Urban Mama

A Year In the Life

We moved to the DC burbs one year ago last week. Here's a quick look at the past year in Urban Mama land:

• April  2007: We tearily bid farewell to our Brooklyn home, our New York lives, family and friends and move to downtown Silver Spring, Md. Our new apartment is 300 square-feet larger but 300 times more boring than our former place. The kids go to a cooperative preschool in DC; The husband starts working at his new lawfirm, and I deal with navigating life as a freelancer in DC.
• May 2007: I make my first return trip to NYC for the Tribeca Film Festival.The husband and kids join me, and we visit many friends in Brooklyn and my brother's family in Queens. I cry through the streets of Tribeca wondering why we moved.
• June  2007: We discover a family friend's niece is a realtor down here and start looking for a house. The husband and I celebrate our sixth anniversary. The kids and I enjoy going to the apartment building's pool most afternoons. We return to NYC a second time to house and dog-sit for an acquaintance in Brooklyn. We once again feel seriously homesick.
• July 2007: We find a house we really like but by the time we're ready to to bid, someone else has already put in a contract. The following week, I find a newly listed home, and my awesome realtor gets me a preview. After the husband visits during the Open House, we decide to put in a contract the following day. The contract is accepted, and the closing is set for August. We go to NYC a third time and live it up once again. The husband and I go on our one and only flight of the year -- at trip to New Mexico for our dear friend Elizabeth's wedding.
  
• Aug. 2007: I quickly realize the "flu" I think I have feels eerily like first-trimester symptoms. But surely that's not it, since I have an IUD. The husband remembers we have an old, unopened pregnancy test I can take. There's a faint, faint, barely-there line. After four more tests and a trip to the hospital, we come to terms with the fact that I am, in fact, pregnant. We close on our house, and I nearly vomit at the proceedings. The Schmoop starts kindergarten.
  
• Sept. 2007: We move into our new house, and I realize that there is no way I can unpack while still having the actue pukeyness of first trimester life. I decide to have a homebirth and meet my amazing midwife for the first time. We rack up a lot of new-homeowner expenses. My mom comes to visit for the first time since we moved. I turn 31.
  
• Oct. 2007: No more morning, noon & night sickness. I start getting to know my neighbors and realize this suburbs thing isn't as bad as it first seemed. We celebrate our first Halloween (as parents) outside of Brooklyn. Despite missing the crowded streets of NYC, we're delighted not to have to deal with mobs of kids outside of every stoop.
• Nov. 2007: We go back to New York for the Marathon, where we stay directly on the marathon's path at our friends' brownstone.The Schmoopette turns three! We host our first holiday -- Thanksgiving with 2/3rds of my siblings and their families. The cousins have a ball running around the house. I cry when my last sibling leaves town and wish we all lived in the same city.
• Dec. 2007: We host our second holiday -- Christmas with my mom, my in-laws and one of the husband's aunts and her family of three. For New Year's, my oldest brother comes down with his brood and we thank God for my mom making it another year with cancer.
• Jan. 2008: My mom has to have surgery that leaves her with a colostomy. My siblings and I are on the phone with each other several times a day. She pulls through and stays at my sister's in Central Florida. I feel helpless being 30+ weeks pregnant and unable to go down and help.
• Feb. 2008: The Schmoop, our Superbowl Sunday 2001 baby, turns six on Superbowl Sunday. The husband turns 33 three days later. We have an un-Valentine's Day "Lost" celebration, but our plans for a last-hurrah weekend away go to pot when the husband's case schedule interferes. I have early contractions and am advised to stay on modified bedrest for a few days. No baby, though.
• March 2008: We (well, OK, *I*) have our third child in a birthtub in our basement rec-room. It's my most fulfilling, empowering birth experience. Life with a newborn begins again after a three year and four month break. We all fall in love with our new itty bitty boy. Our family feels complete, but I still yearn for another birth and a baby sister for the Schmoopette. The husband feels quite differently and schedules a vasectomy.
• April 2008: Here we are one year later, and although we still (and maybe will always) miss living in New York, we have grown to love our little butter-yellow home with the white picket fence. We have many blessings to count down here -- our neighbors, our old friends, our new friends. And our family is larger by one tiny person we all adore.

The Importance of Being Still

With my two New York City babies, I was out and about within 48 hours of their births. I would bundle them up, grab my favorite sling, and walk a half-block to the bodega, or around the corner to our beloved coffee shop, the Pillow Cafe. I walked to the playground, the supermarket, and in the case of itty bitty Delia, my second-born, to her older brother Elias' preschool, a brisk 15-minute stroll away.

I remember having to trek into Manhattan when Elias was eight days old to visit my then-midwives. My husband and I ate an early-bird dinner at an Upper West Side diner with E in the Baby Bjorn. All the Bubbes came over to ooh and aah over such a small bundle. Nearly three years later, I co-chaired a day-long fund-raiser at Elias' cooperative preschool when Delia was 10 days old. Again, a few people commented at how tiny she was, but no one scolded me for being out of the house. It just seemed the norm -- to me, at least -- that postpartum city mamas return to city living incredibly fast.

Now that I've had my third -- and almost certainly, last -- child (he was born March 13), I want things to go slower. This is my DC burbs babe, Jonah. He was born at home, in a completely relaxed and loving atmosphere. And for the first time in my postpartum experience, I have no desire to run out and do anything.

Sure, maybe it's because there aren't coffee shops and green grocers  -- or anything except for neighbors' homes -- within a block or two of my house to tempt me away. That's definitely part of it. But it's also because I have a real desire to nest in with this baby. Since my husband is off work this week and taking care of me, all the household chores plus the older kids, I'm content to just relax. This may, after all, be the only week I get a chance to do nothing but focus on a newborn ever again. That wasn't something I thought about with my first two, but now I look at my five-day-old's tiny face and think: "Be still. Enjoy this moment. Don't rush back into the daily blur of domestic life one instant sooner than you have to."

So feel free to call me lazy. I don't care. I am taking it nice and easy this time. I have no merit badges to earn for "fastest postpartum mother to X, Y, Z." I'm going to savor the stillness of this final babymoon, however short it must be due to my husband's schedule and no close family nearby. There will be no Starbucks runs or trips to Target. There will be no premature outings to the local family restaurants. There will be just our little family, hanging out at home, loving our little Maryland arrival.

Originally posted at DC Metro Moms Blog

In Praise of Good Neighbors

Since moving to our new home six months ago, we've become close to two sets of neighbors. One family has four girls, ranging from almost seven-year-old twins to a 15-year-old. The mom is an awesome baker with a small dessert catering business. The other family has two girls: one in elementary school and one in middle school. Both families have been a godsend since we moved -- lending us household appliances, helping the husband move furniture, providing much-needed "new homeowner" advice and, most importantly, babysitting the kids. They are very different families -- the one with two girls are fellow Obama supporters, the one with four girls are apolitical; the two girls go to a posh DC private school, while the four girls all attend public school, etc -- but they are all amazingly caring and generous, and they have made me (especially since the husband works long lawfirm hours) feel at home on this block.

Twice a week, my neighbor L -- the baker -- has her 15-year-old daughter pick up the kids and walk them across the street for dinner and a playdate. It's not only a two-hour break for mama, but it's a great time for the kids, who are quite attached to the twins. One of the twins has even decided she and E are a "prince and princess." The regular visits often end in a doggy bag of food for the husband and me and home-made treats by a professional baker. What could be better?

My other neighbor, M, was so concerned about me one day she brought me a take-out dinner. When I called her later on to ask how much I owed her, she shushed me and said "Don't even think about it. We're neighbors!" Since I'm usually on the receiving end of the favors, I was thrilled when in one week M and L needed to borrow sugar and milk, respectively, for recipes. A couple of afternoons later, when I was feeling particularly energetic, I hosted the twins for a playdate while L delivered desserts to a VIP client. The girls were great, and it was good to repay the generosity.

As much as I loved living in New York, we never had the stereotypical "cup of sugar" relationship  with our apartment neighbors. We were friends with various building mates, but we didn't rely on each other on a regular basis, so this sense of community is all new to us. What I love about my neighbors is that they aren't necessarily people we would've seen ourselves bonding with, but here we are, forever in debt to the way they've treated us since the day we moved in!

Do you have amazing neighbors? Tell me about them.

A Sense of Loneliness

Today, before picking up the Schmoopette from an after-school art class, I stopped at a tiny strip mall where I deposited a few checks and then visited the local consignment shop to find out my balance. It had been a day of errands and phone calls, and it was sweet to see the manager, Tina, who's always quick with a smile, a kind word, and a funny anecdote about her tween-aged kids. We were chatting, and she said she needed new jeans. I suggested a particular brand, and she responded: "Hurry up and have the baby, so we can go shopping together." I laughed, smiled, and now that I think about it, the comment made me realize that she is indeed a friend here. One of very few I've managed to make since we moved down in April.

And it's not for lack of trying. I joined the PTA, including an event's sub-committee, at the Schmoop's school. I enrolled the Schmoopette in a cooperative preschool, where I volunteer in-class with another parent twice a month. I joined the area's listserv of moms. The Schmoop is in the biggest soccer club in town -- the one that's not for the aggressive players, anyway. I'm open, friendly and easy to talk to, and yet my only friends here are my housekeeper, two neighbors, the wife of my husband's friend, an online friend who lives too far to see on a regular basis and a good friend who lives nearby but whom I rarely see -- and, apparently Tina at the consignment shop.

Now that the birth of the baby is only a couple months away, I feel this real void. I'm panicked that there will be no one I can all to come over and calm me down if/when the Schmoopadoo turns my life around. I'm feeling so needy that I even became desperate to join a church on the sole basis of whether it had a meals ministry, because for the first time in my three pregnancies, I don't know who in my zip code will give a damn about my baby's birth or whether we've got a stocked kitchen. And no, overly-eager mothers in law don't count.

It's not that I'm depressed, because I love my house, and I love having the opportunity to work from home. I love my kids' schools and our new neighborhood. I love the fact that, God willing, I will have this baby in our home. I'm happy with the blessings we've been bestowed. But I miss walking (walking -- what's that?) outside and seeing at least three people I care about and who care about me. I miss having a close friend's family live in the same building. I miss my brother living 30 minutes away, even if we only saw each other once a month or so. I miss my Brooklyn neighborhood, my coffee shop, which is the only place I've EVER felt like Norm from "Cheers." I'm still not sure who this Urban Mama is in the Suburbs.

I know it's not becoming for privileged women (and I consider most married women who can stay at home or work part-time to be at least somewhat privileged) to whine, but I'm not complaining about what I don't "have"; I'm just sad that I don't have a tribe down here. That there is no formula for creating or belonging to a close-knit group of women who love you, support you, pray with you and have fun with you. For that I have to turn to the Web, but my online friends, as precious as they are, can't stop over for tea or accompany me to a movie screening, or meet me for a day of mundane errands.

So, I pray, and send out to the universe with a full and heavy heart, that this baby will be loved by more than just the four of us in this house. That I can find my tribe of friends soon, because at 31, it isn't such an easy endeavor anymore.

10 Things That Are Better Down Here

My friend reminded me recently that when I'm down I always count my blessings, so I've decided to think of 10 things that have improved since moving to the DC burbs.

1. My driving skills -- or skillz as we used to say at Moviefone -- have gotten considerably better
2. Food is cheaper, even the Starbucks iced mochas I've resorted to buying now that Pillow is 225 miles away
3. The kids play much better together (even though they naturally get on each other's nerves) now that they have a big room of their own.
4. I no longer miss working full time. I used to feel bummed about not working at my old job, but now I'm relieved and grateful I no longer have to clock in. It's not the kind of job I'd want to have with my young kids.
5. I've received many more freelance assignments recently, and I'm bringing home more than I imagined.
6. Househunting has made me realize that owning a home is really important to me, and it would be a dream come true to have a place. This wouldn't have been possible in New York.
7. Our apartment complex has a pool, which is perfect for lazy summer afternoons.
8. Trader Joe's frozen entrees rock, and they're super easy to cook prepare
9. All of the museums in DC are FREE!
10. We go to the library every week, and it actually has a great children's collection.

That was good to do. Maybe next time it won't take two days to think of 10 things! Has anyone else had major moving pains as an adult? I'd love to know how you made it through.