A few weeks ago my mother, Joanie, called me up all atwitter, as she often does after reading not one but two newspapers first thing in the morning. (Bless her heart, she is singlehandedly keeping the physical, print version of the newspaper alive.) “Guess what!” she chirped. “The newspaper says that according to the census,…
Fashion
Mini in Miami
Amalía and I are in New York, but we brought a little bit of Miami with us. Two little bits actually: the shiny gold studs in Amalía’s tiny ears. Read all about it in the post “Baby’s First Bling”, which I wrote for the Townies column of the Opinionator blog in the New York Times’…
Splitting Hairs
They say marriage is about compromise. My daughter is wearing ours on her head. In Nicaragua, where my husband’s from, it’s customary to shave babies’ heads on the theory that their hair will grow in longer, lusher, and healthier. In New York, where I’m from, it’s customary to shave the heads of convicts and privates…
The Naked Truth
More people have seen me topless in the last two months than in my entire life leading up to this point–and I’m including the first five years or so when I ran around many a Greek beach in nothing but a diaper. I came to this realization last week when I opened the door for…
The Mob and the Blob
It’s been a big week in our house. Not just because we graduated from hypnobirthing, had our infant CPR class and welcomed the first of the three grandmothers flocking like fairy godmothers to Florida to await the birth of the baby Amalía (we’re ready when you are, kid). But also because one of our cable…
Beauty from Birth
At our childbirth prep class on Sunday I bravely asked the visiting pediatrician the question my husband wanted answered, but was too shy to articulate: When is it appropriate to pierce the baby’s ears? We had already covered how soon a baby can fly in an airplane, and spent 10 minutes on the pros and…