A few months ago, I asked my daughter what was wanted for her third birthday - fully aware, of course, that she was going to change her mind approximately 1,352,534 times before the day actually arrived.
"Moana cake," she said. Like, immediately, with zero pause for contemplation. "And candy."
Very well.
This is what my computer screen looks like at the moment. (To be specific, this is what it looks like in a good moment - the enormous vertical black line is occasionally replaced with a blinking series of skinnier rainbow lines, plus the occasional screen flicker and a thankfully-more-occasional-but-fucking-terrifying-regardless melt-effect, during which all of the letters on the screen actually fall down on the screen.)
So I'm going to need a little extra time to get today's blog post up, because I need to go panic at the Apple store for a couple of hours, or possibly weeks.
In the meantime, let me leave you with the below evidence that truly next-level photobombing skills can, in fact, be something a person is capable of displaying at the ripe old age of three.
A friend from the East Coast came to visit a couple of weeks ago, and over dinner she told me that the one thing of mine she really, really covets is my "dish situation" (by which she meant my collection of serving platters and wine glasses and plates and such).
With zero humility, I have to say: I love the collection I’ve amassed over the years. It includes everything from Noritake dinnerware classics (featured in this post; you can see the collection I curated for the brand here) to vintage finds from all over the country, and is constantly evolving as I discover new style pairings that feel fresh. That’s my favorite thing about my collection, actually: every few seasons, I step back and look at it, think about if and how I want to switch it up, and then simply mix a few new pieces to create a completely new look.
Take the tablescape pictured here, for example, which started with a bunch of pieces I already owned:
Verdad Trousers c/o | Eileen Fisher Crop Sweater | Miu Miu Clogs (similar)
What, you don't wear five-inch heels and stunning high-waisted trousers to cavort about in the desert? (Neither do I. Pretty background, though, right?) Those are the hills near my house - which are lovely and green in the winter, but turn into a dried-out (albeit atmospheric) wasteland by August. And if this location looks familiar, that's because you saw it here.
These pants, though. They're by a brand that Francesca works with - Verdad - and they are perfect, so she brought me a pair when she visited the other weekend.
Yeah, I want a pet dragon too.
OK, so at the Renaissance Faire last weekend I decided to switch up my usual floaty look and dress up like a pirate, instead: my son's sword, Kendrick's vest, a big feather thing that's meant to be used in a smudging ceremony, and my awesome J.Crew pants that Kendrick thinks aren't especially awesome because they make me look like a potato. (He is wrong; the potato part is the awesomest part.) What I wore to the Ren Faire has nothing to do with pet dragons, of course - I'm just mentioning my outfit because I was super into it and think that "pirate" is my fair look going forward, and figured you should probably be aware of this.
Moving on: please look at what I found being sold at a stand called Wyverns Of Whimsy.
The first day of school is now 6 days away. Which means we have exactly 6 days left to do ALL THE SUMMER THINGS.
(Mini golf, check.)
I love the fall - perhaps slightly so less out here in California, where fall isn’t all gorgeous foliage and strolls through quaint villages, and is rather “that time when I can’t use the pool anymore” - but this summer has been especially epic, and I’m going to be bummed to see it go. It’s not just the change in weather that’ll be a shift for me, though: my daughter is going into preschool, and my son is going into kindergarten, and so from 9AM to 2PM every day it’ll just be…me.
A couple of days ago, I read a post written by a woman whose children had asked her, in a completely ordinary moment, "Mom, why are you so mad?"
"I wasn’t even 'mad.' It was just another day. She was sitting on the potty and I had gone in to pick up the toy she dropped, for the third time. I must have let out a big sigh, which is what prompted her to ask me that question in her sweet little voice.
I immediately changed my attitude and put her little cheeks in my hands and said;
'I’m not mad! Why do you think I’m mad, sweetheart?'
I wish I could be this woman; I wish I could say of my reaction to my children's needs and demands and tantrums: I wasn't even mad.
The truth: I have been - am - so mad. Mad that they can't be grateful, or patient, or respectful, even though I know that these are qualities that emerge with time. Mad that I can't be gracious, or understanding, or calm.
Mad at myself for being mad.
I told my son that I was taking him on a special trip to the forest where the Ewoks from Star Wars live, and he yelled at me that he didn't want to go, that forests were boring. I didn't sit down with him in a quiet corner and try to parse out what about walking through an ancient forest filled with mile-high redwood trees made him feel so bored that he needed to scream about it; I just got mad.
Because I am. Mad. And sometimes, when you are mad, you are mean.
Here is an annoying thing I do whenever people come over to visit: I drag them to my side yard so that I can show off my tomato plants and loudly exclaim "how wonderful it is to have tomatoes straight from your own garden!"
Isn't that SO ANNOYING?! I can't help it. Before we moved to California I'd never grown tomatoes, and for whatever reason having everything to do with luck and nothing whatsoever to do with my abilities, the tomato vines that I plant every summer grow into freaking trees within weeks. I mean it: they are massive, and so heavy that they can't be contained by ordinary tomato plant container-things, and end up spilling out into the path, and it's all very dramatic and smells AMAZING.
The thing is, I'm soooo good at tomato-growing that I always end up with way more tomatoes than we can reasonably eat. I send my kids out into the yard to gather them up every night, but still: the branches are practically been hanging to the ground from all the weight. So the other night, I decided it was time to do something that'd use up massive quantities of them in a way that would still let their flavor come through, and made marinara sauce using a combination of heirlooms and cherry tomatoes - basically, whatever was ripe.
That rug? Is from Costco. (I KNOW).
I was thirty one years old before I ever set foot in a Costco. (I understand that this is tragic, believe me.) I'd heard that fellow citydwellers occasionally made the exodus to the warehouses located in the 'burbs to stock up on toilet paper and such, but that sounded like a whole lot of hassle, not to mention a hassle that would have resulted in me needing to use stacks of Charmin' as a coffee table (storage space in our apartment was, as they say, "at a premium").
Then I moved to the Hudson Valley, and Kendrick and I made our first voyage to the land of a thousand cheese-dip options, thereby kicking off an obsession bordering on the religious. The snacks! The fancy cheeses! The steaks! THE FURNITURE. That last one is a fairly recent discovery of mine - I'd always just skirted around the edges of the store, picking up paper towels and coffee pods, but a few weeks ago a Costco recently opened up about five minutes away from me, and for whatever reason it's virtually empty during the weekday hours...and so I've spent a lot of time there over the past couple of weeks wandering into the previously-undiscovered lands of rugs and such.
Over the past couple of years, my son and I have been in a bit of a war about clothing - and it is a war that I have very slowly been losing, as the items that I pick out slowly get moved towards the back of his dresser, replaced by piles of gym shorts and t-shirts with pictures of pizza on them.
I would have better luck getting him to be nice to his sister for an entire week (IMAGINE?!?) than I would getting him to put a pair of jeans on his body. Collared shirts? Forget it. Anything that does not, to his mind, qualify as “soft” (which is a very specific term that does not include items that I myself consider soft, like a technically extremely soft shirt that also has a button located somewhere on it) is a no-go.
Now he’s going into kindergarten, which means he’s officially starting his journey through the insanity that is elementary school. I know from vast personal experience how tricky it can be to find your footing in this crazy new world where kids mock you for having the wrong backpack/friends/taste in food/hobbies/everything. I know how it feels to want to - and then fail to - fit in, so my plan is to teach him that nobody gets to tell him what’s cool except for himself. And one little way I can start is by letting him explore the idea of personal style - which may sound silly; superficial even…but I’ve always believed that when we get dressed in the morning we paint a picture of how we want others to see us, and, more importantly, paint a picture of how we see ourselves. That’s a decision that I think he should start making for himself.
