This is the message written on a onesie I bought for my sister, who was trying to wean her two-year-old. As you might expect, he was having none of it. I just crack up every time I think of the shirt. My sisters and my mother think it is hilarious too, because in our family breastfeeding is just a funny, weird part of life, sort of like hiccuping or blowing your nose. Apparently breastfeeding is not so funny on Facebook, given the controversy this week about the site taking down pictures of babies nursing. Maybe I just don't understand our...
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There is a fascinating article in today’s New York Times by David Leonhardt that explains -- and I’m drastically over-simplifying here -- why men are happier than women. I read the article on the train, finished it, handed it to Husband and said, “If you ever want to know why I’m cranky, just read this.” Apparently two new research papers reveal that women in 1970 used to be happier than men, and now men are happier. Why? Because, basically, men are working less and women are working more. Or, to quote, “women now have a much longer to-do list than...
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I came home from work one night last week and there was plaster all over my clothes. I’ve been trying over the last couple of years to have fewer clothes, after my friend/coworker Jane told my husband, thinking he wouldn’t tell me, that she couldn’t believe how many clothes I had. Of course, rather than do the financially sensible thing and just buy fewer of whatever I was already buying, I decided it was a good time to buy more expensive things, just not so many. (This has been Jane’s lifelong philosophy, which is why she had opera dresses in...
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Today is the third day this week of bone-numbing tiredness -- approaching the diminished-will-to-live stage. The fact that this is to be expected when you are a working mother of three who is trying to finish up a major renovation while attending soccer games or practices pretty much every single day of the week is little consolation. Nor is the fact that I do, after all, have something in common with Sigourney Weaver. It seems our nights are like the final scene of the movie Alien, when after a lengthy, exhausting battle, Weaver’s character, Ripley, conquers the alien -- or...
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A couple of months ago, something strange started happening in my garden. Amidst all of the construction rubble and the plants ruined by dumpsters or trucks that can’t back out of my driveway straight (see photo of flattened peony, above), these little rogue tomato plants started popping up. There was one in the pachysandra (see photo, left), one beneath the overgrown rose beside the faucet and, oddest of all, one in a planter. As pretty much all gardening in my life has ceased in the face of the kitchen renovation mess -- weeding at this point would just be rearranging...
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Pedicures, Dessert in a restaurant, Designer clothes, Bagged salad, Curtains and shades, Halloween costumes, A sprinkler system, Having someone else steam clean your rug, Having someone else hem your pants, Car washes, Granola, Tomatoes, Gourmet coffee, Department store cosmetics. Some of the items on the list have to do with a different time; for example, we always made our Halloween costumes in part because there was no Target with two whole aisles devoted to inexpensive costumes every fall. Some items have to do with skills my mother, a home ec major, possessed that I don’t, namely a genuine talent at...
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I live in an old house and have recently discovered that it is filled with knob and tube wiring. I don’t really know what knob and tube wiring is, except to know that when you open up your kitchen ceiling you see these little white ceramic disks that under normal circumstances would look quaint and interesting if everyone you know hadn’t told you that they could basically kill you at any moment. (Here are some more pix of my renovation.) The downsides of knob and tube: it’s dangerous and makes your mother-in-law swear she will not sleep again until you...
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This picture is why I like my job. We are running it in an upcoming Real Simple story -- so for those of you who read the magazine, I’ll keep you in suspense -- and when I looked at it, I laughed out loud. How many people get to look at funny pictures and laugh out loud, and actually get paid for it? It reminds me of the time I was talking to a lawyer friend about teeth whitening products, and told her, “well, someone told me in a meeting the other day that, if you have gum sensitivity, teeth...
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Yesterday I forgot to give Middle Child his lunch. It was the second day of school and although my husband and I remembered that he needed a snack, and even remembered to draw a picture (soccer goalie) on the brown paper snack bag, we just forgot that he needed a lunch. Summer-induced amnesia, maybe? Horrifying, in any case. The school called our babysitter to tell her, but she was at an orthopedist’s appointment with my husband for Baby, who has torticollis (which in his case seems to be nearly imaginary, but what do I know?) So by the time our...
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