I am not a word snob. No. I like words of all shapes and sizes and levels of pretension. I do.

It’s just that I’ve never been a fan of the word special.

Not until last night.

Last night was big. A big night out. With Toddler.

There was a pajama party at Preschool. After missing Toddler’s pizza and pajama birthday party thanks to my untimely bout of swine, I was not going to miss this one. Because I was not sure whether little Toddler would want to be dropped off in the evening hours and left alone with her pajama-clad peers, I volunteered to work at the event so that I could be there with her. It was a grand plan.

And it was a busy day. Thursdays tend to be my busiest. I buzzed around this fine city, in and out of dates and meetings, chirping ceaselessly on my cell about real estate (we have an offer on our apartment!) and real life (my tiny newborn nephew was in the ER). Anyway, I hightailed it home in the late afternoon for my most important appointment of the day. My appointment with Toddler.

There she was, in her purple and green froggie PJs, sporting fabulous pigtails only Nanny can finagle. Her smile was vast as she ran toward me. And then we ran off to school for the festivities. We arrived in the school gym and promptly realized that the vast majority of the kids were older. There was only one little boy from her class. But Toddler, sheepish and brave, spread her orange blanket by the other kids to watch “Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.”

For about thirty seconds. The volume wasn’t really sufficient and the kids were rowdy. Toddler clung to me a bit. Fellow parents started handing out pieces of pizza. One child refused pizza. Yup. Toddler.

We made our way to the little crafts table on the other side of the gym where Toddler got to work making a mask. It was one of those little black Zorro-esque masks and when she scratched the surface of the paper with a stick, rainbows appeared. Black magic. I smiled. A relic from my own childhood. When she finished her mask, she asked that I put it on her. And so I did. It was a nice complement to the pigtails. Who cared that it basically covered her eyes? Not Toddler.

Despite asking her several times if she wanted me to hold her mask in my bag, she said no. And then she declared that she wanted to make a mask to bring home to her sister. I smiled as she scratched some more black magic. And then she made a little car keychain. I asked if she wanted to watch some more of the movie and sit with the other kids, but no. She wanted to do her own thing. And she insisted on making a star keychain for her baby sister. More mommy smiles.

When she tired of the arts and crafts, she hopped up. And looked around. As much as she could through that poor-visibility mask. And then she started running around the gym, a skip in her step. I stood back and smiled. And then a fellow parent, the only dad in attendance, the only PJ-clad adult in attendance, organized a story time. And cookies emerged. Toddler cuddled on my lap and listened intently to stories. And helped herself to four cookies. A mother next to me looked over and said, Wow. And I shrugged my shoulders and muttered some mommy apology: Guess I’m a bad mom. I try, but she is not the best eater. And she loves cookies.

And then the same daddy organized a genius game of Freeze Dance. The kids bogeyed down. When the music stopped, the children did their best (and hilarious) impressions of statues. Toddler did this wacky and amazing dance where she marched like a soldier/robot and spun around in a circle. On the sidelines, I could not stop laughing. This was fun.

And then when things got a tad out of control, this inventive father miraculously got all the kids to sit in a cluster on the gym floor. He told them that they were going to have a “quiet and thoughtful time” or something like that. Remarkably, the kids obliged. The father explained that they were going to go around and that each child was to introduce him or herself and say something that made him or her special.

Special.

The kids were fantastic. One boy stood and said he was special because “he goes to the grocery store and gets stuff.” Another boy said he was special because “he is in to Star Wars.” One girl said she was special because “her brother liked Star Wars.” On the periphery, we parents chuckled. And I didn’t think savvy and sassy Toddler would be into this exercise in sharing feelings, but boy was I wrong. Each and every time, she raised not one hand, but both and stood, jumping up and down. She desperately wanted this man to call on her.

And he didn’t. Because, as is par for the course with wee ones, distraction set in and it was on to the next thing. Soon, it was time for us to leave and I scooped up my sugar-soaked and sleepy babe and we headed out.

In the lobby of her school, as I zipped her purple coat, I asked.

“Honey, what were you going to say if you were called on? What’s your something special?”

And she looked up at me, blue eyes bright through that black magic mask, and said, “I’m special because I want to share all my toys with my sister.”

And I smiled. Wow did I smile. And I suffocated her with a hug. And I pushed her pigtail from her ear and I said, “Babe, that is so so special.”

And so. It was a night. A night of moments. Moments in which I glimpsed a little person doing her thing. Moments in which I glimpsed goodness, pure and unadulterated goodness. And, for me, this was major. Monumental. Because this parenting thing? It’s a guessing game. A constant exercise in improvisation. Parenthood is a land where we so often flail and fail and wonder whether we are doing anything right.

But in that moment last night, in that series of moments, I saw it. Clear as day. I am doing something right. Something very right.

I am raising a good kid.

And so. I wanted to get this down. This little story. This big realization. Because both will fade. With time, they will lose their hue and evaporate in the good air of this good world. And I don’t want this to happen. And so. I am sorry that I am not regaling you with something spicy or something sexy today.

Today? Today I memorialize something sweet.

Something special.

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• Have there been moments, random moments, when you have realized that you are doing a good job as a person, as a professional, as a parent?
  
• Have there been moments when you were able to glimpse uncomplicated goodness in someone you know?
  
• Do you ever feel compelled to scribble down simple stories – and the sentiments that come with them – so that you can remember more fully and look back?
  
• If you are a parent, are you constantly doubting whether you are doing things right?
  
• Anyone else feed their kids four cookies for dinner?

Do you stay in touch with your exes? Because I don’t.

First of all, I have only two. My high school boyfriend. And my college boyfriend. Sure, there were dalliances here and there between relationships, but nothing really worth mentioning here. Particularly because certain people read my blog. (Hey, Grammy!)

So, I have two exes. And I speak to them never.

Thanks to Facebook and a scattering of once-mutual friends, I have some vague sense of what they are up to, but that’s about  it. My high school boyfriend had a baby not long ago and I saw the photos of his adorable son (and his gorgeous wife) on Facebook. I looked through these photos, the bright blue eyes of his first-born, the impossibly vast smile on my ex’s face and I said to myself, This is ridiculous. If this were anyone else in the world, I would send a quick note of congratulations and say hello. It really should be no different for an ex-boyfriend whom I haven’t seen or spoken to in well over a decade.

And so. Being the little rebel I am (ha), I fired off a personal message to my high school ex welcoming him to the wonderful world of parenthood. I said something trite and true like, Having kids is the best thing that has ever happened to me, so enjoy this! And then, immediately upon sending, I felt a stab of guilt like I had crossed some invisible and ominous line. And then. Then I promptly fessed up to Husband over dinner that night. We dined at an outdoor table across from the Museum of Natural History. We shared a plate of delectable flash-fried artichokes. I told Husband that my ex from high school who is now a doctor in California had his first baby. And that I congratulated him via Facebook message. And Husband smiled. He couldn’t care less.

And then there is college boyfriend. We were together for more than four years. For better or worse, I don’t think he is on Facebook. But I do hear bits and pieces about him from time to time. I know that he is pursuing a career that is passionate about and last I heard he is dating a girl seriously and a great girl at that. He could be married now. Who knows. But hearing these things? It makes me smile. Because, once upon a time, I care a whole lot about this guy. And his family. And his happiness.

And so. Where are we going here? It is hard to say, but bear with me. Yesterday’s conversation about the viability of male-female friendships got me thinking. It was a phenomenal exchange – thanks to you guys – and sparked something in me. Many of you left comments mentioning exes. And I realized that this is a big, fat and interesting conversation unto itself.

Exes. What role do they play (or not play) in our current lives and minds?

And so. Here I am, racing the clock, clumsily writing about this. About this question. About these rules I intuit, perhaps foolishly, in our adult word. The rule that once we settle (and I say settle in the best possible sense of the word), we are implored not to shake things up by thinking (or writing) about past relationships or speaking to exes. The rule that once we walk away from someone, we are not meant to look back. The rule that once we finish one chapter of our life – whether it ends gracefully or messily – we are meant to get on with our story…

Maybe these rules don’t exist. Maybe I made them up in my head. Maybe they are aspects of my own prudence. I do know many people who keep in close contact with their exes and even see them from time to time. Truth be told, this baffles me. Maybe some of us can make this work and some of us just can’t.

But part of me thinks it is a shame to cut all ties and burn once robust bridges. My exes were once a part of my life and I have many fond memories of them and I think it is a bit arbitrary and capricious to insist that there is never ever any more communication ever. It just seems harsh.

Or maybe just smart?

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• How many exes do you have? Do you ever speak with them or see them? Do you have a sense of what they are up to?
  
• Do you think this modern age of social media makes it too easy to keep tabs on our past flames?
  
• What dictates our willingness or unwillingness to stay in contact with exes? The nature of the breakup? Partner’s proneness to jealousy? Our own fears of what might happen? Societal expectations?
  
• Do you and your partner ever talk about your respective exes? Are you careful not to talk about past relationships in front of your children if you have them?

A few weeks ago, Husband and I were chatting with Toddler’s teacher at a school event and she said something wonderful. She said that Toddler is equally drawn to the girls and boys in her class. She is friends with girls and friends with boys. She doesn’t discriminate. At age three, it seems this is the way it should be.

But what about at age thirty-one?

Because I do not have a single stand alone friend that is a boy at this point. Sure, I consider my friends’ husbands to be friends, but there is no guy, not one, whom I would call up and say hey. There is no guy, not one, whom I would track down for a quick lunch or a quick drink.

Truth be told, I am not the best case study. For whatever reason, I have never had a collection of boy friends. I’m not really sure why. It could be that as one of five sisters, I was always most comfortable hanging with girls. It could be that, deep down, I believed that platonic relationships between guys and girls were tricky and usually ended up being charged with romantic and sexual complications. This did happen to me at least once and maybe I just learned my lesson.

But I look around and I see a pattern. Take Husband. Once upon a time, he had a bevy of girl friends. Many of his closest buddies were members of the opposite sex. And now? He is Facebook friends with most, but that is the extent of it. Take the majority of my married – and mommy – friends. I have not taken an official poll, but it seems to me that boy friends have fallen off, have been relegated to the fringes of busy lives, or have been deleted from those busy lives all together.

And maybe that is what it is all about. Being busy. Maybe it is that this juggling act called Life is hard work. That between professional and parental and personal obligations, we feel stretched to the max. That there is no free time in which to phone up our less central buddies – whether they are girls or boys. Maybe the explanation for this sociological shift boils down to the practicalities and pulls of modern existence.

Or maybe there is something more. Once upon a time, things were less serious. There were not marriages to wreck and kids to screw up. Maybe the number of opposite sex friendships wanes – as a social or biological means – to protect monogamy? Maybe eliminating these relationships is a logical way to minimize distraction and competition and is simply part and parcel of commitment?

I don’t know. I don’t pretend to know. I’m guessing here. But when there are no answers, guessing is good.

Anyway, this all strikes me as weird. And as unfortunate. That at age three, the world is our classroom and our classroom is our world. That we are encouraged to play with boys and girls. But that time slips by, that life grows gray, and we retreat to our own side of the classroom. This seems a shame.

Part of me longs for that boy friend I never quite had. A benevolent fellow to offer a different view. A buddy to blue up my pink days. Part of me thinks I would be a more well-rounded person and a more nuanced writer if I had greater access to the male perspective.

So I need a boy friend. Or a handful. That would be cool.

(And of course I have one boyfriend. The one-word breed. A best friend. Husband. And I wouldn’t trade him for the world. But husbands don’t count here. Why? Because I say so.)

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Do you have friends of the opposite sex (or attractive sex, to be more politically correct)? Did you used to have more boy friends or girl friends? Does adulthood or marriage or parenthood kill these relationships? Is there just no time to nurture these peripheral connections or is there a more complicated explanation at play here? Does this come down to (an unspoken or spoken) jealousy between spouses? Ultimately, is keeping these relationships to a minimum a way to safeguard a marriage or a family?

When I am at a loss for words (like now), I think of moments.

Like that moment when Toddler wrestled her little sister in the bold sunshine and I realized: These are my girls and they will always be sisters.

Like that moment when we took Toddler to the petting zoo right before her sister was born and she let the goats gobble from her tiny hands and I realized: One day she will be fearful, but not yet.

Like that moment when Toddler zipped through the playground on our corner and I realized: She is her own person.

Like that moment when we girls huddled happily on the hardwood floor amidst lovely chaos and I realized: I am a mother of two.

Like that moment my girls took a bath together and I realized: They are in it together. This bath. This life.

Like that moment I gave Baby her first Starbucks cup and I realized: One day, she will sip from this cup and not kick it around.

Like that moment when Toddler paced that big old porch clutching that tiny toy rod and I realized: She will fish one day. For trout. For happiness.

Like that moment when Husband led Toddler down to the dock and I realized: That was once Dad and me. At this very same pond. Some things change. Some things stay the same.

Like that moment I lifted my big girl over my shoulders to see the expanse of nature and I realized: This is my job. My biggest job. To lift her up. To let her see.

Like that moment on Independence Day when Toddler skipped through candy green grass clutching a big pink ball and I realized: One day I will not be able to catch her.

Like that moment when Baby first played with grass and tasted a few blades and I realized: There is so much for her to discover. And I must let her.

Like that moment when they wore matching pajamas and played together, really played together, and I realized: They will always play. They will always have each other.

Like that moment when Toddler pranced through the sand and studied her footprints and shadows and I realized: Life is full of prints and shadows, simple evidence of existence and presence.

Like that early morning moment in South Carolina when the girls and Daddy gazed out the window at a new day and I realized: The world is full of wide windows and new beginnings.

Like that moment when my big girl studied the rainbow of flowers and I realized: Life is full of color and it’s our job to see it.

Like that moment when Baby ran away and onto that bridge and I realized: Life is full of bridges between There and Here, Then and Now.

Like that moment on Christmas morning when my girls waited patiently to open their gifts and I realized: This is life. Waiting patiently to open the gifts that await us.

Like that moment when we hailed a yellow taxi after Toddler’s birthday celebration at Preschool and I realized: Time is passing. There won’t always be purple crowns.

Like that moment when I grabbed Baby and kissed her tiny ear and I realized, The love I feel for these creatures is impossible.

Like that moment when Daddy plopped two giggling girls into environmentally-friendly grocery bags and toted them through our kitchen and I realized: This is fun. This is silly. This is life. This is it.

These are my moments. These are my girls.

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Do you agree that happiness is about moments – enjoying them while they happen and sifting through them after the fact? In times of existential quiet, do you also think of moments? Do you think modern existence makes it hard to appreciate the moments of our days? Do you think this is why so many of us blog – to memorialize the moments that might otherwise evaporate?

First order of business. Thank you. For holding my virtual hand through my soggy Sunday moment and its precarious aftermath. For leaving a trail of words. For your existential echoes. It dawned on me after publishing yesterday’s post that one surefire way to feel not good enough is to set insane expectations for myself that only a robot could meet. Like, say, vowing to respond to every single comment left on this blog. Like promising to have a blog post up by 6am each morning. In an ideal world, these things would happen. But I am beginning to suspect that this world, this wonderful world, is not ideal. No, it’s real.

*

A few weeks ago, Husband and I went swimming with the girls in South Carolina and Toddler said something that I can’t stop thinking about. She wore both a water ring and water wings and she said to me, her little voice stuffed with panic, “Mommy! Help! I keep floating to the deep, deep part!” And like a good mom, I threw my arms around her and hugged her and assured her that she was okay and that we were in fact in the shallow end.

The shallow end.

Lately, my pool is lacking a shallow end. And this is odd. Because I used to be plenty shallow. Embarrassingly shallow. I used to subsist on shopping trips to trendy stores and celebrity gossip. I used to obsessively sample fad diets in an effort to be skinny and hot. I used to camp out at the gym for hours a day, spinning away, going nowhere. I used to panic when I was late to get my highlights touched up.

But somewhere along the way, life got delightfully deeper. Maybe it was becoming a wife or a parent or a fatherless girl? Maybe it was becoming a writer or a blogger or a Professor of Insecurities? Maybe it was flirting with the often harsh and humorless realities of adulthood, of aging, of lingering mortality? I would wager that it was all of these things.

But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I think I’ve swung too far in the other direction. What matters is that I miss my shallow end. I miss the superficial things I used to enjoy. I miss watching mindless reality television and searching for the most flattering jeans. I miss talking about celebrities.

I miss my goofy, silly, blondeness.

And so. I am reclaiming it. Consider yourself warned.

I came to this conclusion yesterday afternoon. We all know that I’m epiphany-prone and yesterday was no exception. I was talking with my friend (and superstar nutritionist) Lauren Slayton. I asked Lauren to meet me because I want to up the ante health-wise in my life. I want to focus on my body, on my nutrition, on the health of my young family. I want to feel more energetic and do what I can to prevent cancer and to raise good eaters. At the end of our meeting, I said to Lauren, “It’s so funny because for so many years I watched what I ate and worked out because I wanted to look hot, but now my priority is to be healthy.” And as I said this, I realized something.

I want both. I want to be healthy and hot.

“I want to be hot for my book party!” I said to her and she smiled. Truth be told, it’s not about losing weight. But it is about looking my best. Far more importantly though, I would like to feel my best. And then Lauren and I talked about this, whether it is shallow to want to maximize our attractiveness. Whether it is shallow or selfish to want to feel amazing. And we didn’t come to any ready conclusion. Maybe it is a bit shallow to want to be hot. But I think that’s okay. I think that’s more than okay.

We all need a shallow end.

At least I do. I love the deep end. I do. I love writing about the complex and shifting depths of human existence. I love scrutinizing the universal insecurities that shake our days. But I cannot do this all the time. It affects me. Maybe this is foolish, but it just occurred to me that I might not have control over most things in life, but I do have control over what I write about. And this is an important awakening for me. Because what I write about affects what I think about and what I think about affects how I feel and how I see the world.

This is all a long-winded and clumsy way of saying what Toddler said so succinctly,

I keep slipping to the deep end.

But there is a shallow end. A silly end. There still is. And writing about its mere existence makes me smile big. And so I will write about it from time to time. Not all the time because I love the deep end too much. But some of the time. And maybe by writing about the more superficial aspects of my existence, I will find my way to my shallow end once more. And if and when I get there, I will celebrate the fact that I can touch the bottom. And I will splash around a bit.

The blonde is back, kids. Get ready.

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• Is your pool of life more shallow or more deep?
• Do you think it is selfish or shallow to want to look good?
  
• Do you think there is something about adulthood that encourages us to drown out our shallow end (pun very much intended and amazing)?
• Are you more or less shallow than you used to be?
• Do you think that there is something important about cultivating a bit of shallowness or superficiality in life?
• Does the content of your writing affect the content of your life, how you feel and see the world?
• Could you stand to be healthier?
• Could you stand to be hotter?