Fine Print

Thrift Shopaholic

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:45:57 -0500

Guest post about my thrifting obsession over at Lauren’s style blog, Stylemammal. Perhaps you can tell from the photo that my children, just outside the camera frame, are driving me kah-ray-zee.

Stylish Mama = Stylemammal

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:18:01 -0500

My friend Lauren has launched a terrific new blog focusing on personal style. Lauren has a dry sense of humor, excellent writing chops, and a great eye for clothes, making this a must-read for anyone who takes pleasure in putting together an outfit. And guess who got to be one of her first interviewees? Yours truly. But if you read only one post of Lauren’s, make it this one, because she articulates something that I think many of us understand innately but have trouble putting into words.

Living Plan B

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:03:00 -0500

My friend Amy Gutman writes this excellent blog called Plan B Nation — a rundown of what life is like for those of us laid off during the Great Recession. My friend Karen Brown interviewed Amy (and me!) for our local NPR affiliate.

Something I said to Karen — which may sound a little Pollyanna but is the absolute truth — is that life is so much better for me now, here in Plan B. I am happier, a better mother, a more satisfied writer, and feel far more potential in my career than I did at my last job. If I had known back then what life would be like now, I might have left Plan A voluntarily. But I guess that’s the point of Plan B — you never get there by choice. It’s something that happens to you, for better or for worse. I’m happy to say that for some of us, it’s for better.

Shysters.

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:09:12 -0500

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

Shysters.

Beach baby.

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:07:23 -0400

Beach baby.

Head, shoulders, knees and toes.

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:35:28 -0400

Let me be clear, with myself as much as with anyone else: I do not want another baby. I am finished with the whole parenting-a-baby thing. Sometimes I felt like I was doing it very well, other times I felt like I was failing profoundly, but in any case, done is done. And I do mean done. Even toddlerhood and the preschool years are distant images in the rearview mirror.

But.

Lately I find myself arrested by sudden echoes of those early years. A snippet of a song that I used to sing to them, or the scent of a treat I used to make. And I realize that while I do not want another baby, at times I long for my babies, for the diapered heft that I nestled against my hip, for the laden-down stroller I would always have at least one hand upon. I miss the quiet rhythm of those days. And while I recall resenting it at the time, part of me even misses that encumbered feeling — that sense that everything, everything, would take at least twice as long as it does for anyone else, and that even my physical presence wasn’t really mine, but out on permanent loan.

The other day my daughter looked at me and suddenly grinned, and I flashed back to ten years ago, right after 9/11, when I was nursing her in the rocker in her bedroom. It was a gorgeous fall day, and I had spent all morning crying, but I was calm, and I looked down at her as she nursed, her eyelids starting to flutter their way to a nap. Then she popped her eyes open, locked her gaze onto mine, pulled away, and grinned. It was the very same expression.

One of the hottest new curators in Northampton’s famed art...

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:28:38 -0400

One of the hottest new curators in Northampton’s famed art scene.

Here’s how I see it. Allowing her to dye her hair purple...

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 12:35:28 -0400

Here’s how I see it. Allowing her to dye her hair purple today inoculates her against excessive tattooing and body piercing tomorrow.

Are You There, God? It's Me, Naomi.

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:52:00 -0400

Rosh Hashana: Time to pause, reflect, reconsider, plan ahead. I started off the year with a bang by missing the children’s service. Oops. I guess I’ll have to atone for that in about a week.

This whole personal-introspection thing is coming up at a handy time, however; I’ve recently set myself a goal of writing four personal essays in the next four weeks. I’m a quick writer; I can usually slam three hundred words together in about an hour and have them sound pretty good. (Maybe not great, but that’s where editing comes in.) The first essay practically poured out of me; I was in that writerly zone where you just know the next word is the right one, and so is the one after that, and the one after that one, too. A beautiful thing.

But this next essay I’m working on? Oy. It’s one of those times when you realize you were looking at something in the exact wrong way — and you come to this realization because every sentence you write sounds wooden and trite. I have adept avoidance techniques, both in writing and in life. I attack my personal stuff by hiding behind someone else — I convince myself that I’m upset on behalf of my daughter, for example, or that I’m frustrated by something my mother is doing. I can get away with this in my head, but putting it on paper gives proof to the lie. Sometimes it’s not them — it’s me.

Thirty-day cleanse

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:22:31 -0400

Oh hi! I haven’t been here for a while. I’ve been too busy putzing around on the Internet to write a blog post — for a while now.

That changes now. Last weekend I attended a writing workshop that was part nuts and bolts, part therapy, part motivational seminar. One of the (many) revelations I had over the course of the weekend is something that probably all my friends already figured out: While I never miss a deadline on my paid gigs, I use Facebook to avoid doing meaningful writing. As someone else put it, I tend to use those little status updates to get my writerly kicks — instant feedback, much of it positive! And then there’s the false sense of satisfaction from having “finished” something so quickly. Meanwhile, the longer, tougher subjects are festering away, unwritten.

So anyway. I’m taking a little break from Facebook. I will be updating more often here, though, and everything I post here gets cross-posted there — try not to hold that against me. I need someplace to write down my kids’ bon mots, after all.

Home.

Wed, 25 May 2011 14:17:09 -0400

Home.

Happy house anniversary

Wed, 25 May 2011 14:14:23 -0400

Eleven years ago today, Chris and I closed on this house. I still remember the exhiliration of being handed those keys. We walked over immediately and let ourselves into the empty, echoing rooms.

When I think back on it now, we kind of rushed into this relationship. We decided to move to Northampton in the summer of 1999; rented an apartment on Hawley Street in late October. A scant six months later, we’d bought a house. Not just any house — a huge, old two-family house with a TON OF WORK TO BE DONE.

Most days when I look at our house, I see it with a critical eye. It has great bones — high ceilings, huge windows, beautiful floors — and people compliment us on it every time they come in. It’s all I can do not to undercut their kind words by pointing out the things we haven’t yet fixed or improved — the dining room’s stained acoustic ceiling tiles (oy) or the pantry’s nasty lineoleum countertop or the bathroom’s…actually, the whole bathroom. (I could go on. And on.)

But every time we are driving home, whether from near or far, one of the girls announces when the house first comes into view. “There’s our house!” they chirp, and sure enough there it is, standing solidly, welcoming. Our children were both conceived here; they have spent their entire childhoods so far here. My mother’s upstairs apartment is a home within a home to her granddaughters. And I have recently noticed that this house has taken over my childhood home, where I spent my first eighteen years, as the stage of my dreams.

Things she did for love

Sun, 08 May 2011 14:55:18 -0400

When I was three, she put M&Ms on my spaghetti.

When I was five, she let me wear a tutu to my birthday party. There was much back and forth on this, but I got my way.

When I was eight, she let me paper my bedroom walls with wallpaper samples. It was hideous. I loved it.

When I was eleven, she bought me training bras — helping me adjust them, showing me how to put them on. I would not really need them for several more years.

When I was thirteen, and having a very tough social time at school, she dropped my brother off first, then drove around with me for a mile, sometimes more, so I wouldn’t have to hang out on the playground at school for a moment longer than absolute necessary.

When I was sixteen, she planned a surprise birthday party for me, then did not complain when I took everyone at the party except her to a different, cooler party, a mere two hours or so later.

When I was twenty, she drove three hours round-trip to pick me up at an (ex)boyfriend’s house, bring me home, and listen to me cry…for two weeks.

When I was twenty-seven, she and my father walked me down the aisle. She did not cry.

When I was thirty, she encouraged me as I nursed my newborn. She had never nursed a newborn, but she cheered me on for as long as it took for me to make it work. (It took six weeks.)

That newborn is now ten years old. In all the most important ways, the way I mother her is the way my mother mothered me.

For her, for all mothers, here’s a tribute from MotherWoman.

Things she did for love

Sun, 08 May 2011 14:55:00 -0400

When I was three, she put M&Ms on my spaghetti.

When I was five, she let me wear a tutu to my birthday party. There was much back and forth on this, but I got my way.

When I was eight, she let me paper my bedroom walls with wallpaper samples. It was hideous. I loved it.

When I was eleven, she bought me training bras — helping me adjust them, showing me how to put them on. I would not really need them for several more years.

When I was thirteen, and having a very tough social time at school, she dropped my brother off first, then drove around with me for ten minutes, sometimes more, so I wouldn’t have to hang out on the playground at school for a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

When I was sixteen, she planned a surprise birthday party for me, then did not complain when I took everyone at the party except her to a different, cooler party, a mere two hours or so later.

When I was twenty, she drove three hours round-trip to pick me up at an (ex-) boyfriend’s house, bring me home, and listen to me cry…for two weeks.

When I was twenty-seven, she and my father walked me down the aisle. She did not cry.

When I was thirty, she encouraged me as I nursed my newborn. She had never nursed a newborn, but she cheered me on for as long as it took for me to make it work. (It took six weeks.)

That newborn is now ten years old. In all the most important ways, the way I mother her is the way my mother mothered me.

For my mother, for all mothers, here’s a tribute from MotherWoman.

I forgot to mention. I spelled.

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:35:16 -0400

But Megan explains it all much better than I do.

Thanks a lot, Katy Perry

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 22:59:00 -0400

Stella: Mommy! Snuggle time!

[Stella announces a snuggle several times a day. If I can, I drop what I’m doing and we convene at the nearest snuggle station — usually my bed, since my desk is in my bedroom — and then follow the rules of snuggling. Today, though, Stella had another requirement.]

Stella: Kiss. Kiss first, Mommy.

[I kissed her on her forehead.]

Stella: On the lips.

[No prob. I planted one on her mouth.]

Stella: Again. Another kiss on the lips.

Me: What’s all this kissing about, Stellie?

Stella: Lila was playing this song upstairs that really made me want to kiss a girl!

Two things.

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:20:00 -0400

First, since it looks like my contributions to KitchenDaily.com have dwindled from weekly to bimonthly to never, I’m considering adding a recipe component here. Consider yourself warned. (Next up: artichokes!)

Second, I offer you a sampling of life with my children:

[From upstairs, an odd scuffling sound is followed by piercing shriek, followed by second odd scuffle, followed by second piercing shriek, followed by the wail of child. The wailing grows gradually louder as child descends the stairs slowly, step by step.]

[STELLA enters kitchen, holding right arm limply in front of her.]

ME: Okay, what happened?

STELLA: Lila hit me! Really hard! In my arm! [Offers me arm. I kiss her, then hold her on my lap for a moment.]

ME: What happened before that?

STELLA: You need to punish Lila!

ME: I’ll be speaking to Lila in a moment. Right now I’m speaking to you. I want to know what happened before Lila hit you.

STELLA: [Sniffs piteously] I hit Lila.

ME: I had a feeling.

STELLA: But she also hit me before that!

ME: She did? I didn’t hear that.

STELLA: Yeah! She did!

ME: ***

STELLA: …but not very hard.

ME: Okay. So even if she was being super annoying —

STELLA: She was! She was being super annoying!

ME: — but even so, do you think it was right to hit back?

STELLA: [darkly] I know it wasn’t right to hit back. But I will hit back. Because if I don’t hit back, then Lila gets the better deal.

Welcome to the club, baby girl

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:29:00 -0400

Stella caught the bug. It was probably inevitable — it’s been going around in our house for some time. You know this bug: the one that renders her silent on the couch, curled up in one position until a limb loses circulation, unable to hear her parents calling her until they come up and remove the book from her hands.

I take a certain proprietary pleasure in this. Sometimes, that kid … she’s funny, she’s whip smart, but I don’t always get her. Lila’s behavior is easier for me to predict; I find Stella somewhat inscrutable. Her reactions to things sometimes take me so much by surprise that I inwardly wonder: Whose kid is this, again? But seeing her lose herself in a book this way? Yeah, she’s mine.

She caught the bug from Ivy & Bean, by the way, which I’m pretty sure was also the germ responsible for Lila’s (ongoing) case, years ago. Just FYI.

Motherhood is glamorous

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:02:21 -0500

Stella climbed into bed with us at about 6:15 this morning. The sun was up, and she was in a chatty mood. She nestled in between me and Chris and started talking…

Stella: [cough] What is that? What is that stuff in my throat? I can’t cough it out. What do you call that?

Me: Ummm [yawn]…phlegm?

Stella: What is phlegm?

Me: It’s, uh, like snot.

Stella: What colors does it come in?

Me: ***

Stella: Mommy? What colors does phlegm come in? Does it come in yellow?

Me: [long pause] Yes.

Stella: I think I once had phlegm inside me and I coughed really hard and it came out of my mouth and landed on the floor.

Me: ***

Stella: And you picked it up.

Me: ***

Stella: It was gross.

Me: ***

Stella: It looked like Pirate’s Booty.

Ga-ga-goin' back to Target

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:59:03 -0500

I haven’t been in six months (except to get fake Uggs for the girls for Hanukkah — but I felt really, really bad about it).

Lady Gaga is apparently fixing all that.