Another Sunday. It would be so very easy, and so very appropriate, and so very safe to wax poetic about the day’s surplus of sunshine and smiles. About glittering green grass peppered with quaint picnics and happy people.

But since the whole point of this blog is to inject some organic honesty into this artificially-sweetened world of ours, I am not going to dwell on these things. No, I am going to tell the truth.

I woke up sad.  Very sad. So sad that I deduced that I must of had a terribly sad dream. It didn’t help that I was embraced by the aftermath of a baby shower – the nibbled chips and flat bottles of soda and lonely ribbons and 100 sad and deflated balloons dying slow deaths on my hardwood floors.  No, this probably didn’t help.

But I wasn’t going to just curl up on the couch and watch Diego and eat leftovers and succumb to the nebulous morning sadness. So the four of us headed out into the aforementioned glorious sunshine. And it was glorious. And I immediately felt better when I walked by the flea market and saw signs for jewelry made from street lamps, and wacky magnetic paper dolls, and my absolute favorite: functioning vintage toasters.  The sheer randomness of these items made me smile.

And then we headed to Turtle Pond where Baby took a quick snooze and Toddler found a stick she then used to try to reach Belvedere Castle and her honest efforts to make that stick reach over that pond to that castle made me smile again.

So the smiles were coming, softly but genuinely, and I thought: there is nothing, there is no emotional ailment, no Sunday sadness, that babies can’t cure.  An empowering thought. Because I have babies. Two of them.

And as the morning faded and we headed home for naps, I saw Shake Shack, the wildly popular snack stop new to our neighborhood and I suggested we stop.  Now, this is unlike me. Because I am not a huge burger eater or shake sipper, but I figured a good dose of grease and calories couldn’t hurt. And while we were on line, clinging tight to squirming girls, I saw this onesie. If crying, insert burger. And this made me smile.  Again.  And I looked at the sizes and pondered a purchase for Baby. Because you see it said very clearly in big fat font, Baby Onesies.  Not Mommy Onesies.  But I wanted one for me. If only they sold onesies in size 24-36 years.  If only it were this simple.  If crying. Insert burger. If only.

And as afternoon turned to night, we headed to my Mom’s for dinner with the family. We chatted and laughed. And then I got a nice dose of honesty from select sisters. That black and white picture of me on the upper left of this blog? They’re not a fan. Apparently, I look strange in that picture. Not like myself. Apparently, they’ve actually never seen me make that face.

And then I cried. And went into the other room, my childhood bedroom, and cried some more. And we all knew this wasn’t about a few aired opinions and a goofy profile picture. But tears don’t come with birth certificates, with explanations, with warnings.  They just come.

And then I wiped the tears away and ate dinner with my family. And felt okay.

And then I came home and put my darling girls to bed. And then I logged on and added that little caption to my less-than-flattering photo which I will probably change in the next few days because as much as I dream of being a thick-skinned superwoman, I am sensitive and vulnerable and not impervious to the odd stretch of sadness.  And then I wrote this. And it’s not short and sweet and sunshiny like today was, but it is very much true. And I might not be a fan of burgers or shakes or that photo I loved until just a few hours ago, but I am a huge fan of truth. Oh, and babies.

Update: that goofy profile picture? It’s no longer on the front page of ILI. But I loved it enough to keep it. It is now on the Contact page, so go check it out. And while you’re at it, write me a note about how much you hate my picture (or love it, or love me) and I promise to respond!

100 blue balloons.
36 baby bacon quiches.
1 black Bugaboo.
Countless bellinis.
Endless bubbly.
1 blonde boy on his way.

Congrats, C!

I can happily host your shower, but I can’t offer you too much advice. With four sisters and two daughters, I live in a pink, pink world.

Parents of boys out there, can you pass along your baby boy wisdom to my little sis? Pretty please.

Well, it’s Friday again.  And time for my weekly update on the Happy Headache (the untimely-given-the-recession-gut-renovation of our new place).  Anyway, things have slowed. Or, more precisely, stalled.  We are still waiting on an all-important report from the structural engineer.  And Husband and I have some dire decisions to make about replacing rotted joists and installing insulation in ceilings. But for the most part, things are standing still.

Which is just fine because this allows us to focus on the more fun and frivolous stuff. Like what wallpapers we will use or not use. I happen to like this one here for Toddler’s room. It’s delicate and yet funky. Bold, but feminine. A shred regal.

Per Professor Wiki, the color purple carries with it the following connotations: royalty, imperialism, nobility, Easter, upper class. Hmmm…

But here is my real dilemma: will I like this paper five years from now? Ten years from now? And, will Toddler like it? Because at age two, she is already becoming a little lady and if she is anything like her Mom, she is going to sprout a proud personality and maintain a healthy stockpile of opinions. Some strong opinions that will probably make her parents a wee bit crazy.

So, do I play it safe and pick an innocuous paint color? Something nice and neutral? A shade that no one will hate now or later? Or, do I go with my gut and have a bit of imperial funky fun?

My feeling (for now): life is short.  Your home is your sanctuary.  A bit of crazy color, of intelligent impulsivity, of regal risk, is good. Sure, Toddler will one day (gasp) become Teen. Sure, tastes morph and mature. But papers can always be stripped. And moms and kids, apartments and aesthetics, can always be, and perhaps should always be, reinvented.

What do you all think about my admittedly indulgent decor dilemma du jour? Should I be prudent or go purple?

Yes, I was multi-tasking.  Baby was cradled in my left arm, chewing on a very safe key-chain-thing.  On my right, trusty Laptop was open, feeding me that nutritious morning mix of news and Facebook updates and tweets (yes, I joined! follow me!). Husband was in the kitchen feeding Toddler her equally balanced meal of chocolate milk and peanut butter.

Well, apparently, Toddler came into the living room to tell me something or show me something or just say hi.  I don’t know because I neither saw her nor heard her.

Well, she returned to Husband and reported (and remember this is hearsay-via-Husband):

Daddy, Daddy! Mommy is soooo busy.  She can’t hear me!

When Husband told me this, I snapped Laptop shut and got defensive.  She did not come to talk to me. Right? Right?

Wrong.

Then, presumably to make me feel like an even more delinquent mom, Toddler took Husband to play in her room. Amidst the towers of toys, she found her own toy laptop. She popped a squat on the carpet and pried open the plastic, held up her little hand, and said to Husband:

Daddy, I’m very busy on my puter.  I can’t talk to you now!

Great.  Not only am I setting an excellent example, but I am instilling lovely anti-social behavior in my little girl.

But then, in the trademark and torturing throes of doubt and insecurity and guilt, I felt a fierce flash of optimism and then partook in a very un-me moment of looking on the bright side. Sure, zoning out one’s progeny is not exactly commendable behavior, but it is my ability to zone out and focus that allows me to write. When I am in “the zone” it doesn’t matter whether there is music playing or cars honking or dogs fighting (or, apparently, a Toddler talking). And I am a mom and a writer.  And sometimes motherhood and career might clash.  Like, say, on a random Thursday morning. Right? Right?

And then something else made me smile: I imagined sassy little Toddler becoming the world’s first baby blogger. Sitting behind her melon-colored computer, brow furrowed with Mom-like concentration, sharing her pint-sized stories about toilet training and tumbling at the playground.  Oh, and being ignored by Mom.

You would think I could get over the whole graduation thing.  Yes, it was a delightful weekend, but I am home now, swimming once more in a spit-up-seasoned sea of baby toys and diapers.  Miles from New Haven and college life and commencement.  But no.

Another thing that Yale Law dean Harold Koh said, other than eloquently encouraging us to be big trees in the forest of life?  He said (something like): Pursue happiness.  The right to happiness is an inalienable right. You can’t sell it. Do not let anything — the mortgage, the BMW payments, even children — trap you in a job you don’t like.

And, sitting there, anonymously, behind my obnoxiously vast Oliver Peoples shades, a Yale grad, a lawyer of latter day, a rookie writer, a young mom, a perpetually lost soul hungry for morsels of wisdom, I nodded.  Vigorously.

Happiness. That’s it. That’s what matters in life.

But mere moments later, I thought to myself: What is happiness? How can we pursue it if we don’t know what it is?

And then, because I have quite the non-linear attention span, I flashed to one of Toddler’s Free To Be Under 3 classes where the teacher always leads a riveting rendition of that classic song If You’re Happy and You Know It. Come on. You don’t have to have kids to remember this one. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands! (And then there are a bevy of other verses involving stomping feet and tapping heads and air kisses and shouts of hooray.) Anyway, the point is that all of us parents and kiddies sing along each week: If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands! And, sure enough, all the tiny tots clap their tiny hands. They don’t even have to think about it. Imagine that.

And suddenly, I imagined a room full of adults and what they would do with these simple melodic instructions.  And something tells me a few people would probably clap proudly and a bit insistently.  And then a few would probably not clap.  And then a few of us (maybe most of us?) would clap softly or apathetically or uncertainly.  Because this is not an easy question, is it?  In fact, if we are being technical, it is two questions:

(1) Are you happy?

and

(2) Do you know it?

Patently, each of these questions is a biggie and has kept philosophers and other thinkers and regular people like the rest of us baffled and busy for centuries.  But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask these questions and try to answer them. But how many of us are brave enough to ask these deceptively simple, childhood questions?

One such brave soul? Fellow Yalie/lawyer/Manhattan mom/writer Gretchen Rubin. Rubin is currently at work on her book THE HAPPINESS PROJECT a memoir of the year she spent “test-driving” tips and theories of happiness from the pedestrian to the profound to the philosophical.  Not only did Rubin press pause on her fast-track life to explore the enigmatic and idiosyncratic concept of human happiness, but she generously documents her experience and findings on her intriguing and insightful daily blog.

So.  Are you happy.  And, if so, do you know it?

Not sure?  I’m right there with you.  But I encourage you to check out Rubin’s blog because while soaking up her sage musings, it occurred to me in a mini light-bulb moment that this blog you are reading might be my very own (and very accidental) happiness project.  That hammering away on my keyboard, spewing bits silly and serious and somewhere in between, that fashioning a new sense of authenticity in my own little world, is in fact making me a happier person. Whatever that means.  So maybe blogging is what it will take to get me clapping loudly and proudly?

What will it take to get you clapping?  Because as much as we might want to endorse and live by Koh’s astute advice to cling tight to our right to happiness, to pursue happiness full-force, we cannot pursue something we can’t recognize, can we?