Moving for Idiots

You know how sometimes, as a wife, mom, woman, human being, etc., life takes over and time just disappears like you’ve been abducted by aliens? Yeah, that’s what the last few months have been like.  All the anticipation of future events (moving, new restaurant opening, etc.) has now faded as these events have actually occurred.  However, all the energy that was dedicated to them meant precious little time was devoted to the blog.  I can’t tell you how many incomplete starter posts are filling the Notes section of my iPhone.  As a result, now that I have all this free time, you can anticipate lots of upcoming entries on such outdated events as my 21^st birthday, the Cuban missile crisis, and my thoughts on the birth of Prince George.

Most life-altering event to occur over the past few months? We finally moved.  Yes, after twelve years, I finally said a fond farewell to my rent controlled one bedroom apartment in Hamilton Heights, and the clan Rafferty has moved onward and upward to Hudson Heights.  After surviving the experience, I have some wisdom to share.

      1. Move often or never.

I thought I did a really good job purging.  I took at least four big bags of stuff to the Salvation Army.  We tossed three crappy pieces of furniture. I threw away sheets with holes.  And yet, after allllll that, it took two days to move twelve years of crap.  I recently ran a 5K with a friend, who also helped us move (and is still my friend), and asked him if he was saving his race bib.  He gently reminded me that he had moved five times in six years, and part of doing that with ease was not holding on to piles of crap like race bibs.  So if you’re a person who, ahem, “accumulates,” don’t ever move.  Or move a lot, and odds are you’ll keep less and less every time.

      2. Hire movers.

I moved from a closet-sized room in a shared apartment in Williamsburg to an enormous one bedroom in 2003; the Husband showed up on my doorstep in 2007 with a rucksack, duffel bag, and a boomerang from his year in Australia.  We are moving amateurs.  He figured a few of our beefiest friends would be enough to shove everything in a UHaul.  Two trips, one lost UHaul dolly, and an old apartment still full of stuff later, he conceded that my original request to hire movers had merit.

3.  Pack your stuff in actual boxes.

Our moving supplies included proper moving boxes, a mishmash of beer and wine boxes from the bar, and several boxes of garbage bags from Target.  We did a horrible job packing.  We are moving amateurs, remember? There were a lot of things still being shoved into tote bags and plastic bins on the morning of the move.  I read a lot of “tips” on fancier mom blogs – color coded tape! Paper plates as dish barriers! None of that happened.  I mean, we were kind of organized.  I’d say the most effective thing we did was packing 90% of our most important items in clear plastic bins.  What you can see, you can find.  On that note – boxes labeled “kitchen,” “living room,” etc, are useless.  You have to write what’s IN them on the OUTSIDE.  I spent half an hour searching desperately for a mug on our first morning in the new place. How am I supposed to unpack without coffee?! I fared better in Mini’s room, where Dogfish Head boxes were neatly labeled “soft toys,” “sheets & blankets,” etc.  However, if anyone has seen the baby monitor, please let me know.

     4. Have someplace to put your stuff when you unpack.

In a weak moment, I allowed the Husband to throw away the 17-year-old Ikea dresser that I got from my best friend, who got it from our friend Isaac.  It’ll be nice to have a proper dresser.  See what I did there? “To have.”  Meaning, “currently don’t have.”  Meaning, I’m living out of Space Bags and suitcases.  Who knows where anything is? There’s a very real possibility that I might end up wearing a cocktail dress to work this week because I can’t find any pants.

5. Throw away anything you don’t feel like packing.

I mean it.  Dump it.  This was a huge leap for me, the ultimate keeper.  But as you’re getting closer to move date, and you’re torn over saving your last bits of bubble wrap for your wine collection, say sayonara to all those tchotchkes that never looked right anyway.  I recommend tossing your bathroom scale.

     6. Don’t go on vacation right before you move.

We were supposed to move July 1^st, but our new place was still undergoing renovations, so we postponed until the 6^th.  I was still stubbornly determined to travel down to Virginia with Mini to visit my family for Independence Day; the Husband gallantly offered to finish up the majority of the packing.  I promised I’d be back early to help with the last bits.  Alas, a five hour trip took eleven; I arrived home with an exhausted baby who had vomited spectacularly all over herself halfway up 95, and wanted nothing more than to lie on the bed in our empty bedroom with a pizza and Netflix on my iPad.  This was definitely a contributing factor to our move taking two days.

     7. Ask Mom.

If yours is anything like mine, she will drive up from Virginia, follow you around your home with a garbage bag and “encourage” you to purge those ratty towels and cracked fridge magnets.  She will drive you to Home Goods and encourage you to buy grown up things like a toothbrush holder with matching soap dish, and silly things like a big fluffy aqua rug for Mini’s ocean-themed bedroom.  She will take your toddler out for the day, swinging by IHOP and getting her down for a nap way better than you can.  She’ll lend you her car for the myriad trips back and forth and not bat an eye when you return it with a quarter tank of gas.  Then she’ll go home, and return three days later with a bag full of shelf liner, so you can run a nighttime 5K.  Thank you Mom.  We owe you all of the flowers.

     8.  Don’t run a 5K the weekend after you move.

Especially if it’s at night, and in Sheepshead Bay, the literal opposite end of the Five Boroughs from where we live.  It was my first 5K, I had trained for it and everything, and it was the Color Run, which meant I arrived home at 1:30 AM covered in glowing cornstarch powder and fake tattoos.  I can’t accurately describe the physical pain I was in on Sunday morning.  Save your strength for the important stuff, like hauling cardboard boxes down to the basement.

    9. Get everything delivered.

It’s a new neighborhood.  So far I’ve found the Dunkin Donuts, four playgrounds, and a great wine shop.  I’m relying heavily on a city girl’s best friend in order to survive – delivery.  Specifically boxed.com for bulk items, Fresh Direct for groceries, Familyhood sites like soap.com and diapers.com for baby and household necessities, and sites like wayfair.com and dotandbo.com for well-priced furniture and accent pieces to replace the ones the Husband left on the curb.  Also, since moving sucks money out of your bank account like a Hogwarts siphoning spell, I always access these sites through ebates.com.  Seriously, why isn’t everyone using Ebates? They just GIVE YOU MONEY for clicking through to your chosen site via theirs. And it’s not just a bunch of stupid sites, either.  It’s probably every e-commerce site you’re already shopping on.  P.S. I don’t work for Ebates.  I just love telling people about how I get free money for shopping.  You can sign up via this link and they’ll give me a little bonus for signing up people, but they do that for everyone.  They even give you a bonus just for signing up.  There is no catch. Shop online, get a check every three months.  That’s it.  Boom.  Mic drop.

    10. Skip unpacking to explore your new neighborhood.

Not only should you know where the best liquor store is, but taking a break from the terror of unpacking means a chance to de-stress and get a new perspective.  I still can’t find half our plates, but we did find our way to Fort Tryon Park, an absolutely exquisite urban oasis at the tip of Manhattan, and home to a Metropolitan Museum of Art annex, the Cloisters Museum and Gardens.  And we got ice cream on the way home.  Win win.

 So, there you have it, my foolproof tips for the foolish on the subject of moving.  Now that we are no longer amateurs, I feel highly qualified to give you this advice.  We still have a lot to do to get completely settled, but the most important thing is we are together, and we have wine and toilet paper.  All those pictures will just hang themselves, right?

Love, the Rafferty Girls  

It's Paddy, Not Patty

From my Irish husband, to me, to you, it’s Paddy, not Patty!  Patty is the nice lady who lives down the street and brought over lemon bars and frozen lasagna when you moved in.  Paddy is the drunk guy with super red cheeks who threw up on your shoes last St. Patrick’s Day.

Mini was only five weeks old when we gussied her up in green and took her out on the town for her first St Patrick’s Day.  My mom still has some choice words for us about that.  Paddy’s Day is by far the easiest and most guiltless time of year when it comes to celebrating her biracial identity.  We just stuff her in a “Daddy’s Lucky Charm” t-shirt and call it a day.  No one is surprised when they find out she’s half Irish, but there is a part of me that feels oddly protective of that part of her heritage.  You’d think it would be the opposite.  I admit to being weirdly, embarrassingly defensive about the fact that she doesn’t meet the expectations of others in regards to her biracial appearance, but my family and I will always be here to represent her blackness and provide a familial example of that part of her culture.  My husband’s choice to move to the US to be with me meant sacrificing his own family and culture back in Ireland.  I try not to take that for granted.  St Patrick’s Day is a day when we are all Irish, which does mean more than drinking as much green beer as possible.  There’s an amazing spirit and camaraderie that the Irish exemplify, which is why it’s so easy to embrace it.  I’m very proud to be Irish by association, and look forward to celebrating that with Mini as she grows up.  She already has her own mini hurling stick and  sliotar.  There will, without a doubt, be Irish dancing lessons in her future, and more than one summer spent running around Meath with her cousins.     

One of the blessings in being a multiethnic family is being able to educate each other on our cultures and send a more conscientious, compassionate child into the world.  Is it my responsibility to celebrate her Irishness, rather than focusing on her American blackness? Shouldn’t I be taking charge of educating her on African-American history, signing her up for Jack & Jill and Radical Brownies, preparing her for the realities of bigotry and racism, while also encouraging her pride and identity in being black? It’s been mentioned to me on more than one occasion that perhaps we focus too much on her being Irish and not enough on her being black.  Truth be told, I suppose that’s because it’s easy.  As much as we’d like for it to be so, we don’t live in a post-racial society just because Barack Obama is president, and 13 months is not the right age to be lecturing a kid who can’t even say her own name.  I do worry about her not being fully embraced by either culture.  What does it mean to be black enough or Irish enough?  I’m not sure there’s a proper answer to such a question.  I can only expect the Husband – who has been delightfully claimed for “our side” by my family – to be as proud and respectful of my side of her heritage as I am of his, and that we both accept responsibility and accountability for making sure she knows exactly where she’s come from.  I do not doubt his ability to do so, even when it comes to dealing with the crap situations that present themselves to us both.  

By strange coincidence, both of us have had someone refer to her as our “white-ass baby” in the last month alone – me, fielding insensitive comments from a drunk woman in a restaurant who thought she was being clever by declaring that Devin would be more interesting somehow, and the Husband, riding the subway with Mini and verbally accosted by a drunk man who used some very colorful language in an attempt to assert some kind of dominance over them.  I think we both did the right thing in terms of our reactions – rolling our eyes and walking away.  If we try to tackle every bit of ludicrous injustice we’re faced with, we won’t have time to embrace such cultural stereotypes like drinking whiskey and eating fried chicken.  What is important, however, will be making sure that Mini feels nothing but pride in both sides of her heritage and will know that we have nothing but pride in the perfect little curly-haired minion we’ve created.

And that can start with St. Patrick’s Day – in her green “I’m Black and I’m Proud” onesie!

So please enjoy the holiday with all the little leprechauns in your life, and remember to be safe, use a designated driver if you’re drinking, and wear green so you don’t get pinched!

Love, the Rafferty Girls

Lucky Sevens - The Skincare Hit List

Introducing a new blog feature – Lucky Sevens!

Every week or so, I’d like to share seven of my favorite things with you! Why seven? When left to Google endlessly, I could come up with three hundred and seven things I’d like to share, but seven seems like a nice reasonable number to get the point across.  To kick things off, I’m focusing on seven of my favorite skin care items.  I have long been obsessed with skin care, ever since I first used my mom’s Pond’s cold cream and Lancôme bi-facile eye makeup remover to slough off my stage makeup at weekend dance competitions.  My needs have expanded a bit since then, and I’d be lying if I didn’t confess that I’m a full on junkie.  We’re talking Sephora VIB Rouge status, people.  Now that I’m in my mid-thirties and facing the challenges of A) trying to stay young forever and B) in the absence of that, at least appear to get seven hours of sleep rather than the five I actually get these days, I’m looking for products with certain buzz words – ANTI-AGING! RETINOL! BRIGHTENING! FIRMING! These lucky sevens are faves, but certainly not all the tools in my arsenal.  For that, I truly would need lucky 307s.

1. Fresh Lotus Youth Preserve Cream - a must for day and night.  It's super moisturizing, especially in the brutal dryness of my overheated apartment.
2. Philosophy Help Me- this is a crucial part of my night time routine.  The retinols in this tube are a one-two-three punch against wrinkles, dark spots, and blemishes.
3. Korres Black Pine Firming, Lifting, and Anti-Wrinkle Cream - this is a new addition to my arsenal, and layered over the Help Me, it could stick around and help me turn back the hands of time.  Buzz words, people.  Buzz words.
4. St Ive's Apricot Scrub - this is one of my lifelong drugstore favorites. I've used a lot of scrubs over the years, but this one always comes out on top.
5. Philosophy Hope in A Tube -  truthfully, I could have had a Lucky Sevens dedicated entirely to Philosophy products, and while I like to share the love, there's no way I could leave this out. Not only is it a great eye cream, but it also fills in the frownie lines around my mouth.  Wait, those aren't frownies.  Those are smilies!
6. Bliss Fabulous Foaming Face Wash - there's no better way to start the day off than with this deliciously scented, gently exfoliating face wash.  I love to use it with my Clarisonic Mia brush for extra impact.
7. Origins Clear Improvement Active Charcoal Mask - I am an arbiter of masks, but this one has been a recent fave.  Cursed with thirsty pores, I need a good product to vacuum them out.  Charcoal-based products have replaced sulfur-based products in my heart. 

Chime in, friends! What skincare products are in your war chest?

Best Year Ever.

Wow, what a year.

On February 12, my adorable, tender, adventurous, darling baby Mini turned one.  It’s been, without a doubt, the fastest year of my life.  It’s been both easier and more difficult than I imagined it would be.  How can I accurately reflect on the last 365 days in just a few paragraphs? Quite simply, I can’t.  I can only paint broad strokes while focusing in on the most minute details – the feeling of carrying her through the snow into our apartment building, setting her car seat down in the middle of the living room, and thinking, “now what?”; the stomach churn of snapping her into my most favorite newborn onesie, only to come to the sad realization that it was entirely too small; the pride from pushing her around in her stroller, passing other moms and smiling empathetically or having strangers coo and make faces at her on the subway; the volume of her voice when we squeal back and forth at each other while I do the dishes and she pushes her baby grocery cart around the kitchen.  I remember the feeling of standing over her on her changing table at three in the morning, willing myself not to cry over my exhaustion and confusion because there were mothers out there who’d lost their children, women aching to be mothers, who would give anything to be standing where I was at that very moment.  I remember every person who felt obligated to point out how much she doesn’t look like me or ask whose baby she was, since she “obviously” wasn’t mine.  I still feel a jolt of shock and immeasurable love when I look into her crib and see her sleeping.  My baby.  My little baby girl.

We had a big party over the weekend, held in the party room of a friend’s restaurant because the combination of apartment living and sub-zero temperatures limit birthday party location options.  I agonized over it for weeks, scouring Etsy for the “perfect” headband, birthday banner, and fluffy fairy wings for her fairy garden fete, pinning dozens of perfect party images on Pinterest, parties planned by moms far more creative and intrepid than myself, and discussing it over and over again with my mom and sister-in-law, both of whom would have done a far better job if I had let them take over from the beginning.  Naturally, I forgot to take good blogtastic photos and apologize for this sad little collage.

Lots of people asked why I was agonizing so desperately over a party that Mini would clearly have no recollection of, but I will.  I will remember.  This was also an opportunity to say thank you to our village.  Thank you to my mom and dad, who drove us home from the hospital, going ten miles an hour in a blizzard and slept on our couch that first night home, who have kept Mini in the finest designer threads, who have FaceTimed on a nightly basis, singing songs through an iPad.  Thank you to my brother and sister-in-law, who sent boxes of party supplies for an event they couldn’t attend.  Thank you to my best friend, who didn’t write me off because I have forgotten to return her calls more often than I remember to.  Thank you to our co-workers, who have supported our transition into the real world with child with more enthusiasm and love than we could have hoped for.  Thank you to our friends, who get to the restaurant ahead of time and secure a high chair while we apologetically smack everyone around us with a diaper bag.  Thank you to our family and friends overseas, especially Husband’s mom, dad, and siblings, who are thriving on oddly timed Skype calls and whose thoughtful gifts always arrive on time. 

Thank you to my husband, who more often than not spends all day with Mini with only a few hours sleep and never complains, who pushes her stroller up and down the hallways of our apartment building to get her to nap, who scrambles eggs and changes diapers and plays “one two threes” for hours on end. 

Thank you to Mini, who, in spite of my occasional shortcomings, never, ever, ever fails to look at me like I am the best, most exciting, smartest, most creative, funniest, and most loving mom in the universe.  Thank you for making this the best year ever.  

NO MOM IS AN ISLAND

Looking At the Vaccine Debate From a Different Angle

On February 12, 2015, my little Mini turns one.  I think most parents can agree that the first year of their child’s life is the fastest year of their lives.  It seems like only minutes ago that we were watching The Bachelor and I was pacing uncomfortably around my living room, Husband convinced this thing was about to happen and me convinced that I had just eaten too many Oreos.  I had gone back and forth over whether or not I wanted my mom in the delivery room with us, but at 4 AM I was on the phone begging her to get in her car and drive up from Virginia just as fast as those four wheels could get her to New York City.  Someday I may write in more detail about my labor – the overcrowded hospital, the sudden onset preeclampsia, the Olympic pairs figure skating on the TV in the background, the med student witnessing his first delivery – but as I reflect on this past year, no moment is more important than the moment they plopped that wriggly little six pounder in my arms and told me I was a mom.

Please excuse the tragic hospital hair.

In the last twelve months, I’ve done things I never said I would, or not done all the things I was sure I would.  I swore up and down I would never breastfeed on the subway.  That lasted about two months (thanks Hooter Hider!).   I swore I would never put the baby in the bed with us.  Luckily she sleeps great in her crib, but sometimes there are late nights (and early mornings) where Mini just needs Mama and Dada on either side of her.  Who knows what I will or won’t do in the future as we move forward, but here again my mantra rings true – all we can do is the best we can do.

I was hesitant to wander into the vaccine debate raging around the country right now, but as we get ready to take Mini for her MMR vaccine, I thought about whether or not this was something I’d be willing to waver on.  Personally, I am 100% comfortable with our decision to vaccinate, just as I’m sure those families who have decided against it are with their choice not to.  I recently saw an interview with an Arizona doctor, who chooses not to vaccinate his children and keep them “pure” (that’s an interesting reference, but I digress), and also spoke quite plainly about not caring whether or not his children made other children ill.  Is that really the kind of attitude we want to teach children in our society, that it doesn’t matter what you do to someone else? Take away the vaccine issue and insert another topic.  If you have more than enough food for your child, do you not care if another child goes hungry? If your child is getting a quality education, do you not care if another child gets no education? Whatever happened to “it takes a village to raise a child?” Must I accept a society wherein it’s okay for someone to say we shouldn’t care about one another?

I’m never going to be a perfect mother or make all the perfect choices, but I’m trying my hardest to put something good into the world.  I want to contribute to the village, and let the village shape who we are as a family and who Mini will grow to be as an individual.  I want to raise her to share her toys, play with the other kids on the playground, and stand up to bullies.  I want her to volunteer with those who are less fortunate and be reminded that just because she “has,” not only is she no better than the “have-nots,” but there is reward in doing good for others. I want her to see the value in young women who spread joy, love, and positivity. 

My understanding and interpretation of this poem by John Donne, which I first read in high school, has changed and evolved over the years, but it’s always something I think back to when I find myself losing sight of the bigger picture.  I’m not here to tell anyone what to do or not do.  I’m only here to say I want to be in this village with you because I care about you and your family, and I hope the feeling is mutual.

No man is an island,

Entire of itself,

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.                   

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thy friend’s

Or of thine own were:

Any man’s death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind;

And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

Keeping Up With The Momses - Stroller Edition

When Mini was just a few weeks old and I was sitting on the couch in a zombie state nursing her in the middle of the night, I turned to Netflix for company. In a fit of nostalgia, I put on "Look Who's Talking" for a good laugh. Back in 1991, Kirstie Alley was pushing baby Mikey around in a two-foot high umbrella stroller, and John Travolta stuck a car seat that looked like a folding chair forward-facing in the front seat. Thanks to safety standards and "experts," so much has changed since then. But ever since Miranda Hobbs rolled Brady out in his thousand dollar Bugaboo stroller, the name brand baby game has taken on a whole new meaning. How are we new moms meant to keep up with our musical playgroup and baby gymnastics counterparts?

Can your baby sleep in it?





When Sex and the City came along and took up the task of exposing the world's females to the finer things in life, suddenly we were all dreaming of Manolo Blahnik Mary Janes and Dior purses, no matter which "girl you were" (I'm a Carrie with a healthy dose of Charlotte, fwiw).  The ink was barely dry on my first big paycheck from Real Simple before I was in line at Bloomingdales to scoop up the Marc Jacobs purse I had always dreamed of. As a singleton, I had few qualms about postponing a cable bill in favor of a trip to Intermix. When my FRER turned pink, I could hardly wait to zip off to Buy Buy Baby and register for a Bugaboo Chameleon. After all, I couldn't walk by a park or a NY Kids Club without tripping over one, so that’s what a fab girl like me was supposed to have, right?

Do dogs like it?
 

With the advent of Pinterest and savvy mom blogs, I began to look at the broader world of baby gear. Why hadn't I considered a $1200 Stokke? Who put out the memo that an UppaBaby Vista was the stroller du jour? Should I get an Orbit Baby, so Mini could sit at a 47-degree angle? How was I meant to pick from all these fabulous rides? I thought back to "Shopaholic and Baby," the hilarious book by Sophie Kinsella, the warehouse with an all-terrain testing course for a wide range of strollers, and the four strollers Becky insisted she needed. If such a place existed, surely there was one in New York City. Alas, the best I could find was the showroom floor at Buy Buy Baby and their well-informed staff and wide range of choices. We pushed the Chameleon and its all-terrain wheels around for a while, then moved onto the Bee, which seemed oddly low to the ground.  The Vista looked like a Dodge Ram up close, and Husband wondered if the Stokke would tip over.   

 Does your husband look cute standing next to it?

If my life were centered around Union Square or the Upper West Side, or if my stroller were just being used for neighborhood walks or trips to a suburban mall, the stroller that weighs 27 lbs without adding baby, infant seat, diaper bag, and the additional 15 lbs of stuff that I need, may have stayed at the top of the list, as long as it was the one I wanted and not the one the Momses were telling me I should have.  The Momses aren’t helping me carry all that weight up and down the subway steps, and too frequently, neither is anyone else.  So, we settled on the ride that seemed to match us best.  We love our Cruz (and the customer service – thanks for the wheels that arrived in two days after ours were damaged in a snowstorm!). We love its comfy ride, light weight, front- and rear-facing capacity, and giant lower basket.  It would be nice if we could fold it while the seat was rear-facing, or with one hand, and should another little Mini come along, it’s the Vista that converts to a double, not the Cruz.  But we love the brand and will probably turn to them again when it’s time to invest in an umbrella stroller that can handle the mean streets of NYC.  Picking a stroller is likely to be the first (and definitely not the last) piece of baby gear that you will have to choose for yourself, and not the Momses.  So hang in there.

No, seriously.  CAN THEY SLEEP IN IT?

 

Time to crowdsource – what’s that piece of baby gear that tempted you with its name brand and flashy looks? If you chose to skip it, do you have any regrets?

Love, the Rafferty girls

A Family-Friendly Super Bowl Night Out

The Super Bowl approaches!! Seeing as how my beloved Washington football team hasn't had a real shot in ages, my level of interest varies depending on how much money my husband has invested in gambling opportunities, but there are a few things even the most disinterested can relate to - conversation-starting commercials, yummy snacks, and beer. Or cocktails, depending on your taste. This is the first year in many that we haven't hosted a party at our home. Yes, that was me frying chicken and baking cookies at 39 weeks pregnant last year and using the changing table as a snack station. This year we've been invited to a party at our friend's bar. "A bar? With a baby?! On Super Bowl Sunday?!?!" Slow your roll, haters. It's a small gathering of good friends in a comfortable, private room. Adding to that, Mini is a city baby. The rules are slightly different in NYC. We are a city of people who left their families (read: grandmas as baby-sitters) in our home towns, and child care here can often cost more than the night out itself. There are absolutely places and occasions wherein Mini can (and should) stay home, but my understanding of people doing their best to have a happy child AND a life has grown since I joined their ranks, and even though many of my friends are still childless, they enjoy having Mini around and encourage us to bring her.

So, to the bar we will go on Sunday night. As Mini grows and matures, her diaper bag needs have changed. It went from three spare outfits, bottles and blankets to one spare onesie, snacks and books. If I'm going out for a quick errand, both she and I are happy with her in Ergo carrier, but if we'll be out for a few hours, our UppaBaby Cruz is a dream ride - and just light enough for me to haul up and down subway stairs on my own if necessary.  It's also got a great big storage basket underneath, which means I can bring along those few little extras.

Since we'll be hanging out for a few hours, and settled in one spot, I'll be bringing along some creature comforts from home to keep her happy. Aden + Anais swaddle blankets still get a lot of use in our lives, because they take up so little space in a bag but make a great play area. I'm also obsessed with PackIt's foldable cooler bags. They make them in a variety of shapes and sizes, and because the bag itself freezes rather than dealing with freezer blocks, they're so much more lightweight and diaper bag-friendly than traditional cooler bags. Mini is not quite into buffalo wings yet, so I'll be bringing along some of her travel favorites - string cheese, squeezable applesauce and yogurt pouches, grapes, and blueberries.

Normally I try to keep the toys to a minimum because they add a ton of weight, but I'm thinking of bringing along her Leapfrog tea pot and tea set. It's not very big or heavy, and it's an interactive toy that we can play along with her. Her Skip Hop Pronto changing station is a must. Sometimes the standard diaper bag changing mats just don't cut it if you're out somewhere with no changing table and need to utilize a less traditional location. And since the game may interfere with our (occasionally flexible) bedtime, Mini will be changing into pajamas around halftime for an easy transition into bed when we get home.

Here's a fun fact for city parents - Uber has a fleet of drivers who provide a flex car seat that fold into their trunks. All the drivers who have one were required to take a training class with Dr. Alisa Baer, aka the Car Seat Lady. You can request one of these cars directly from the Uber app's front page in many cities, and it's a word-of-mouth-type situation in others.
For those of you not bringing along a baby, here are my thoughts for you  -
*If you're going to a friend's house, bring something other than a bag of chips or a six pack of beer only you will enjoy.  We're adults now.  Thinking outside the box? Bring a pack of toilet paper.  When your host is standing in their bathroom at 1 AM wondering where all the TP went, you'll be their favorite friend ever.
*If you don't win any money, don't get mad.  At least you didn't just lose a Super Bowl.
*If you hit it off with someone at the bar/house party, don't make out in front of your friends, and don't go home with that person.  It's Sunday night. Go to work in the morning and make arrangements for this little thing called a date, where you spend quality time getting to know someone you like.  It's an old-fashioned concept, but one I endorse.

Have fun and be safe!
The Rafferty Girls


Ergobaby Original Baby Carrier, $120
UppaBaby Cruz, starting at $499
aden by aden + anais Muslin swaddle 4-Pack in Life's a Hoot, $34.99
PackIt Double Bottle Bag in Dots, $19.99 and Personal Cooler in Dots, $20.99
Skip Hop Duo Diaper Bag in Metro Stripe, $58  and Pronto! Changing Station in Metro Stripe, $30
Baby Einstein Discover and Play Piano, $19.99 and Leapfrog Musical Rainbow Tea Party, $18
uberFamily in the DMV

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My Life As A Passable Mom

Hello to you!  Thank you for reading this blog, when there are so many other, better blogs for you to enjoy.  Blogging is one of those things that anyone can do, I get that.  I mean, literally.  Anyone can have a blog.  The bowl of Cheerios I just ate can have a blog.  So why have I decided to do this? Besides it being my New Year’s resolution, I felt a profound need to share my point of view.  It has changed and evolved tremendously since my daughter entered my life.  Truth be told, I meant to start this blog while I was pregnant.  I’d be very interested to know what that blog would have been like.  In its absence, I’ve decided to go this way.  So what am I going to blog about, you ask?  

I live in New York City.  It’s awesome here, just like on TV.  It’s wonderful and terrible and beautiful and disgusting and I love it and I hate it.  I moved here to be a movie star, and instead starred on a PBS series and an episode of Dawson’s Creek and in a whole bunch of TV commercials, which I enjoy.  I met an Irish guy and we fell in love.  When people ask how we met, I have a line that I still think is really funny, even after ten years – “where do you meet an Irish guy?” And then I wait for people to guess, which they don’t, so I respond, “in a bar!” And then they guffaw and snort and wish they’d thought of it.  We got married.  We enjoyed being married.  I got pregnant.  I teased my husband constantly about his future life as the Irish guy with the brown baby.  I bought children’s books on slavery and the Civil Rights Movement, so he could learn all about his future child’s blackness.  He did not read them.  I had an awesome pregnancy, which meant I had a pretty awful labor.  And at the end of it, they handed me my totally perfect baby, who looks everything like her father and not very much like her mother, so the joke was on me. 

Now that the sob story is out of the way, don’t worry.  This blog is not political, or angry, or sad.  It’s just my thoughts on surviving as a mom, surviving as a mom in a big city, surviving as a mom to a biracial child, showing off when I’ve done something really momtastic, and confessing when I’ve done something totally idiotic.  I love to pretend at domesticity, so on the days I don’t eat Cheerios for lunch, I will share some of those cool recipes.  Remember when I said I starred on a PBS series? It was called Real Simple, and the product of that incredible lifestyle magazine for women far more passable than I, but I learned a few things and remembered one or two.  I’ll tell you what positively works for me and what absolutely doesn’t.  No one is paying me (yet) or giving me products to endorse (yet), so if I do mention a product, it’s one I bought, my mom bought, or was purchased with gift cards from my baby shower.  If I look cute and can find someone to take my picture, I will share my #OOTD.  But I’ll probably be wearing Ugg slippers and a t-shirt, so it’s probably better that I share my daughter’s #OOTD.  I promise to use minimal hashtags and maximum words with double O’s.  Thank you for coming along this journey with me.