Parenting

Real Talk

Halloween Fails: A Retrospective

October 31, 2018

This year, we will be doing the trick-or-treating thing with my friend Shannon and her family. I will be wearing my skull shawl, because skulls. My son will be in a Spiderman costume from Target, and my daughter will be in a Tinkerbell costume she ordered off of Amazon, and I have a feeling it will be slightly lower-key than it has been in past years, but also, it will be...

...

...you know. Halloween. Which means I am about to witness what pure joy in 7-year-old and 4-year-old form looks like. I may be exhausted already in anticipation, but I'm also (ssh) pretty excited.

DIARY

Roots

October 23, 2018

A shot of me that Gawker ran in a (VERY understandably) snarky article back in the day.

("Meet the Harvard Grad Seduced By Microcelebrity!" The shame.)

So here's what I've been thinking. Remember how when I started Ramshackle Glam back in 2009 - when I was living in a fourth-floor walkup on the non-fancy side of the Upper East Side and technically unemployed and doing things like shucking corn on my floor (a floor that definitely had a hole in it that the landlord was definitely disinterested in fixing)? The whole concept behind the site, as I conceived of it, was "Hey, here are a bunch of things I love and want to do. I don't really know how to do them. I'm going to give them a shot anyway."

Lifestyle

Sparklebug

October 22, 2018

A love of all things sparkly appears to have been coded into my daughter’s genetic material, because I own nary a sequin, and yet she must own allllll the glittery things. Would she like to be a sparkle unicorn? Yes. A sparkle mermaid? Yes. A rainbow unicorn butterfly mermaid princess superhero sparkleperson? With sparkles?!

YES MOM AND RIGHT NOW THANKS.

So. As you might be able to imagine, having her decide which of iSparkle’s Little Princess Dreambox collections she’d like to try out was quite the ordeal. How the Dreamboxes work: your child gets to choose her favorite dress style and color, and it’ll arrive in a keepsake glitter box along with a matching heart tiara and glitter locket, as well as a book featuring her favorite of the six characters - Sparkle, Rainbow, Butterfly, Unicorn, Mermaid, and Superhero. And the Dreamboxes themselves are sturdy and adorable, so they can be used to store little treasures and such.

Anxiety

Where Is The Love

October 17, 2018

A reader made this. I feel silly about how much it means to me.

But there you go.

I realized yesterday that I have become a parody; an actual walking, talking movie character. "The New Divorcee In The Cul-de-Sac."

I am Cher in Mermaids, dancing with my kids in the kitchen while the rice burns on the stove. I scrape off the black parts, and we sit down on the floor in the living room and eat with plastic forks. I am grateful they can't hear my heart pounding.

Last night, a new neighbor of mine came over with a basket of pumpkin muffins; I was on the phone with a client when the doorbell rang, and while I ushered her in with one hand, the other clapped over the mouthpiece - sorry, sorry, no no it's fine, come in! - I could see myself as she saw me: disheveled in my boxer shorts and t-shirt, with no bra and a messy bun, cats twining around my legs and kids wanting another Fruit Roll-Up yelling from the kitchen. She mentioned that the pumpkin muffins were made with applesauce instead of oil, in case I was a calorie-counter or healthy eater or some such. No no, I said, I'm currently on the Divorce Diet of Diet Coke and sadness. I could use some muffins.

Decor

You Need To Know About Lorena Canals’ Washable (!) Rugs

September 28, 2018

Relevant to yesterday's post, here is yet another example of why women (and moms, specifically) are set to just go ahead and run the world: Because we come up with genius inventions not just "because" (or just because our egos need a little stroking; ahem, Elon Musk, love you but dude, the "kid-sized" submarine?)...but because they are needed.

You've heard me whine and whine and whine here for yearrrrrs about my simultaneous love of throw rugs and total rug-related phobias and/or catastrophes. I love the way rugs look; I love the way rugs feel. I do not love that they specialize in attracting dogs that want to pee on them and babies that want to throw up on them, because any rug that lives in my house must be pristine, or the aforementioned phobias come out and I have to sidestep around its borders like a weirdo.

I've bought cowhide rugs. Tossed them. Fluffy rugs. Sacrificed them on the altar of Virgil. Gorgeous woven rugs. Moved them to a "cleaner" spot, then to another, and then gave them away. And now I've landed on a semipermanent solution, using outdoor rugs indoors...except a) that seems wasteful, given that I have to replace them once a season, and b) that still does not solve my sidestepping-around-the-borders-after-a-pee-speck-touches-them problem.

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