The Daily Fuss

Is Life Better In Your Twenties or Thirties?

A friend posted today on one of my favorite topics - which decade is "better" age-wise, the roaring twenties, or stable thirties?

It's a good piece and immediately begs the question "what does better actually mean"?

I will tell you that I am happier and more fulfilled now than I have ever been, but I can't put my finger on exactly why I would refer to this decade as better. 

Evie, the author, points out the seemingly obvious trade offs. As a paraphrased example, feeling truly and desperately alone after a breakup in your twenties versus rarely enjoying five peaceful minutes of alone time in a locked bathroom when you have little kids, for example.

When I think of who I was, personally and professionally, in my twenties, juxtaposed against the person I am now, I have no sense of regret. I always live my life as fully and honestly as I can. I make decisions and I don't look back. If I make a mistake, I convince myself it was a necessary and teachable moment. I move on.

Evie makes a point about wanting to pull back some personal time and it's not lost on me.

My biggest issue with the current decade is that with little kids, there aren't enough hours in the day to do what I want, and so I am forced to compromise with my own wants and needs. I like projects - writing, entertaining, discussing politics and other things that really don't matter for endless hours over too much wine ...

Still, you couldn't pay me to be 24 again. Have you seen Girls? The slightly more realistic Sex and the City type show about twentysomethings in NYC attempting to live the dream?

It's taken me the better part of the last decade to resolve my inner Carrie Bradshaw. I find Girls to be an hilarious expose on why being a woman in her twenties is comically and emotionally BRUTAL - even if you're pretty and popular and smart and thin. Or ... not so much. Lena Dunham is a real-life genius so definitely tune in to season two later this month if you are so inclined.

I love the 36 year-old me more than any other me. I'm not as hot as I used to be (working on that), but I'm smarter, happier and have more money and more responsibilties in all areas of my life, than I did in my twenties.

A lot of pain and growth went into the last decade and I wrote about it so I can remember it all one day. Here are my thoughts: 

On having my first child

On suburban living

On identity crisis

On homeownership

On being the neighborhood hilljack

On minivan-ownership

On baby #2 and the worst anniversary EVER

On treading water

On a new job

I love my life and I sincerely hope I feel exactly the same way when I turn 40 three years and five months from now. And, I hope I'm still enthusiastically inclined to tell you about it.

New Do

No matter how silly the wisps looked, it was painful for me to trim them. Leighton didn't have much hair to speak of until she was more than one year-old, so the thought of trimming Little Sis's locks at six months seemed absurd.

I'm glad I did it. She looks lovely - slightly more mature than I'd like - but Gerbery and downy as a baby should be.

And, Leighton feels that because Mairin is old enough for haircuts, she may also be keen on playing dress up, sporting costumes and any accessories part and parcel to a trip to fantasy land.

However, it should be noted that Mairin only gets to play with the things Leighton ignores or decidedly does not care for.

Take wigs for example. We know Lei is not a huge fan of the tickly factor inherent in wig wearing. It's a good thing Mairin doesn't mind one little bit.

 
I was laughing so hard, I could barely take this picture. She looks like one of those dolls that grown women dress and bathe and shop for and pretend to feed and take to the store in a buggy. A baby should not have this much hair.

I smiled and congratulated Mairin on her indoctrination into dress play and told her she looked just like baby Rapunzel.

The second that compliment left my lips, Leighton tugged the wig right off of her sister's head and knocked her over.

Lei didn't want to wear the wig, but she didn't want Mairin to have it anymore either. So, she stuffed it in the couch cushions while she sat through her time out.

It seems that Mairin has subconsciously spent the first six months of her life inventorying all things her sister doesn't like or won't do and pledging to like and do every last one of those things.

Brilliant. This little game will certainly become even more interesting, entertaining and heartbreaking over the years. By the time Mairin starts walking and talking Leighton will have met her match.

What's In a Name?

The funny thing about nicknames, is that we really don't choose them - they choose us ... or our pets or our babies as the case may be.

Luella has had roughly fifty nicknames over the years. The names that we do use in any given week range from, "Lupsie Dupsie", "Lue Duperson" and "Lulie Kaboops" (when beckoning her to come hither), "Luesmella" (when she needs a bath or toots) "Luella Dickerson" (when she's dicking around with a toy or food or something annoying in bed) and "Luella Parsons MacDougal McGee Freeman" (when she's peed somewhere she shouldn't have or is otherwise in big big trouble).

Each of these names evolved over time and just sort of hung with our little Luebird. A myriad of words rhyme with "Lue" so, I won't lie, it's been a fun little game.

With Leighton, it took the better part of a year for any nickname of any kind to stick.  And, "Lei" is really the only one that works for her. I think it came more out of writing about her than anything. "Lei" or "Lei Lei" is the extent of my subconscious level of creativity regarding Leighton. She had a line of clothing from 3-6 months that had a hula theme to it and whenever she donned an ensemble from that collection she became "Lei Lei the Hawaiian Bebe". Yay mom for being so incredibly clever.

After choosing a proper name for Miss Mairin Isabel, I had a wild idea that I liked the way "Maisy" sounded for a nickname. My friend has a Mazie - Mary Elizabeth. Our kids are far apart in age, live in different cities and (as of this moment) have never met - so I felt that misappropriating the nickname would't be that big of a deal if it worked.

No need to worry. So far, it's not looking good for "Maisy".

What is working undeniably well is "Marinka Dinka". Skidamarink-a-dink-a-dink. Skidamarinka-doo. I love you.

We also frequently refer to Mairin as "Marinks Dinks" or "Marinkie Dinkie" or "Dinka" or any loving combination or abbreviation therein. This week, for me, she's simply "Dinkie".

My wee bit of babe is so easygoing, I don't believe she minds.

In the image above, Dinkie is sporting a single velcro roller in her wisp. She was helping big sis ready herself for her debut as flower girl at Uncle Jon and Auntie Susan's wedding this past weekend.

Awesome Foursome (and a little dog too)

So little sis was born just AFTER the biggest blizzard in the history of Chicago weather situations since at least 1967, if not EVER. We left the Marriott downtown at 3pm on February 2nd, only to make the chilly, unplowed, white out, nary-another-car-on-the-road return trip at 1am. Figures.

Although I was (once again) hoping for an annoyingly uneventful labor and delivery ... it  simply wasn't to be. Well, the labor part anyway.

Due to the outrageous and unrelenting dumping of snow the day before, inductions, c-sections and various other surgeries had been postponed. No one was available for break my water for five hours after I caved on the epidural. How annoying.

Still, it was worth it in the end. By 7:44pm, after insisting someone check me again, it only took two pushes, 180 seconds and NO STITCHES to meet the littlest Freeman.  I fully consider this a pleasant alternative to the 90 minutes of pushing and painstaking needlepoint involved in delivering Leighton.

Mairin Isabel was born at 7:45pm with a full head of shiny, black hair (no real clue where that comes from), big sister's giraffe eyelashes and a dimple in her chin to match both mommy and Leighton. She was just too cute, right away.

Leighton was super pumped to meet little sis for the first time and never misses a chance to kiss her and hug her and tell her just how much she loves her. Sometimes, she loves her a little too "hard" but we've learned to manage the hard lovin' to some degree. If we can't lock it down completely, Mairin might need a helmet - at least until the soft spot closes up.

Luella didn't seem to need much of an adjustment this time. She's relatively chill and actually appears to love the newest member of our squad - most likely because she has witnessed, first hand, how rambunctions these sweet little people can become over the course of twenty-two months.

In this house, the infant is the easy one. Mairin is a sleeper, which feels crazy to us. We keep checking to make sure she's okay. Lei needed constant entertainment and sleep management - she still does to some degree. A sleepy baby is so completely different than the toddler who WON'T GO TO BED.

In fact, Lei's recent behavioral outbursts have risen to a level of toddler mayhem so cleverly calculated that they seem unlikely to have come from said toddler. Last night, she managed to fight sleep until 1am by bargaining for drinks, trips to the potty, crying, screaming, flailing and pulling random stunts. I was ready to poke my own eyes out by 12:45am, but am happy to report that last night's shenanigans seem but a distant memory at this point.

In fact, Ryan and I are enjoying a few blissed-out, mommy/daddy moments of simultaneous maternity and paternity leave with Mairin sleepily cooing in the living room bassinet as we blog and google our way through the next thirty minutes until it's time to pick Big Sis up from school.

What happens after that is anyone's guess, but I'm guessing you'll hear about it tomorrow.

Blizzarre

Tonight, we're staying at a Marriott in the city, near the hospital, just in case Little Sis decides to join us smack in the midst of the worst snowstorm Chicago has seen in years.

There is absolutely no way I would give up my OB or voluntarily deliver anywhere other than Prentice just because I live in the suburbs. Not a chance. So, Marriott it is.

My due date was yesterday. Well, my first due date - the one the doctors give based on how you're measuring. By my own witchdoctory estimation, my real due date is somewhere between February 4th and 8th, but I liked the 31st way better, for obvious reasons, so I went with it.

Admittedly, it felt somewhat bizarre to leave my freshly feathered nest to stay at a hotel in my very own city, against the advice of all local and cable weatherpersons characterizing the impending snowfall as a wintry armageddon. And by the looks of the empty grocery store shelves and line at the pump, the seventh seal was breaking as we buckled our seat belts and fired up the Jeep to head down. Apparently, the National Guard has been mobilized. Awesome.

Luckily, we left in time to avoid much of the traffic pick-up and made it to our room before the conditions completely deteriorated into a windy, snowy, freezing mess. Ryan is at the gym whilst I type, then we're off to Kamehachi for a sushi dinner. It's likely to be a relatively uneventful evening unless we turn on The Weather Channel - then we're back to apocalypse talk, but we're packed and ready for our new delivery anyway. In fact, I'm hoping my water breaks right after dinner. 

We put quite a bit of effort into preparing for Little Sis in just the last few weeks. I finally hung things on the walls, cleared out the third bedroom, ordered the cord blood collection kit, paid the bills, compiled tax documents, took the life insurance physical, laundered everything we own, ordered baby provisions, cleaned the Medela pump and bottles, outfitted the crib, cleaned the basement, tiled the kitchen backsplash and the half-bath floor, tuned up the Jeep, charged the camera batteries, changed the sheets, loaded up at the grocery store, mailed the returns, put bedding on the cradle and crib and had Ryan take a picture of my hugely pregnant self on the way out the door.

Holy crap! I forgot to pack clothes for Little Sis! What a jackass! Oh well. Someone can certainly bring her little bag if she decides to come today or tomorrow. I honestly JUST realized my oversight this very second and I feel terrible about it. My little deuce is already getting screwed in ways my first born did not. It's inevitable, I suppose.

Leighton and Luella are acutely aware that something's up and they're acting out accordingly with temper tantrums, barking at shadows, dancing on furniture and "forgetting" to call potty - both of them. It's a super attractive scenario at our house right now. Thank the sweet lord for Grandma!

Even if the storm passes with no sign of Little Sis, a night out of the house in a comfy hotel during a spell of extreme Chicago weather is not exactly a punishment for us. Still, we are holding out hope that a sudden drop in barometric pressure urges the newest member of our family out of her cozy little spot tout suite.

Come on baby!

Identity Crisis Part III: How Did I Get Here?

So I had a delusional moment the other day, ascending our stairs (to pee for what seemed like the billionth time that day because we still haven't installed the toilet in the half-renovated, half-bath on the main floor) in what felt like someone else's house.

Why so much peeing, you ask? Well ... because I stepped away from The Daily Fuss for two months to get my ducks in a row, I haven't been able to drop daily reminders to all of you that our hot new single "Little Sis" is due to drop on Monday the 31st. Unfortunately, it seems that since Leighton was born during the NCAA Championships that Little Sis would like to wait for the Superbowl to make her debut. Bummer.

So, I'm coming up the stairs thinking to myself, "How did I get here again?" It was an odd space in between a failure to remember who dropped me off at this person's home, and the manner in which the Plinko chip bounced down the board of life to make me the happily married, suburban mother of two with a mortgage and a minivan (oh hell yes - we will address this properly tomorrow) and a little doggie and tenants in my beloved condo and laundry in the dryer and we're out of milk and taxes are due soon and I need to fill out my paperwork for maternity leave and we need more salt for the driveway and is Parenthood on tonight and ... you see where I'm going with this.

It didn't take long to go from the girl-about-town singleton to the current iteration of me. We married in May 2007, bought the condo, had a baby, bought a house in the suburbs and are having another baby this week. What can I say? "Holy Shit" pretty much sums it up.

There have been a few recent moments of pause along the way ... here, here and here to be specific. And, if I hadn't bothered to write about them, I may not have recalled ceratin aspects of my metamorphasis.

The good news is that both Ryan and I are the type of people who think just long and carefully enough about the decisions we make (major ones included) without making ourselves ill over deliberation. We pick our pony and never look back. We trust that we made a good choice and work through whatever that brings. However, that type of decision-making has lead to rapid change in a short period of time no matter the super-sound logic involved.

Don't worry, I'm not going Revolutionary Road on you in ANY way. I'm a happy girl, I just don't recognize myself sometimes. Reconciling who I fancy myself to be and who I really am is a daily download - like a JenMom software patch. It takes effort, but it's not exhausting. I fully expect that the overwhelming gratification, part and parcel to leading a happy life, includes perpetual bouts of alternating hard work and hard play. That's what makes it interesing in my overly energetic opinion.

Stay tuned this week and the next and the next and the next ... for more of the hard work phase once Little Sis joins our squad. And thanks for sticking with me while I took some time to get my act together. Much appreciated.

Ryan is flushing his freshly installed, half-bath toiled as I type these very words. I could not love him more. My hero!

Maybe Baby

We went for Leighton's 18-month checkup today. Everything was great. She's tall, thin, smart, sassy and didn't cry for her shots - like a mini supermodel with a mild temperament and sweet little mullet on her 82.5 percentile head.

On the way out, we passed a freshie in the waiting room. She was an adorable little Chinese peanut with a shock of black hair and that typical far-away newborn gaze. And, for the life of me, I could not remember Leighton ever being that tiny.

Ever.

I put Lei to bed a little while ago and came straight downstairs to peruse photographs from the first six weeks of her life in a concerted effort to find evidence that she was, in fact, the drooling, gurgling, can't-hold-her-head up baby that she certainly must have been. Right?

Sure, there are a few pictures where she's staring blankly and intently on a shadow in the corner of the ceiling, but the other seven thousand eight hundred fifty two shots show an incredibly alert kid. At this point, I'm even having trouble remembering her not talking - probably because we've been able to communicate since the moment our eyes met.

And, they met seconds after she was born. They put her in my arms and she stared calmly and confidently right up at me. Leighton's gaze instantly destroyed and reinvented me. Then she did it to her dad, grandmas, grandpas ... everyone. It was nuts. I made them wait before administering those gooey eye drops because I couldn't stand to end the hour of continuous eye contact.

I started thinking about the insane amount of thought and hope and anticipation and expectation wrapped around my first-born, and realize that my memories are gilded to some degree. But, I will say that the picture above was taken at four days old. Those are the eyes that locked mine that first day - the day she let me know just how much she expected of me.

Now, I can't help thinking about Little Sis. For baby number two, much of that anticipation is gone. We know what babies are like and how many diapers we'll change and what to feed her and when she should hit which milestone. With Lei, we've been (and still are) anxious to see how quickly she can learn things and in some ways, it feels like we're speeding her along to the next phase, always looking forward. If little sis is our last, then maybe the reverse will be true - that we'll always want to see her as a baby and always will.

It stands to reason anyway.

Family placement and its affect on each of us has always intrigued me - probably because the whole "only child" thing is foreign to most people and doesn't fit comfortably into the discussion of traditional family placement. Come February, little sis will put me well outside my sphere of knowledge on the topic and that's definitely a good thing.

Plus, I figure I'll have twice as much to write about.

Sharing

Who knew? I woke up this morning and it's ... October. There just isn't enough time in any given day to do the things that need to get done, much less enjoy life to it's fullest potential.

That's not to say that a lot hasn't happened since my last post. We're making slow, but steady progress on the house. I closed another quarter at work with way too much travel. Leighton has gotten completely into the groove at school. We recovered from the stomach flu. We're enjoying the neighborhood. We saw pictures of our little girl on the way ... and she looks EXACTLY like Leighton as far as we can tell. 

This brings me to the overwhelming sentiment of the last month. GUILT.

For my husband and Leighton, I've been gone more than usual, I'm pregnant and exhausted. For baby number two, I still haven't made it to my 20 week checkup and finally snuck in for the ultrasound on thursday at the end of week 22. That SO would not have happened with Leighton. I couldn't wait to have a peek at her. I would have taken the day off just to be sure I didn't miss it.

For shame.

I'm an only child. One mom, one dad, one kid. It makes perfect sense to me. As an only child, I was always one third of the family vote. Having more than one child feels somewhat unnatural to me. I can't imagine having two kids share my time and attention, basically because I never had to. Everyone I know has stories of the older sibling trying to whack the younger newbie with a blunt toy of sorts, or asking mom and dad "when can we take her back?" I'm imagining that the very moment Leighton realizes Little Sis is ours forever will be a sad one. I can't help it.

Today's world makes it that much more difficult for me to conceptualize having multiple kids from a logistical standpoint. Ryan and I both work, and we're sticklers about the 7pm bedtime - no later than 7:30. Pediatricians say toddlers need 12 hours at night and a two hour nap. We agree and, with some scheduling, we make it work. But, it's a pain in the ass for both of us to hustle to make that happen. It's a huge committment.

Ryan leaves work right at 5. I'm usually already home, so I start dinner for Leighton, get her fed, bathed and ready for the wind-down routine to kickoff when daddy walks in the door at 6:10. We sing, read, brush and wash and talk about our day. Then Ryan makes dinner for the two of us while I put Lei down for the night. We watch some TV, hang out a bit and then try to get to bed by 10pm to do it all over again.

I have no clue how I'm going to squeeze clockwork feedings and naps into a new routine. What if Lei wakes up the baby? What if the baby wakes up Lei? What if Lue barks or the phone rings or any one of a multitude of other things happens to upset my delicately balanced apple cart? Welcome to life for the next handful of years.

And that's just sleep! We work hard to eat healthy, organic food across the spectrum. We don't watch much TV. We always have activities lined up. THAT also takes planning. By the time Little Sis is born, we'll all be eating frozen dinners in front of the TV at 10pm every night. The prospect terrifies me.

Maybe we can swing it for the first few months, but I can't even think past maternity leave.

As I have mentioned ten thousand times, Ryan and I both work. Even once the girls reach school age, school ends BEFORE business hours. What the hell? Around here, there isn't really convenient after care - you have to pay a nanny to pick your kid up at one place and wither take them home, or to a secondary location for a few hours of half-assed attention.

Moms overwhelmingly appear to stay at home in Highland Park, so I'm likely making my way toward outcast, but there's nothing I can do about it. Even with sports, practice starts right after school and somehow, kids need to make it to practice, ON TIME.

We can make all of this work, and we will. I know there are plenty of people who have much more to deal with than I do. Still, I can't help approach baby number two with some guilt about the fact that her baby book might have half the pictures Leighton's does, or that I'll get to spend half the time with her that I spent with Lei in the first year, or that I'll get to spend half the time with Leighton that I would have if we hadn't had another baby at all.

Hopefully, Leighton will love her little sister to pieces and learn the gift and art of sharing - something that as an only child, has taken me thirty four years to appreciate.

Identity Crisis Part II: Work Life Balance

We closed on our suburban home last week. I measured and planned, priced materials and found subcontractors for some initial home renovations, found renters for the condo in the city, pushed Leighton seven thousand times on her new swing, hatched a few landscaping plans and ...

... oh yeah - I did all of that in my spare time. I worked all week - Saturday too.

Spare time? What the hell is that? I meant to say that I did everything I mentioned in lieu of getting the requisite amount of sleep a human needs to remain sane and not age exponentially faster than expected.

I am out of whack. Fat. Chakras need balancing. I'm so tired. Writing promotes my balance and I haven't done much of it lately. Recommitting.

Lately, my discussions with a close friend have turned to the subject of work life balance and the ways in which moms define and achieve this. I believe that whether or not a mother achieves work life balance depends ENTIRELY on how she defines it.

At this point in my mom career, I don't see how it's possible to balance work and life. Work eats up 75% of my awake time, Leighton gets 75% of my energy, friends and family earn 25% of my effort and friends laundry, Dr. appointments, travel, changing batteries and light bulbs, moving, eating and television get the other 25%.

I'm working at 200% efficiency. Sweet. Sweet, and impossible to maintain without cogs popping and springs flying out of my head.

Moreover, I believe that work life balance (by any definition) ABSOLUTELY CANNOT exist when you have very small children. Properly cultivating a tiny human being takes a most enormous direction of effort which inevitably spurs the half-assing of nearly every other task on the list.

This doesn't just apply to "working" moms. I say "working" because we're all doing the work. However, I have to imagine that moms who stay home may yearn for the interaction of the workplace or the self-fulfillment that is part and parcel to a career. The balance is simply skewed in the other direction. When you wear a suit all day, you long for anything with an elastic waist. When you're covered in snot and food all day, you long for a quiet moment in your office. I work from home. I feel both sides throughout the course of any given week.

I may be wrong, but I'm operating under the assumption that the balance will tip in mom's favor once the littlest one heads off to school. I am clinging to this truth, however illusory. Please let me be right.

Please.

How do you work toward your balance? Are you getting there? Do you do your work with the kids or in an office? Please post a comment and share your fuss with us.