Santa Cruz, California
Halter | Skirt | Hat | Sunglasses
My friend Elise is one of those people who will invite you and your kids over for an afternoon of flower-wreath-making for no particular reason, just because she happens to have everything you need to make a flower wreath on hand. She knows how to draw those pretty cursive chalkboard stencils that you see outside restaurants and at kids' birthday parties. She has drawers full of crafting supplies, and she actually uses them.
Here is my attitude towards crafting: I am thrilled to do it, but only if it’s easy. Massively involved, multi-step crafts involving expensive and/or specialized supplies are just not my jam. My kids have just started to get really into art (although my 1 1/2 –year-old is mostly interested in applying things like paint and glitter to herself), so I’ve been trying to come up with fun (and easy) little projects for us to do in the afternoons, during that terrible, horrible interlude between 4PM and dinnertime when things can go real bad, real quick.
The key to navigating the Witching Hour (which is actually two hours): keep those tiny hands busy, and away from things like full boxes of cereal, dog food, permanent markers in shades that look really pretty when applied to white walls, and your favorite jacket.
Hell's Kitchen, NYC | November 2011
How is it possible that I've never written about breastfeeding? I've written about Boobs After Baby (oh my god). I've written about the challenges of returning to work with a newborn. I've written about my fear that I might not love my second child as much as my first (spoiler: I do). How have I not written about a topic that's an absolutely consuming one for new mothers, not to mention a controversial one for what seems like everyone on the planet?
But after a request from a reader I went hunting for a post in which I talk about my own experiences with breastfeeding, and didn't find anything, save for an offhand mention here and there. Apparently breastfeeding is a topic that I've skipped around for nearly five years now...and when I thought about it I realized that there is a good reason for this: for a long, long time I was afraid to touch this subject, because I was afraid of what my choices might say about me.
I met with a therapist today. Not a psychiatrist - a therapist, and specifically one specializing in cognitive-behavioral therapy. What CBT is, essentially: an intensive, results-geared 12-18 week course of therapy during which you learn specific techniques that you can use to better cope with your anxiety (or depression, or whatever it is that brought you in).
I sat down on the therapist's couch next to a little machine bubbling lavender-scented steam into the air and gave him my best "Look at how happy and okay I am!" smile (because, as everyone knows, the most important part of therapy is convincing your therapist you totally don't need it. ...Right?). He asked me why I was there, and even though I knew this was a pretty unhelpful way to begin the session, I told him the truth: that I didn't know.
It really was true; these days, I feel more or less...fine. Great, actually. My anxiety is under control; my insomnia has virtually disappeared. I'm stressed about various things, of course, but they feel like things I probably "should" be stressed about, like travel and mortgage payments and such. I only booked the appointment in the first place because the psychiatrist who I see about once a month to check in on my medication suggested it, and so while I paid for that day's appointment at the reception desk I also scheduled a new one with his colleague. And then all of a sudden it was a month later and there I was: sitting in a therapist's office and talking about feelings.
One of the hardest things about parenting - for me, anyway - has been listening to this constant refrain, everywhere I go:
"Enjoy every minute. It goes so fast."
Are you a parent? You know exactly what I'm talking about.
