seated at our corner table and ordered another glass of wine, small plates and our entrees. I ordered the lobster and Ryan ordered the filet. Of course, there was much discussion surrounding menu choices and how "I will order last" and "what two items can we split" and Ryan doesn't think lobster is "worth it" and I'm all "you have to be joking" and blah blah blah.

"I wonder if Mairin is eating yet," we mused over another glass of wine.

By the time my mom called again, Ryan was still sweaty, I was drunk and our entrees had yet to arrive. Service on this particularly important Saturday was sssloooow - overbooked like a United flight out of O'Hare.

By the time we paid the bill and talked to my mom AGAIN about how Mairin now hadn't eaten in eight hours, we decided that we would take a cab back to my parents' house, feed stubborn Mairin and come back.

By the time we made it back to the hotel, we packed our bags and called the valet to bring the car around.

I looked ridiculous waiting for the car having already changed into my yoga pants and other such Lulu Lemon/Athleta wear. I felt my fraud exposed as the valet held the minivan door for me and I hopped inside - Patagonia bag on my shoulder, bronze stilletos in hand - while hipsters and aging bikers filed into the hotel in appropriate attire for a night out. I tried to pretend we enjoyed a lovely stay (of more than a few hours) and were excited to be on our way home, but the absurdity of it all was apparent.

We were ten blocks out when my mom called yet again to report that, "Mairin is finally eating. She was stubborn and wants her mom, but I finally won. Please go back to the hotel. My God, you sound trashed."

Ryan and I argued for two minutes about what to do and blamed each other for getting so worked up. He told me he was worried because this normally wouldn't have freaked me out and I blamed my freaking out on his profuse perspiration and irritability. It's at this point that he admitted to taking TWO 24-hour Claritin because he didn't want his allergies to "ruin our evening".

Ah well, his intentions were pure.

We went back to the hotel at 11pm, gave our keys to the same valet who helped me out of the car moments earlier, took the gorgeous elevator straight up and went to bed ... defeated.

Dinner at a fabulously slow restaurant - $250. Unsullied hotel room - $400. White gold and diamond locket given by husband as a wedding gift left on the nightstand and "not recovered" by housekeeping - $3150.

Jen and Ryan's fourth anniversary memories - PRICELESS.

Self Evaluation

At three this afternoon, the overall score for the day was nothing short of promising. Most importantly, Leighton's little barely-slept-a-wink self was at school and would most certainly be too pooped to wreak any real toddler havoc when she got home.

I caught up with the laundry, made progress on a legal publication I'm spearheading, finished a post, showered AND dried my hair, made hair and massage appointments, pumped an extra feeding, snapped a few pictures of Mairin, cleaned any messy aspects of the house and remembered to feed Lue and let her out the requisite number of times throughout the day. A few gifts were delivered for Miss Mairin, as well - driving the score even higher.

Ryan returned with Lei shortly thereafter and the circus promptly began. Here are a few things that fall under the auspice of what I like to call "toddler mayhem":

Squeezing little sis around the middle and/or hugging her by the head whilst I'm feeding her - out of love, of course.

Spontaneously bursting into song in an attempt to avoid answering a direct question.

Finishing my sentences incorrectly to suit her needs.

Bedtime battles and temper tantrums - most of which include "the noodle" where she raises her arms above her head and her shoulder blades turn to cartilage and it's impossible to find any place on her to grab hold and successfully pick her up. (How do all kids know how to noodle instincitvely? The phenomenon needs to be studied).

Getting naked for no real reason other than to mess with me.

Putting anything other than potty, in the potty.

Doing artwork anywhere other than on paper while nodding and telling me "paper only" and "keep it on the paper, mama".

AND MY FAVORITE ...

Slapping me (more like controlled flailing as if to say "I'm going to swing my arm around fiercely and you best not get in its way") followed by profuse apologies, patting me on the shoulder or back, caressing my face and telling me that "everything will be okay mommy" in a slightly Munchausen by proxy sort of way.

The list goes grows daily with some new goofiness, but these incidents don't last long and they aren't as frequent as I'm making it seem. Leighton is really a very sweet little girl, it's just that she sprung the mayhem on us suddenly a few weeks ago and it's still throwing a monkey wrench into what was a very happy and well-managed daily routine. She's a toddler and this is totally normal. We get it. I promise. Still, it doesn't make it any less exhausting or hilarious to us.

Tonight, Leighton can add pooping in the bathtub (I think it was more of a gambled-and-lost, toot-confusion situation rather than an act of defiance, but it counts) and needing to wear a tiara to bed to read The Princess and the Pea with babies, silks and blankies strewn about her special sleeping spot to take the daily score down just a smidge.

The real point deduction for the day was all on me. I spilled several ounces of freshly pumped sweet juice all over the dining room table and on to the floor. What a MAJOR EFFING DISAPPOINTMENT. If this were my first baby, I would have been inconsolable for at least an hour. But, I'm over it.

The daily tally buoyied again late in the day. By 7:39pm, everyone was fed, and everyone under the age of two was asleep. At this point, the television remains off and Ryan just opened a bottle of red. There will most definitely be few spitups, wakeups, feedings and trips to the potty over the next several hours. But overall, I'm pleased with our team's performance.

I give us a solid 10.

Identity Crisis Part III: How Did I Get Here?

So I had a delusional moment the other day, ascending our stairs (to pee for what seemed like the billionth time that day because we still haven't installed the toilet in the half-renovated, half-bath on the main floor) in what felt like someone else's house.

Why so much peeing, you ask? Well ... because I stepped away from The Daily Fuss for two months to get my ducks in a row, I haven't been able to drop daily reminders to all of you that our hot new single "Little Sis" is due to drop on Monday the 31st. Unfortunately, it seems that since Leighton was born during the NCAA Championships that Little Sis would like to wait for the Superbowl to make her debut. Bummer.

So, I'm coming up the stairs thinking to myself, "How did I get here again?" It was an odd space in between a failure to remember who dropped me off at this person's home, and the manner in which the Plinko chip bounced down the board of life to make me the happily married, suburban mother of two with a mortgage and a minivan (oh hell yes - we will address this properly tomorrow) and a little doggie and tenants in my beloved condo and laundry in the dryer and we're out of milk and taxes are due soon and I need to fill out my paperwork for maternity leave and we need more salt for the driveway and is Parenthood on tonight and ... you see where I'm going with this.

It didn't take long to go from the girl-about-town singleton to the current iteration of me. We married in May 2007, bought the condo, had a baby, bought a house in the suburbs and are having another baby this week. What can I say? "Holy Shit" pretty much sums it up.

There have been a few recent moments of pause along the way ... here, here and here to be specific. And, if I hadn't bothered to write about them, I may not have recalled ceratin aspects of my metamorphasis.

The good news is that both Ryan and I are the type of people who think just long and carefully enough about the decisions we make (major ones included) without making ourselves ill over deliberation. We pick our pony and never look back. We trust that we made a good choice and work through whatever that brings. However, that type of decision-making has lead to rapid change in a short period of time no matter the super-sound logic involved.

Don't worry, I'm not going Revolutionary Road on you in ANY way. I'm a happy girl, I just don't recognize myself sometimes. Reconciling who I fancy myself to be and who I really am is a daily download - like a JenMom software patch. It takes effort, but it's not exhausting. I fully expect that the overwhelming gratification, part and parcel to leading a happy life, includes perpetual bouts of alternating hard work and hard play. That's what makes it interesing in my overly energetic opinion.

Stay tuned this week and the next and the next and the next ... for more of the hard work phase once Little Sis joins our squad. And thanks for sticking with me while I took some time to get my act together. Much appreciated.

Ryan is flushing his freshly installed, half-bath toiled as I type these very words. I could not love him more. My hero!

Howdy Neighbor

I've been on the neighborhood ladies email list for two weeks and, in that time, a few emails have buzzed around. One even had an attachment, it just took time for me to dig around in my personal email and open it.

I finally had a few spare moments today to sift through the latest sales and Southwest getaways, reply to Evites or delete copious offers for vitamin supplements. For me, it's the electronic equivalent to the Sunday paper inserts. You know ... funmail.

I eagerly opened the flyer attachment from the most recent neighborhood ladies email only to find that Las Toberfest (I have no clue where the name came from) was this past Saturday. Sadly for me, everyone attends this soirre and, according to one of the two neighbors I actually know, I should "never miss Las Toberfest."

Ooops. How was I supposed to know that my neighborhood chickadees would celebrate something that sounds remotely like "Octoberfest" in August?

As the newbie, I was naturally looking forward to meeting the rest of the gals on my block. Being the proverbial new girl is not generally a big deal. However, I am somewhat self-conscious in this particular instance because we bought the house months ago, tore it up, put most of it back together and just recently moved in. Speculation about the new Freemans has been swirling down the street for some time now.

In the context of a suburban neighborhood community curiosity, I am the most highly scrutinized type of new girl. I'm the new girl who decided that this year we'll focus on renovating the interior of the house and next year we'll tackle the exterior and landscaping - the part of the house that everyone sees. Everything we've done for the past several months begs the question ... What the heck are they up to in there?

I'm the new girl who's had a dumpster parked in her driveway for several weeks at a stretch since April. I'm the new girl who had a carpenter set up on her front lawn making a noisy, dusty mess.

I'm the new girl who (even after a month since moving in) still has a hundred pounds of corrugated cardboard bound up on her curb for the recycling truck every monday.

I'm the new girl who hit an all-time, hillbilly low in early July when our Jeep was stuck on our lawn for several hours one suffocatingly hot, friday evening. It was on that very day Ryan I decided that the good folks in our new neighborhood were wagering on whether or not we had full sets of teeth or were related to one another or said things like "git 'er done" or would one day shoot the racoons right off the top of them there garbage cans. Varmints!

We have a one-car garage and thusly, a one-car width driveway. We also live on a no parking street. With contractors and family members coming over to deliver things, haul things away and help us in general, it was occasionally just easier to roll right up on the lawn next to the driveway for a brief spell.

Unfortunately, our model of Jeep Grand Cherokee had a tempermental steering column/ignition pin lock and if you turn the wheel after parking you can apparently break the whole damn thing. This very scenario played out with us looking like complete hilljacks - our Jeep parked (cockeyed, as Ryan will point out) in the middle of the yard long after the help had gone home.

AAA sent a service truck out to have a look. After thirty seconds, the driver said, "The ignition's busted. I can tow it to a shop for you. Should be fixed by monday. Or .... I could call my uncle. He can probably help you tonight." Yep. His uncle.

While we waited for the only, living, willing, repair guy who could install a new ignition on site at nine pm on a friday, we made vain attempts to unlock the steering column ourselves using random suggestions drudged up from the bowels of the internet by the Google-machine.

Please try to picture one of us jumping up and down on the front bumper while the other violently jerks the stiff wheel back and forth. These sad, turf-destroying efforts came in short bursts because it was too damn hot for human beings to carry out this ridiculous exercise for any extended period of time. By the time help arrived, the wheel was in an unusual position. "You never want your steering wheel stuck completely upside down" the helpful master of the obvious told us, as he busied himself in the portable garage that was his utility van.

People who point out the obvious usually make me nuts, but this guy installed a new ignition for us faster than you could say "chop shop" so I just can't bring myself to hate him for it. It barely even weirds me out that this alleged "uncle" didn't seem much older than the AAA driver who had led us to him. Once our precious transport was back in the driveway where she belonged, I was nothing other than entirely grateful and relieved.

Let me just say that if the neighborhood folk somehow overlooked the weeks and months of renovation hoopla at our house, there was little chance they missed the car parked on our lawn during prime time on a friday night. Las Toberfest was a golden opportunity for me redeem the Freemans before the whole hood - a shot at showing them how hilariously, brilliantly normal we are, and I BLEW it.

Damn you, ill-named and inappropriately-timed Las Toberfest. Damn you!

House

When you're single, married people are always asking you when you think you'll get married. When do you think he'll propose? Are you bummed you're not married yet? What kind of wedding do you want to if he proposes tomorrow?

The list of questions is endless, right down to china patterns and venues. It's like the married-folk have joined a little club and they're dying to see your membership application.

Once initiated into the club, you are immediately privy to the gruesome details of the dysfunctional inner-workings of these marriages over a nice wine-soaked round of Bunko or whatever those wacky wives clubs are doing to entertain themselves these days. You almost feel the urge to make things up about your husband to fit in, but think better of it and just chip in a few cents about how he doesn't pick up his socks or wet towels. That ass!

The same holds true for the couples with kiddos. Once you have a baby, you can't wait for your friends to reproduce. Mostly because having a newborn pretty much sucks and misery truly loves company. However, you direct your discussions to sweet baby gear and dazzle them with pictures of your peanut sleeping or posed in other similarly peaceful states. You only divulge the horrors of parenthood - no sleep, diaper blow outs, the exorbitant cost of the sweet baby gear, ear infections, bad babysitters, sore boobs, and the like once your friend is about to give birth. Ha ha - SUCKAS!

I had no idea that more of these clubs existed, related to the stages of life through which we must matriculate to feel successful, but aren't nearly as glamorous as they first appear. However, I am on to the next club, not necessarily in the same order as everyone else - the houseowner club. I have been a homeowner for some time, just not a houseowner. HUGE difference. And, everyone else who was rah-rahing for me to buy the house is now referring to it as a "lifetime love-hate relationship". FAN-TAS-TIC.

City condo living and suburban house living are completely different. Let me point out a few of the most crucial deviations in my opinion:

1) In a high-rise in the city, we can live twenty feet from twenty people for ten years and not know ANY of their names. Sure, I vaguely know three-packs-a-day on the pool deck guy, weird helmet guy, pot-smoking sorority girls know as the besties, the association president el presidente, ambiguously gay dude, the woman who can never remember how old Luella is and whether she is a she or a he but asks every single time we're in the elevator, lawyer guy, the triathlete, Auntie Social and the woman who furiously tries to manually close the elevator door before you can shut your mailbox and dash there yourself. Worth mentioning - the couple whose children addressed everyone as "hi people" who once lived at the end of the hall.

In the burbs, I am on the Highland Park Ladies email list, currently watering the neighbor's plants and rearranging their trash cans while on vacation and have been asked several times via snail mail to "Save the Children" by a specific individual. What the fuss? I so frequently stand at the sidewalk in front of my house to make polite conversation that I am ready to put a bench right at the foot of the driveway. And, I've fielded so many inquiries related to our renovation that I am considering holding an open house to take care of multiple requests to see things like my new soapstone countertops all in one fell swoop.

2) City = Drive some, walk everywhere else. Burbs = Walk some, drive daily. We need a second car and that absolutely blows.

3) Peapod needs some advance notice to schedule a grocery delivery to the burbs. Whereas I can schedule at the last minute in the city. Many people have tried to convince me that grocery shopping is relaxing and fun and wonderful. I CANNOT STAND grocery shopping anywhere other than the internet - Peapod to be specific. Otherwise, I need to go to Whole Foods for much of the order, then Sunset for the few other things I can't get at Whole Foods (like preggo waffles and the WW frozen Quesadillas to which I am addicted and will rarely admit to eating) and then to the specialty market for the things I need that are at Whole Foods but way more expensive than they should be and as a matter of principle, I can't buy them there. I can get everything I need from Peapod, while I track my spend and avoid getting sidetracked by impulse purchases. I spend no less than $100 on wine, cheese and tapenade every time simply walking through the doors of Whole Paycheck. Boo.

4) City = Hailing a taxi. Burbs = Calling the night before for a taxi. There are multiple reasons Ryan and I are both having a tough time with this one. But the most important factor is that we like to do things at the last minute.

5) We now live very far from Midway, which means no more Southwest. I hate O'Hare, hate getting to and from O'Hare, I despise all airlines EXCEPT Southwest. I need a game plan here because this just isn't working for me. Plus, if you take a city cab home from the airport, the credit card authorization is out of range. It's like I live on a farm or something. Last night, the driver who brought me home from O'Hare thought I was leading him somewhere to be mugged or killed. In the city, the opposite is generally true.

6) We suddenly have a roof, yard and basement to worry about. In the city, we had a 24 hour doorperson and maintenance crew. We never bothered with those things considered "common elements". SIGH. This is the main issue that no one mentioned until after we bought a free-standing house. "You'll spend so much money every year on stuff you won't even notice - new roof, new furnace blah blah blah." The dryer broke the other day and we bought a new set of front-loaders. Super expensive pain in the ass is all I can say.

7) I can hear bugs instead of the 22 bus. I am rattled by the table-saw hum of the mating cicadas in my yard. I would pay someone fifty bucks to record the lilting sounds of Clark and Fullerton at dusk. "Next stop - Clark and Belden ... Clark and Belden. Psshhht. Vroom." Oh I do miss it something awful. That, and the bright lights of the skyline to guide me to the potty three times each pregnant night. Now, it's pitch black and I use my right leg like walking cane for the blind. My shins look like half-eaten corn cobs - bruises and bug bites. Gorgeous.

There are upsides.

1) Lei loves her yard - especially the swing set. Luella does too. In fact, she one self-assured pooch these days. It's as though she can't believe we won the lottery and have an actual yard! A YARD! I told her that I'd like to see the carcases of ten fallen voles, lined up on the patio by the end of the week. She agreed to give it a shot.

2) We can walk to the lake, Ravinia, the train and downtown HP. With this comes the ability to walk to a restaurant, have a few cocktails and not have to drive home. That is a major plus where suburbs are concerned.

3) The guest parking situation has improved immensely. In the city, you fend for yourself and probably should have taken a cab. We do have parking - a definite plus - although not a huge one in my opinion. Even traffic wasn't much of an issue for me, just for those visiting from out of town.

I'm confident more upsides will emerge by Halloween - Halloween itself likely being one of them. I just need to revisit this list regularly and stay positive, even in the face of pregnancy, renovations, out-of-commission second bathrooms and a brand new, defective, front-loading washing machine. The washing machine was a bitter pill. Tomorrow is a brand new day.

Identity Crisis Part II: Work Life Balance

We closed on our suburban home last week. I measured and planned, priced materials and found subcontractors for some initial home renovations, found renters for the condo in the city, pushed Leighton seven thousand times on her new swing, hatched a few landscaping plans and ...

... oh yeah - I did all of that in my spare time. I worked all week - Saturday too.

Spare time? What the hell is that? I meant to say that I did everything I mentioned in lieu of getting the requisite amount of sleep a human needs to remain sane and not age exponentially faster than expected.

I am out of whack. Fat. Chakras need balancing. I'm so tired. Writing promotes my balance and I haven't done much of it lately. Recommitting.

Lately, my discussions with a close friend have turned to the subject of work life balance and the ways in which moms define and achieve this. I believe that whether or not a mother achieves work life balance depends ENTIRELY on how she defines it.

At this point in my mom career, I don't see how it's possible to balance work and life. Work eats up 75% of my awake time, Leighton gets 75% of my energy, friends and family earn 25% of my effort and friends laundry, Dr. appointments, travel, changing batteries and light bulbs, moving, eating and television get the other 25%.

I'm working at 200% efficiency. Sweet. Sweet, and impossible to maintain without cogs popping and springs flying out of my head.

Moreover, I believe that work life balance (by any definition) ABSOLUTELY CANNOT exist when you have very small children. Properly cultivating a tiny human being takes a most enormous direction of effort which inevitably spurs the half-assing of nearly every other task on the list.

This doesn't just apply to "working" moms. I say "working" because we're all doing the work. However, I have to imagine that moms who stay home may yearn for the interaction of the workplace or the self-fulfillment that is part and parcel to a career. The balance is simply skewed in the other direction. When you wear a suit all day, you long for anything with an elastic waist. When you're covered in snot and food all day, you long for a quiet moment in your office. I work from home. I feel both sides throughout the course of any given week.

I may be wrong, but I'm operating under the assumption that the balance will tip in mom's favor once the littlest one heads off to school. I am clinging to this truth, however illusory. Please let me be right.

Please.

How do you work toward your balance? Are you getting there? Do you do your work with the kids or in an office? Please post a comment and share your fuss with us.

Un-Apology

After acheiving relative success raising our first child to the age of one, my parenting style has taken preliminary shape.

I've come to realize that Ryan and I practice an unapologetic approach to child-rearing. We educate ourselves. We Google, read books, study social implications of various choices, conduct field research and discuss findings with other parents. Then, we make decisions that suit us (all of us) best. We’re doing it our way.

This ‘kiss my ass if you don’t like it” style brings with it a solemn vow to NOT JUDGE other parents, to NEVER say NEVER and the strength to let grandparents occasionally toss our ideology out the window.

SIDEBAR: I'm writing this post on the Hiawatha Amtrak between Milwaukee and Chicago (have a meeting) and Leighton is with my parents. Bradley, his brother and his noticeably pregnant mother are seated behind me and Bradley’s behavior is less than ideal. So much so that his mother just asked him if he wanted her to take him into the train bathroom and SPANK him. Thankfully, he said “no”.

I am neither thrice pregnant with two boys under five, nor am I judging (anymore) as promised. Okay, I must acknowledge a self-directed “big shame” for breaking my first rule for a split second, even though I will NEVER spank my kids. Oops. Broke the second rule too.

Good thing I have no control over rule number three. Even if, at this very moment, Leighton is playing with matches in a pile of broken glass while watching tv (which she most certainly isn’t) I would likely say nothing about the whole hot mess. In fact, I'm sure she's singing songs, learning about what letter comes after O, practicing new animal sounds, being loved to pieces and enjoying every second of it. I can't complain about my parents loving my child. Even if they go about it differently than I would. Even if she gets a scoop of ice cream with her oatmeal. Naughty!

I don’t think we’re alone in this design-your-own parenthood - fully equipped without the pressures of childhoods past. It’s a new and improved blend of the last centuries' best and most relevant bits.

50’s – one parent stays home; family road trips are the norm; wooden toys are the rage

60’s – activism; acoustic guitar rocks; family bed and breastfeeding rule

70’s – dinners at home; live music for kids; comfy is fashionable

80’s – Star Wars thrills; teachers are awesome; taking fashion into your own young hands is totally awesome

90’s – tolerance is preached; goverment is questioned; Nintendo is just the beginning

Granted, parenting styles don’t radically change every 10 years to the day. And, the previous century carried it's share of bad influence, but with each decade that eventually distills to its essence, we learn and the good stuff moves on with us.

Participating in traveling soccer, gymnastics, piano, play groups and summer camps while learning to speak French fluently by age six is gleefully a thing of the past. Plus, it’s just too much work to update the holiday card with all of that crap every year. Recently (and maybe because we all reevaluated what’s important when the economy took a poop, and some of us are doing the stay-at-home parenting without a choice) we’re doing a better job of listening to what our kids enjoy and filtering out the nice-to-haves from the need-to-haves. Instant g is less important and spending time together is a monumental sign of this time.

It’s a good time. Let’s enjoy it.

What do you feel is the parenting style du jour and how much do you incorporate (or dismiss) it when it comes to your family? Please leave a comment and share your fuss with us.

Daddy Wisdom

" It's difficult to make things easy and easy to make things difficult." Ryan loves to apply this little nugget to any number of situations. The thing is ... it works. It works so well, it's kind of annoying.

For example, it's a pain to clean up the kitchen and put the dishes away immediately after dinner. But, the longer you leave the ziti to cure in the Emile Henry baker, the more of a pain in the ass it will be to scrub it off. Deal with the difficult and make things easy by eliminating work for yourself.

Or, let's say you HATE heading to the gym. No wait ... you loathe the gym. No wait ... I loathe the gym. WHATEVER. No matter the level of detestation, my life is far less complicated with arms (not thighs) attached to my shoulders and a smaller butt. So, difficult gym now, easy peasy, meltdown-free zone when getting dressed to go out on Saturday night.

Ryan's wisdom can certainly be applied to matters of the financial persuasion. Saving cash sucks for most people - myself included. It takes planning, dedication and a certain amount of restraint. For me, it feels like an sadistic exercise in self-deprivation - empowerment and torture rolled into one effort. However, the future will be far easier with some cash in the bank. Duh. So simple, yet so tough to follow.

As difficult as it may be to make things easy, the reverse is true. It's easy to pick a fight and say something you'll regret. It's easy to grow complacent in a relationship, take your partner for granted ot blame them for making you absolutely nuts. And when you have kids, you have even less time for yourselves. It's no secret that relationships require cultivation and this fact is Ryan's number one reason for bandying about this favorite bit of daddy wisdom.

I'm exhausted with a splash of nostalgic today (Leighton turns one in a few weeks) and I leave tomorrow for a girls' weekend in Napa without Ryan or Leighton (or Lue for that matter). I miss my squad already and crave some purely relaxing one-on-one time with my wonderful husband - free from discussions of house hunting, grocery shopping, the effing gym class schedule, laundry or diapers. I wouldcharacterize this past year as chaotic joy. Now, we just need to do a little extra nurturing to make the coming year a little easier on us.

I'm feeling sort of exposed today and in the sharing mood. I'd love for you to share back. Please leave a comment and discuss your fuss with us.

Fungineer

I hate that so much time has lapsed since my last post. Getting ready for the holiday was more challenging than anticipated. Great ideas were fleeting and I hatched several posts. I just couldn't finish a single one to my satisfaction - including this one which was originally entitled "Daddy Wisdom" and had an entirely different point.

So here we are with less than a week until Christmas and I'm BACK IN THE SADDLE; Fuel-injected with holiday spirit. To kick off the next twelve days of Christmas we are visiting Ryan's parents. We just drove five and a half hours from Chicago to St. Louis with an eight month-old baby and a six year-old yorkie. Our other baby.

The ride was actually kind of fun.The girls sat in back, with our Captain at the helm, alone up front with legroom, talk radio and whatnot. We watched a few DVDs, read some, ate and drank some and even slept a wink or two. We slept precisely 45 minutes of the 330 minute voyage, but who cares when good times are in full swing? RIGHT?

Ryan has many MANY good qualities. For example, he's the family Fungineer (fun engineer). He plans shit - really plans it. My husband even reminds me of my own father in that he peruses the paper, web and other obscure resources for the goings-on about town and ACTUALLY MAKES US DO STUFF. And the crazy thing is - we always have a blast doing it. He also shares my father's irritating opinion that when you tell him you "really have to pee" during a road trip, you can actually go 35 miles more than you think without dying. WRONG!

Anyway, for this car trip, Ryan surprised us with a portable DVD player and the ride would have been far less successful without it. Note that he picked it up at Walgreens - the same place he procured both the Boogie Buster and the Vick's Vaporizer.

Incidentally, have never noticed any of the foregoing items at Walgreens. Moreover, if he had told me that he was going to stop and pick one up on the way back from emptying the Jeep's contents into storage to make room for the Bugaboo that I refused to bring along because we can just use the umbrella stroller that came free with our Big Girl carseat, my head would have exploded. The moral of this story is that he was spot on with the Boogie Buster, vaporizer and DVD player and probably with the Bugaboo too because we are having our picture taken with Santa in some swanky mall situation and we would look silly with the umbroller - but whatever. I'm over it.

Last week, the Fungineer escorted we (one of us decidedly "wee") ladies to Gethsemane Garden Center and brunch thereafter at M Henry. While Ryan and I struggled with installing the Big Girl car seat, Leighton warmed up the car.

That night, he took us to see the Lincoln Park Zoo Lights. It was an impressive little event. l was positive Lei was too young to enjoy it, but I was wrong. She had a blast.

The point I'm finally making here is that I have a tendency to resist ideas that aren't mine. Somehow, the Fungineer pushes past that glaring personality flaw, makes some whacky plans for us and we all have a grand time together. This quality lends credibilty to all of the other things he does and says. I love him and trust him. And, it's always good to trust your partner. I can't imagine how this post would have turned out if I didn't.

Who is your family Fungineer? Post a comment and share your fuss with us?

Urbane

I moved to Chicago eleven years ago for law school. I fell in love instantly. I never want to leave. Ever. I'm staying put come hell or high water - and where I live, I would likely look down upon Noah and his drifting ark were it to flood.

I enjoy lively urban living. Bustle suits me. I'm a busy body and enjoy the comfort of knowing that even if I doze off for a spell, my city is alive and well and will soon resuscitate me.

I have a corner unit with an amazing view and a 24-hour door person. It's my birdhouse in the sky. Hence the flood comment. I maintain control and feel at ease from my vantage point. Plus, the sound of the 22 bus lulls me to sleep and the moonlit city lights illuminate my path to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

What's not to love? Luella is paper trained. We see the Navy Pier fireworks from our living room every Wednesday and Saturday. We keep our favorite take out on speed dial and can order 100 different kinds of food to our doorstep within thirty minutes. The world's best farmers market is up the street. We can walk to the zoo in four minutes - the lake in five. We can whoop it up and take a cab home thus eliminating any opportunity to drink and drive. Oh. And, we don't need to be home to accept packages or let the cable guy in.

Why would anyone ever trade this bliss for suburban living?

I realize that with children come a new set of circumstances and considerations: safety, childcare, schooling, space and the plain old expense of living. With one more child, we will need a bigger home, a new car, more child care ... blah blah blah. The cost of city living can be steep, but to me, it's worth it.

I want Leighton to experience Chicago and come to love it as I have. I want her to visit the zoo several times each week and make use of the museums and parks. I want her to dine al fresco with us during the summer and play in the Lincoln Park snow in the winter. I want to take her to take the el to see the White Sox and walk to see the Cubs.I want her to love people and know as many different kinds of people as she possibly can. Yes - even Cubs fans.

I don't know what to do. We're looking at bigger homes in the city, suburbs and even Milwaukee and the whole ordeal makes me cranky and tearful. Urban twenty-somethings always say they're "never moving to the burbs" and then, one by one, they flee.

Why? Is it cost, space or safety? Do they like having to drive everywhere instead of walk? I'm having trouble recognizing the lure of suburban living. Maybe it's just me.

Did you struggle with the "city or suburbs" question? What did you do? What is so darn great about the suburbs? Please share your fuss with us.

The Darker Side of Love

My imagination can get the best of me. And it does. At night, after I've fed Leighton (for the third time that evening) I think. What if we find out something is wrong with her? What if she dives head first into the shallow end when she's six? What if someone kidnaps her? What if she drinks and drives? What if ... ?

So morbid. So awful. I know. But, it crosses my mind. I am a mother. I cannot help myself. How do I find peace?

I let go. One tiny piece at a time, I accept that which I cannot control.

I suppose you're wondering why I'm compelled to dwell on the heavier side of parenthood. It's a confluence of things. A friend's four year-old neice was diagnosed with a fatal and horrible disease. Another close friend faces uncertainty with her son's social and emotional future. My gorgeous and brilliant cousin died of cancer at fifteen after an eleven month battle.

Fuuuuck. It's too much. And, when I think about Leighton in the context of the foregoing, I can hardly breathe.

When I reach the "can hardly breathe" space, I have two choices. I can continue to obsess over the worst possible scenario and never let any of us leave the house or I can just let go.

Let go? It sounds so simple.

It isn't. And, it is.

I accept the death of all that I love, all that I live for, and I rest. It's a perpetual exercise of letting go, but it works. If I spend my time attempting to prevent kidnap and cancer (in the abstract, of course) and fretting over Lei getting her license fifteen years from now, I will certainly dilute the richness of her experience as my daughter and the corresponding joy I am sure to experience with her.

It blows my mind how tightly love and loss, and pain and learning go together so suspiciously, unexpectedly and perfectly. That's the rub of parenting - you love this little person so much it breaks your heart when they cry, or call you mama, or cut a tooth or fall down or ... worse. Or, you burst into tears just watching them sleep.

We are responsible for our children and control their fate to some degree. We take the calculated daily risks (getting in the car, for example) and wait until the wee hours for panic to swell. But when the sun rises and we see the smiling faces, we put our fears aside and embrace the bravery, confidence and silliness our kids have come to expect from us.

If and when our little clan is forced to face the unexpected turns of fate, we will rise to the occasion and dedicate every breath we have to getting through it and making it work for us. This bond of love, strength and confidence is what gets me through the night.

Time for bed ...

Handy Dandy

My daughter is fascinated with her hands. I catch her staring at them several times a day as though she perpetually forgets (and subsequently remembers) just how lovely they are. Leighton's hands are her favorite body part. Feet come in a close second.

I started thinking about how incredibly awesome hands are and I hope Lei always feels awe inspired by her mighty mitts. I thought about all hands can do - create, cultivate and care for others. Between my mind and my hands, I feel that I can do just about anything.

And so, I try.

I have always reasoned that each of us has a finite amount of energy to expend in a lifetime, and we can use that energy to create or destroy. Or, I suppose the third option would be to waste the opportunity to do anything at all by procrastinating, worrying and just being plain lazy. How sad.

I prefer option one. I am a busy girl. I love to take on "projects". Anything that can be organized into bins and can drag on for weeks. Thrilling! I am proud of my hands - facilitators of change and implements of imagination. My hands are my favorite body part.

I was thinking about ways to relate this value to Leighton - how I would articulate the sentiment - but I figure she will learn by example. Hell, she's already trying to drink out of a cup.

What do you love most about yourself and how will you share that with your children and others? Please post to comments and share your fuss with us!