A while back, I wrote a post called Name My Baby (Part Deux). In it, I debated what blog names to give my girls now that there are three of them and now that Toddler is no longer a Toddler and Baby is no longer a Baby. Wow, did you guys come forth with suggestions and compelling ones… And now that our tiniest creature is eight weeks (so hard to believe) and I am back to my regular blogging (yay!), it’s high time to make a decision.

Until last week, I was sure that I was going to go with… drum roll please… Big Sister, Middle Sister, and Little Sister. I know these names aren’t super exciting or original, but they are simple and logical and non-confusing. I know some of you expressed concern with the prospect of being labeled big but I am not that worried about it. I like the word big. (Big is not just about physicality. Don’t we all want to lead big lives full of big love?) Also, I like these names because they contain the word sister. So much of my own identity is wrapped up in being a sister. So much of my blogging is about my girls and their relationship to one another as sisters. I am very interested and intrigued by sisterhood.

So. I was pretty convinced that was it. But then Toddler sat down with her little sister and her crayons and paper and drew the amazing chicks above. I looked at those chicks and it hit me. These girls are my little chicks, my sweet and fuzzy darlings. It occurred to me that maybe I should call my girls Big Chick, Middle Chick, and Little Chick. I told Husband about this idea and he smiled and then told me to think about it. About the connotations of the word chick. I do not adore all the associations that came to mind, but my girls are indeed my little chicks.

And so. I am torn.

What shall it be – Sisters or Chicks?

(Or neither? Husband just pointed out that referring to the girls as sisters might be confusing because readers might think I am talking about my sisters and not my daughters. Ugh. I still kind of love the idea of sticking with Toddler and Baby and adding Newborn to the mix… Ah, more confused than ever and off to read through your ideas again. Help. Pretty please.)

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Do you think there is something wrong with calling my little girls ‘chicks’ on this blog? How important do you think it is that blog aliases are very easy to understand? Would you be upset if your mother called you “Big Sister” on her blog? Any clue why this is proving to be such a difficult decision for me?

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
William Blake

Yesterday, I received an email from a good friend. An email that struck me. An email that inspired this post. She wrote,

I’m feeling really funny about our being so out of touch.  Like I’ve done something but I don’t know what it is.  We used to be in such good touch!  I miss it and am not sure how to fix it without knowing how I’m offended you.  Or maybe you just don’t want to be in touch like that anymore in which case I’ll stop trying.  Please let me know?

I wrote my friend back and assured her, hopefully convincingly, that she has done absolutely nothing to offend me because she hasn’t. I told her that I adored her because I do. And then I rambled through some nonsensical explanation about how I have retreated a bit of late. From the blog world, maybe from friends even. I theorized that this might have something to do with my pregnancy, that truth be told, I am just so shredded with exhaustion these days and really more run down than I typically like to admit. All of this is true.

But I am still thinking about this. And I wonder if this is anything new, if this truly has anything to do with my current physical and mental state. I find myself asking a big and hard and critical question.

Am I a good friend?

The reality is I have many close and wonderful friends. I have collected them over the past three decades and I hold them dear. These girls (yes, they are all girls) mean the world to me. I think about them all the time, what they are doing, the lives they are leading, the joys they are experiencing, the hardships they are enduring. When a good friend gets a job promotion or finds love or a great new home or has a baby I feel immense vicarious pride and happiness. When a good friend is hurt or struggling or facing some terrible obstacle, I feel it too. But the thing is, the sad thing is, I rarely tell my friends how much I care, how important they are to me.

Now, I do not think I am a bad friend. I just wonder if I am a good one. When it comes to friendship, I am passive. I rarely pick up the phone or send a card on my own accord. I infrequently fire off an email just to say hello. I am usually not the one to make plans to get together. Most of the time, I am the one answering the call or returning the email or accepting invitations offered by others. There are exceptions to this rule of course. There have been times when I have stepped up, when I have felt great about being active in my friendships. But this is not the norm. Too often, I am inconsistent about the energy I put into the maintenance of these bonds, these really significant bonds.

I wonder what this is all about. I do not think it is laziness. I am not a lazy person. It is certainly not lack of interest. I love my friends and I consider them absolutely integral to my well-being. I do wonder if it has something to do with being married, with being a mother. Certainly, my world is hectic and not a ton of time these days for me to hang out with, or talk to, my friends. I do not think this is it though. My approach to friendship, as far as I can tell, predates my getting married and popping out little girls.

So what then? Part of me thinks it has something to do with fear of intimacy, with an aversion to real-world vulnerability. (Patently, I have no problem being vulnerable here. Witness this post.) Part of me thinks it has something to do with insecurity, with walls, with not wanting to intrude, or insert myself, in the worlds of others.

Part of me thinks it has something to do with being one of five sisters. I was born into a family of good friends. I am very close with my sisters. But the reality is I am reasonably passive even in my relationships with my sisters. Again, I think about them incessantly, I brag about them to everyone, but I am not so good at picking up the phone or saying, hey, let’s grab dinner and catch up.

So, here I am at the end of this post, this hard post, and at a loss. What does it mean to be a good friend? Am I being too hard on myself? Not hard enough? I don’t know. I do know that I am so happy my friend sent that email yesterday. That she confronted me. That she asked me why I haven’t been there like I should be. And I don’t yet have an answer for her. Or for myself. But I’m thinking now. And that’s a good start.

Thank you to all of my friends for putting up with me and my oft-pathetic patterns over the years. The truth is that I do care and tremendously. Now, I just need to do some work and figure out why I am not very good at showing it sometimes.

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Are you a good friend? What does it mean to be a good friend? In your friendships, do you tend to play a more active or passive role? Do you think that the nature of our friendship evolves as we get older and our commitments change?

We humans often talk about fear of the unknown. We cower together at the idea of uncertainty, the reality of roads unseen. Change looms and we know this, but we are afraid of its implications. Who will we be? Where will we be? What we life be?

Abstract enough for you? I have a point. (I think.)

My littlest Sister T moved to Chicago this past Monday. She moved there without much of a plan. No job. No roommate. She just went, seeking to shift things up. Now, it is worth reminding you all that T is no slouch. The kid graduated from Yale last May at the tippy-top of her class with a GPA that would make you cry. I do not tell you this to brag, but to tell you that her future? It’s undeniably bright. (I also tell you this to brag, I guess. Hey, I’m proud.)

Anyway. The point here is that she has no idea what her life will look like. Where will she work? Whom will she date? How will she spend her time? Will she meet a gorgeous stranger at 1am at darkened bar? Will she fall in love with a career she never dreamed about before? Will she take in the Chicago fall air and never turn back? I don’t know. She doesn’t either.

I know she is a little scared. A bit fearful of the unknown. This makes perfect sense. If she weren’t a bit anxious about the unfolding of her life, I’d be worried. But I think, I know, she’s also really excited. To walk out into her life. To putter around the real world, a world beyond Ivy. To see who it is she becomes.

And I am excited, too. To watch her fumble and stumble into her own happiness. To witness her evolution. To see her grow.

And, if we are being really honest here, I am a tad envious. She has so many big things ahead of her. I think I might just have to live vicariously. Nothing wrong with that.

Because me? I’m ten years ahead of her in this game of life. A full decade. My life is very different from hers, its contours more fixed, its contents more defined. I am a wife and a mother. I have a home. I have a professional passion. And these are exquisite things I would never ever trade, but they are also known. I have a good sense of what my life will look like in one year, five years, ten. The biggest uncertainty for me right now is whether I will have another girl or a boy this spring. I find out in two weeks and I can’t wait! But then again, I can wait. Because once I find out, I will know.

I guess you could say I have a fear of the known. A fear that it is all mapped out, my life’s landscape, and that it’s my job to just live within the boundaries. But even as I write this, I chide myself for my simplistic thinking. Life is never known. We can plan and plot, but things are never fixed, never firm. Change always lingers. Surprise always looms.

We never know entirely, do we?

This is scary. This is good.

T, I am so so proud of you. I can’t wait to watch your adventures from afar. And I can’t wait to come visit next month! Love you.

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• Are you afraid of the unknown?
• Are you afraid of the known?
• Do you think at any given point in life we are afraid of one or the other?
• Which city do you like better – Chicago or New York?
• Any words of wisdom for T as she sets out on her life adventure?
  

A final plea. If you haven’t yet, please click HERE to vote for Life After Yes as SheKnows final book club pick of the year! Your support thus far has been incredible! This will be the last time I beg. Promise

I don’t know where to begin, but begin I will… I am a woman. I am a writer. I am interested in telling stories about existential grays. About life and love and relationships and philosophy and pain. I have high hopes. With but one book under my writerly belt, I am still a rookie, but I do hope my stories will, over time, reach oodles of people. I also hope that they will receive critical acclaim should they deserve that acclaim. It would also be nice if, by doing what I love (and, man, this is it right here), I am able to contribute mightily to the financial integrity of the family I cherish. That’s right, here I am, at the starting gates of this literary race, hoping humbly and boldly for commercial and literary success down the road.

(Per New York law, dreaming big is perfectly legal.)

Late last night, friend and fellow blogger Kristen of Motherese sent me a link to a Huffington Post article by Jason Pinter wherein Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult, two vanguards of women’s fiction whose talents and careers I respect deeply, discuss a recent online controversy about “the alleged shoddy treatment of commercial writers, in particular writers of what is commonly referred to as ‘women’s fiction’” that arose after the New York Times and other publications extensively covered Jonathan Franzen‘s most recent novel Freedom. In this Huff Po piece, Weiner and Picoult offer “their thoughts on what role gender plays in literary criticism, the importance of popular fiction in our culture, and whether progress is being made.”

I implore you to click over and read the entire article now because it is stuffed with insights and angles and I can only scratch the surface of it here. Picoult and Weiner argue, each wielding her own compelling arguments and anecdotes, that the literary establishment, and the Times in particular, tends to overwhelmingly review male authors over female authors and “literary fiction” over popular or “commercial fiction.”

Something Weiner said really struck me, and concerned me: “I think it’s a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it’s literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it’s romance, or a beach book – in short, it’s something unworthy of a serious critic’s attention.”

When asked why she deems it important that commercial fiction receive critical attention, Picoult responds, “Because historically the books that have persevered in our culture and in our memories and our hearts were not the literary fiction of the day, but the popular fiction of the day. Think about Jane Austen. Think about Charles Dickens. Think about Shakespeare. They were popular authors. They were writing for the masses.”

Is there this double standard? I don’t know, but maybe so. Why might there be this critical rejection of tales that appeal to the masses? Again, I don’t pretend to know, but these things worry me and make me wonder about the literary world into which I tiptoe at this very moment. Here’s the thing. I have tremendous respect for Picoult and Weiner. Both of these women are immensely gifted; their writing is good and resonates with so many of us. I also love the Times. I grew up watching my parents flip through this paper at the breakfast table and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t dream of one day seeing a book of mine reviewed in its pages.

So what now? Should I duck behind my decidedly male name and allow some readers or reviewers to think I am a man? Of course not. Should I whip up some tales of espionage or murder? I don’t think so. I am a woman and I will write the stories I want to write.

What more is there to say? A whole lot. This thicket of questions and concerns is far too complicated for me to understand or address fully on this Friday morning. But what I can and will say is thank you. To Kristen for sending this article my way. To Jennifer and Jodi for standing up and speaking up on behalf of all of us. To Jason for bringing this article to life.

And thank you to you guys, my readers – writers and people – for allowing me to dream big here. And doubt big, too.

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• Have you followed this controversy? Have you read the article? Thoughts?
• Do you agree that there is a double standard in the writing world (and maybe in other professional worlds)?
• Do literary and commercial success need to be mutually exclusive?
  
• Why do we insist on a distinction between literary and commercial fiction? Can’t a book have literary heart and soul and pack a commercial punch?
• Do you think I should keep my unwieldy dreams to myself?
  
• Have you read books by Picoult and/or Weiner? Have you enjoyed them like I have?
  

After a long, hot day, you two retire to that small room with that big bed. That waiting cloud, puffy with pillows. You slip out of your clothes, fold them carefully and put them away. You grab your favorite pair of pajamas and step in. You are brushing your teeth in the bathroom when you feel it. A familiar hand on your waist. A playful finger tucks into the waistband of your pajama bottoms. Pleasantly startled, you turn. Drop your toothbrush. Your head throbs with details and doubts from your day, aches with the sharp stuff of reality, but still you smile…

Hold up. As much fun as it might be, this blog is not the place for quasi-erotic domestic snippets. Sorry. The title of this post is not entirely deceiving though. I do have a bedroom dilemma. But it concerns my daughters. Not so racy, I know.

Again, sorry.

In less than three weeks, after more than three years of dreaming and planning and work, we are moving into our new home. Once upon a time, I documented the progress of this home on this blog under the clever title Happy Headache. It was fun to trace the progress of our renovation here, but then I stopped. Not sure why. Anyway, we are moving. Soon. And in our new place, the girls will each have a wonderful room.

Toddler’s is purple.

Baby’s is blue.

But.

As many of you know, we just returned from an extended vacation and during said vacation – to the woods, the farm, and the beach – the girls shared a room the whole time. Husband and I were a bit worried about this arrangement because our kids have different sleep schedules. But we rolled with it. And you know what? Everything went well. Better than well. The girls loved being in the same room. Every morning and evening, Husband and I listened to their conversations, precocious and precious, on a sound monitor. Over the course of the two-plus weeks, Toddler taught Baby how to sing her ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. Post-vacation Baby is far more verbal than pre-vacation Baby. And the girls? More so than ever, they are best buds.

Now. Now we are home and the girls are back in their own rooms. They don’t appear overly sad about this. They are indeed adaptable little critters. But I’m a bit sad about this. Because there are no longer those amazing conversations to spy on at the opening and close of the day. There are no longer the impromptu music lessons. Or the quiet discipline. (At a certain point every night, Toddler would say firmly to her signing sister, “It’s bedtime now. No more books. No more songs. No more Mommy and Daddy.”) The tight togetherness, surprisingly harmonious, was temporary. We are now back to our world of sisterly separation.

And so. I find myself in the thicket of another parenting dilemma. Yes, we have designed two separate rooms for our two girls in the new place, but should we use them or should we put our little creatures in the same room? It is worth noting that Husband and I are leaning toward having a third child at some point, so the girls will likely share sometime in the relatively near future anyway.

This might not seem like a big deal to you. Or a genuine dilemma. But it is to me. Because I grew up sharing a room with all of my sisters. We all bunked in a giant green dorm of sorts and I slept on a top bunk. It was absolute chaos, but I loved it. There was never a lack of laughter or drama or friendship in that room. And this was such an important aspect of my childhood that I actually wrote my college essay about it.

So. This question matters to me. And I have a mere eighteen days to decide what to do. And so I’m asking you to weigh in here. Because you all have experiences. As kids who shared rooms or didn’t. As parents whose kids share rooms or don’t.

(Help. Pretty please.)

What do you guys think? Give the girls their own space or let them bunk together?

If you like my writing or me (or the wallpaper in my kids’ rooms) or you simply want to make me smile big, please buy my book (which is considerably more spicy than this post)!