Business Trip by the Numbers

(With apologies to Harper's.)

Time I went to sleep the first night: 10PM

Time I woke up the next morning: 8:30AM

Total number of hours spent sleeping over the two nights I was away from home: 23 1/2

Amount of time spent in meeting discussing someone's iPhone: 15 minutes

Amount of time spent discussing cheese steak: 46 minutes

Amount of money spent on cheese steak while in Philly: $18.00

Number of times I wondered what Milo was doing: 2 billion

Amount of time I spent weighing whether it was better to go home early and see Milo or stay later and eat cheesesteak: 2 hours

Number of bites of cheese steak it took to convince me that I had made the right decision in opting to stay late: 2

The Park Slope of Berlin

There was an article about what sounds like the Park Slope of Berlin in the Sunday NY Times. The author pointed out that while it may seem like the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood has a very high density of children, what it actually has is a high density of people of childbearing age. The same is probably true of Park Slope - it's an interesting distinction.

Sunday on the Couch with Milo

It's pretty much a non-stop music fest around here.

Knock Me Off

There has been a lot of press in the past few weeks about designer knockoffs. Apparently designers are trying to get their clothing copyrighted to prevent people from buying almost the exact same thing for 1/3 of the price at places like Forever 21 (brilliantly referred to as Forever 31 by my friend Jami). A recent article in the Times showed a Stella McCartney dress next to an identical article of clothing that was on sale for $35 at Forever 21. I imagine most people reacted the way I did when I saw the picture: I ran out to Forever 21 and bought the dress because, wait, it's like identical and also, it's $35 which means you can wear it once and then use it for cleaning out the litter box.

As someone with absolutely no expertise in the world of high fashion, I think I'm entitled to weigh in on the controversy simply because, um, I wear clothes. From my point of view the issue is entirely a class issue - people who pay $1800 for a sweater don't want to see some plebeian coming out of the subway wearing the same item of clothing.

Now here's the thing: I would definitely save up money and shell out for a few pieces of designer items if there was any guarantee that I might be able to wear them for more than a few seasons. But what's the point of buying a pricey baby doll dress or designer skinny black jeans or really expensive brown chunky boots when next year people are going to be wearing mu mus or baggy green jeans or whatever?

Which is why I'm proud to spend my money on cheap clothing that will fall apart after a few washings. That, and I'm pretty much only wearing those clothes to the playground and back.

AMPU: The Last Hurrah

My book got a small mention somewhere in the St. Paul paper.

The Problem With Crocs

Milo and I were taking a pre-dinner walk/run/yelp around the block when we passed by a woman coming the other direction.

"OH MY GOD," the woman yelled as Milo screeched past her. "I have those exact same shoes."

She pointed to the orange blur that was Milo's Crocs.

"I have the same shoes as a one-year-old," the woman said. "Something is not right here."

"He's almost two," I said. What I wanted to say was: yes, something is very wrong with your shoe choice.

Housekeeping at Twenty Two Months

Dear Milo,
It's been a wonderful summer and you've been a big part of that. Suddenly you're able to do stuff and play with things on a whole new level, and it makes you a joy to be with.



You're starting to get more physically adventurous as the weeks pass -- you climbed up a ladder all by yourself at the playground the other day, much to the horror of your father who had to use all his powers of concentration to prevent himself from rushing over to you and plucking you off the ladder before you fell down and split your head open. But I knew you could do it.

You're over the baby-level playground stuff and onto the big-kid equipment. I tried to take you to the smaller-sized are of the playground yesterday and you immediately turned around, ran out the gate, and made a bee line for the giant slide. You climbed up to the top and then proceeded to sit there for a good five minutes, afraid to go down it by yourself.

"Hold Mama's hand," you said, but the slide was too high up for me to reach you. Other kids started piling up behind you, oblivious to the fact that you are not even two yet. "Come ON," the kids were yelling.

I suggested you didn't really have to go down the huge gigantic scary slide right now, and pointed to a smaller slide. After thinking it over for a minute, you got up and walked over to the smaller slide, held my hand and slid down. You seemed pretty pleased about the whole thing.

New this month: running. Why walk when you can run?




Also you are way into similes. The hole in a guitar is like a belly button. A tiger is like Oscar. And a part of your anatomy is like a carrot. You said it, I didn't.

This love of similes doesn't bode well for my hopes that you would become a physicist or, like, something practical. It has "writer" written all over it. Please, Milo, don't become a writer.

Love,
Mama

And Now For Something Completely Different

Here's something that has nothing to do with babies, parenting, writing, or me.

All Me, All The Time - Parenting Magazine Edition

I have an essay up on Babble about air travel with tiny irrational people (and yes, I am referring to the TSA officials).

Weekend Update

Labor Day weekend is the best weekend of the year in New York. The city empties out and you can drive from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side in 25 minutes. Then you can park. Anywhere. It's tempting to just drive around parking all day long. Also you can let a toddler run across 81st Street yelling "See disonaurs! See disonaurs!" without having him smash into people or getting too many dirty looks.

Labor Day weekend is also usually my wedding anniversary. On Friday Steven and I celebrated 4 years of marriage by going out for a huge steak. The good news: still glad I married him. He makes me smile every day.

And... in other news, did you see the Times this weekend? Noticed the comments on the blog? Being published in the Times was an experience like no other. I walked out of the house in the morning to get the paper, saw all the papers lined up on everyone's front stoop up and down the street and realized that my words and my name were in every single one. Later in the day I passed a woman in the playground reading my essay.

The emails started trickling in on Saturday, when the piece went up online. By Sunday I was getting one every hour or so, and the comments started appearing on the blog. I'm going to leave them up because I think they offer a good sense of the type of feedback I've been getting on the piece. Also, they prove that there will never be peace in the Middle East (or anywhere else) because people in general are intolerant and nuts and want to tell everyone else how to live.

Sunday evening Steven and I went out for drinks with a friend of mine and her boyfriend who were passing through Park Slope. I told them about some of the hate mail I was getting and the boyfriend told me about a sportswriter he knew who he said got tons of hate mail all the time. So that's who gets hate mail: men who write about sports and women who write about motherhood. That sounds about right.

All Me All The Time - Newspaper Edition

Two years and three essays later, I've finally made it into the Modern Love column in the New York Times.

Last week the copyeditor/fact checker person from the Times called to inform me that the Times has only published the word "farts" once in their entire history, and it was the last name of a marathon runner. (And I thought I had a sort of annoying last name!) They therefore needed to change the word "farts" in my essay to "passes gas," which is a phrase I've probably never uttered in my life.

I pointed out that "farts" is a lot funnier than "passes gas" and they were all, yeah, but we're the Times. So that's how that ended. Also I apparently do not know the true meaning of the word "dilemma."

Either way, I'm thrilled to have made an appearance in the column - hope everyone enjoys it.