True Tests

There are many things that people say when its easy to say them, before you've been tested on your proclamations. Like parents who vow to only use cloth diapers (better for the environment) and make their own baby food (its so much healthier), or city-dwellers who condemn the suburbs (too many unsophisticated people), or fashionistas who scoff at a friend for wearing the same outfit 2 weeks in a row (so uncool).

When your baby wets through 10 diapers a day, cloth becomes a laundry disaster. You work 7:30am-8:00pm several days in a row and fishsticks are all you'd be able to 'cook' for the infant. When a studio apartment with no rooms and 1 closet costs $2100 a month, the suburbs become practical. And when those cloth diapers are clogging up the congested line for the washing machine, last week's unstained ensemble is the only feasible choice (when you spend your pre-baby life buying clothes, even last week's outfit is pretty well put together). And there's always organic detergent! My point: Never say never.

Small Prints

When it comes to buying clothes for an infant, practicality usually trumps lust. Baby Gap is a staple, where the impulsive purchase of a crisp white oxford (because it looks so cute on the tiny hanger) won't set me back more than $29. As excited as I once was to hear that Missoni was collaborating with H&M, the anticipation of the latest high-low team-up is even greater. DVF comes to Baby Gap!

My joy was curtailed significantly when I saw the print-queen only designed for little ladies, and offered nothing for pint-sized princes. But the collection will make for some fabulous gifts at prices that won't compete with furniture for the new house.

Buying Big

Though with a baby, there is no longer any such thing as a typical day, yesterday still tops the record charts. The culmination of a busy workday was me standing in the kitchen, crying, tired baby on hip, cell phone on ear, negotiating the purchase price of a home that, like my wedding dress, I knew was meant for me. The start of the day was a glimpse that it might end the way it did- baby slept an extra half hour, hit all green lights driving to work, first one in the office (and barista at Starbucks complimenting me on my outfit - navy gold button blazer, green and navy striped top, brown flats, medium rinse jeans, Marc Jacobs bag and necklace - and noting that everyday, she loves what I come in wearing).

After work, there was the final meeting with the sellers agent. And then a play date for Tucker with my mommy friend from growing up and her 7 month old. Then came a load of laundry, a homemade dinner, a bath for baby, and playing hardball to ultimately reach an accepted offer on a new house (I'll admit I had a cleaning service this week to take one thing off my super-mom workload). Had I know we'd be buying a house this week I may have put off the shopping spree in the Flat Iron district this weekend. O well, hindsight is 20/20. All this on the hubby's 2nd day at the new job. Its amazing what can be accomplished in a 24 hour period, with the right outfit.

City 'Sites'

Ah, the City. Last night, we took a rare trip in for a friend's surprise 30th birthday. And since like all young, child-free people's events, it started at 9:30, we had some time to kill before the festivities. Strolling around the old neighborhood, I'm always reminded of how much I once loved to people watch. Most passersby have effortless New York chic down pat- scarf wrapped just so, coordinating coat, perfectly un-coiffed bedhead, practical yet fabulous shoes. Walking down Park on our way to Flat Iron shopping (J.Crew, Anthropologie, Ann, Madewell, a new Sperry mega-store), we passed a well-clad woman with a particularly eye catching Prada tote (new from Spring '12). Like many city sights, her elegant facade was quickly pierced as she yelled at the passing homeless man to 'watch out for her Prada' (apparently he had bumped her with his bag of recyclables).

A calorie-rich meal at Dos Caminos Park, 2 cocktails at Flute Gramercy, daylight savings, and the usual Sunday morning swim class make for an exhausting Sunday morning (I struggle to remember how I used to down Champagne cocktails and pop out of bed for a 5 mile run the next day). Since I am a self proclaimed masochist of sorts, I've also decided that today is the day to put an offer on a cute 4 bedroom house we've been eyeing. In like a lion, out like lamb, right?

Legally Speaking

My distaste for impostors is no secret. And while I have no specific affinity for British jewelery duo Tatty Devine (I'm not much for ironic accessories and prefer a statement enamel bauble), I can sympathize (and scour along with them) over low market, mass mall producers of plastic paraphernalia, Claire's.

The Telegraph reports on the double take recently discovered on the shelves of the fashion fraud. What do you think, imitation or inspiration?

photo credit Telegraph.co.uk

Over Eating

When I go out to dinner and my husband suggests sharing an appetizer, I always scoff at him and insist that we each order our own. The same thing happens when the dessert menu arrives. Inevitably, we return from dinner, and I sit on the couch, miserable, complaining, and wishing never to see food again (until of course the next morning arrives and all memories of the distended midsection vanish). This is very much the scenario I find myself in this season when it comes to shopping.

I love my cobalt blue pants from December. But recently, you can't turn a corner without seeing similar fitted pants in all colors of the rainbow, or an Easter egg hunt. After the blue pair in December, I was infatuated. I then went on to buy a pair in red. And lavender. And then why not yellow for spring? And grass green. I was putting away laundry the other night after 12 hours of work when I saw all the colorful pants folded neatly in their section of the closet. It looked more like a stack of candy than office-appropriate attire, and I realized I had gone too far. I looked for receipts, but of course in perpetual my eagerness to clean up they had all been throw away. So I am saddled with 6 pairs of pants that go with very little, and can only be worn once a month without looking ridiculous in a conservative environment. Unless I get a new job working at Dylan's Candy Bar I am out of luck.

Duty Calls

All cliches exist for a reason, they are born from fact and then live on in daily instances of their conception. This week, after a particularly brutal succession of events at work, I found myself wearing an apron, beating eggs, and crying over the bowl of botched brownie mix when a white got mixed into the yolks. Quite the picture of a successful working mother.

But after a 13 hour work day (the extra 4 due to a volunteer position coaching mock trial I assumed from some sort of masochism complex no doubt), learning that I had been assigned brownies for the bake sale at daycare (I thought these events began in preschool?), was told I'm responsible for getting 1200 (instead of the usual 450) formal invitations in the mail for an upcoming work event, and then saw the stain of egg yolk on my DVF skirt I had failed to cover completely with said apron, I had reached my limit. The pink laundry resulting from my failure to separate my new red J Brand pants was icing on the proverbial cake. So out came the tears, down ran the Clinique black honey eyeliner, and into the sink fell the fumbled batter. Instead, I went out and spent $20 on store-bought cookies for Tucker's bake sale, as I couldn't face showing up empty handed on top of all my other motherhood failures in a 24 hour period. I would love to be an effortless homemaker, who works, cleans, bakes, and comes home from work cheery and ready to chase the crawling baby from coffee table to china cabinet. Maybe next year!