Cat in Heels

Tomorrow is officially the last day of the year and I feel like Christmas came in and took over my life like some kind of light and tinsel-covered tornado, and then it was gone…and here I am holding the remnants of tamales, homemade truffles, an extra pound, wrapping from 1,000 toys and my holiday cards. Not my holiday cards, but you get the idea. Yep, I didn’t send holiday cards this year. I bought them, but I just never really got around to it. Months ago I made the proud declaration that my family was going to get together and we would do pictures that didn’t suck to the level that they were OK for a holiday card. Each weekend I would think of these pictures and how I really need to bathe the twins and get them to sit still for 20 seconds, and then the thought would leave and move on with whatever else was going on in my life. Some days I would dismiss the thought because I was tired, the kids were dirty, I didn’t feel like fighting with them, someone is cutting a tooth and ...

Lots of stuff about having toddlers is challenging. Like keeping your clothes clean and making sure they don’t eat the dog kibble.  Another challenge that seems to not be getting better is shopping. The first problem is that anywhere we go seems to have only two double carts, both of which are currently being used by someone who has one child and a giant purse that obviously needs its own seat. At Target the don’t even get the excuse that the cart is shaped like a car and Little Timmy was having a meltdown if he didn’t get to ride in the car. Nope. Target has this monstrosity of a double cart that is an extender with two seats facing forward with a basket on the front. It looks like you’re pushing the kids on a roller coaster, except that there’s no rails, the thing can’t turn for shit and it’s not at all fun. Considering that it’s never available, I guess I can’t really complain about it. Instead I make the choice to put one in the seat and one in the basket. That was great ...

I am not one of those women who looked at my post baby body and thought “My body did something amazing.” Nope. I looked at my post baby body and wondered what in the ever loving hell happened. Why was my waist gone, where is that curve between by butt and my back, and for the love of all things holy, where did all this back fat come from?! It did something amazing in making twins, but it also paid a price.  I’ve never been a skinny girl. Instead I have always been the curvy girl who is always one bag of Cheetos away from chubby. In college I crossed over that line straight to fat, and then fought my way back. Post baby I decided to avoid mirrors and let breastfeeding do its thing. Except that it didn’t.  Thanks for the false hope world. I am one of those women whose body wants to hold onto every damn calorie for the baby (or in my case babies). At least I’ve got Salma Hayek in my corner on that one. I don't know why I bother to try to take pictures with to...

Trips to Target are practically a weekend ritual at this point. I obviously need laundry detergent, hand soap and a new coat all at once, and it’s a one stop shop for almost everything. This weekend I tossed the girls onto a cart, one in the seat and one in the basket, and headed inside (where I found the only double cart occupied by one kid). I gave a brief look through the clothes and where they leaned out of the cart in an effort to touch  everything , and we headed to the shoe aisle. Cute stuff but nothing earth shattering, let’s move along. They really liked these .  Oh, S needs winter boots, let’s check those out here. As I slowly navigated the cart into the children’s shoe aisle both girls started getting visibly excited. They stood up in the cart, leaned over, and then both started yelling “SHOES, SHOES!!!” in screechy toddler voice while desperately grabbing at all the shoes they could reach. S pulled her shoes off and threw them to the floor. The ...

Daylight savings time is nothing to parents. Except maybe a pain in the ass. It’s just another day where things are all screwed up from the first squawk out of the baby monitor, which is an hour earlier than they normally wake up no matter what kind of crazy voodoo you’ve been trying to work the previous week to make sure they’re on a schedule. This year was particularly bad on Sunday. Maybe it was a Halloween hangover or something, but I walked in the twins’ room and S, who is the Houdini of diapers, is rocking the deep v Elvis look and I marvel at how cute she is before realizing the reason she looks like that is because she has figured out how to work zippers overnight and taken her wet diaper off. What the hell is she doing? The whole day pretty much stayed on that trajectory and I found myself saying some really insane things. “Stop coloring on your sister.” “Why is there ham on the dog?” “Who pooped?” “Did you seriously just poop in the tub?” (She did. My bathroom ha...

I've come to the conclusion that toddlers have a lot in common with pets. Both are entertaining, loving and generally mischievous. Especially the toddlers.  The second you're not looking is when they get into something, and with twins it's really easy to not have one in your sights at all times, which means someone is into something at all times. One kid is trying to dig in her diaper, so you focus on that one and preventing the impending gross event and the other one is eating a dog treat.  One is running around with a dirty sock in their mouth, and while you’re trying to catch them the other one is chewing on a book.  One has managed to open a container of wipes and is pulling them all out and the other one is dumping out a toybox.  We may be spending too much time playing with the dog if this is how we carry toys. I could go on, but you get the idea. There’s more too.  One minute they’re all fun and cuddly, and want to sit on your lap, and th...

I should just give up entirely on writing about something interesting and instead just write about my everyday life. It goes like this: Wake up when it’s dark Shower, get dressed do hair and makeup Take out the dog (This gets its own line because the dog is so freaking slow in the morning I have to block out 10 minutes for him to pee).  Go to work and work all day (If I'm lucky I get a lunchtime workout in) 11 hours later I get home, eat dinner, play with kids and put kids to bed (this is all about an hour and a half) Watch TV and talk with hubby Go to bed Repeat I could never make a dinner like this. Not pictured: a glass of wine I’m going out on a limb here and saying that my schedule looks pretty much like every other working mom’s schedule in the entire world, except that I’m really lucky in that I don’t have to take the kids to daycare or cook dinner. Husband stays home with them and cooks. I used to cook when he worked a million hours a week in an office, bu...

Once upon a time I walked everywhere in heels. And I mean everywhere. I would walk miles in platforms or 5 inch stilettos. Sometimes 5 inch platform stilettos. I took the bus and train in heels. I wore heels in rain, snow, sleet, day, night. If needed I could run in heels. More than a couple times I fell asleep still wearing heels. In my late 20's I slowly started favoring shorter or thicker heels heels when I knew walking was going to be a thing. Then I found myself worrying about things like the pitch of the shoe, the level of the platform or lack thereof and whether or not my foot slid forward after hours of wear. Slowly I found myself favoring certain styles and spending more money on one good pair of heels than two or three shitty ones. Slowly I found a cobbler I love and started worrying about what kind of materials were used to make my shoes and what type on insole they have. Slowly I was getting older. Under my desk used to be empty. Now it's full of shoe...

This year I got an office for my birthday. OK, so it wasn’t actually for my birthday, but the day before my birthday the IT guy came over and moved my computer and phone, gave me a bigger monitor and a keyboard with one shift key that only works if you punch the hell out of it, and I had to gather up my piles of paper and my drawer of shoes (how does that keep happening?) and moved into my own private space. Now I have a door and can shut it for conference calls, or so I can eat lunch in private. Now I can hang my coat on the back of the door instead of in the community coat closet where it comes out smelling of other people’s perfumes, cigarettes and other general odors. This would be a great picture if someone wasn't crying and everyone would look at the camera.  Now I have four white walls staring at me, reminding me that I’m a crappy mom who can’t get her shit together and get some damn photos of her kids for her office. I have a phone that is bursting with pho...

This weekend we were getting ready to go out and as I was putting on shoes I noticed that S’s toes were almost to the end of her sandals. And I mean touching the very top inside. And they were hard to buckle. Apparently the kid’s feet grew overnight and her two month old shoes no longer fit. Of course I work all week, and Stride Rite is 30 minutes away which puts us straight into bedtime assuming I feed them dinner. That’s a recipe for two kids walking around Stride Rite screaming while trying to crawl under fixtures or just making circles while crying. Yes, they do strange things when they’re tired. Of course I need the shoes by Saturday because we have something to do, and I won’t have time in the morning with breakfast and naps and what not, mostly because I want to avoid being that person with two screaming children in a store. Of course there’s the internet, but free shipping is 5 days (i.e. after Saturday) and for some reason I feel like I need to see the shoes if I’m bu...

I wish had the time to do funny and clever mom things, or the creativity to think of things like arts and crafts. Instead I just write this blog, which I can knock out on my phone while riding home on the train or on my lunch break, and half the time it’s not even about being a mom because I figure that’s going to bore all the people who came to read about whatever else I happen to be discussing. One Australian woman with twins has become my hero though after a bazillion friends sent me links This is funny. People need to relax.  to the article and posted it to my wall. Seriously, if she was in the States we’d be having a glass of wine together right now and telling our kids to stop doing whatever it is they’re currently doing that they shouldn’t be. As a joke, this hero mom attached some FAQs to her kids in the stroller, presumably so people won’t ask her dumb questions while she’s out. While she never actually took the kids out with the signs, the internet predictably...

There’s been a list going around for the last six or so months that recently popped back up in my Facebook feed. It’s 24 Things Women Should Stop Wearing After Age 30 . When it first showed up I ignored it, then it popped up again. Maybe it’s my impending birthday (where I will be continuing to push into the tick of my 30s) but today I saw it and it really pissed me off. Let’s examine some of the things that apparently expire one magic day when we pass a line on the calendar. Graphic tees – Seriously? Cause on the weekend that’s pretty much all I wear. My love of Guns ‘n’ Leopard through the ages Roses or my new Vampira t-shirt blazon their logos across my chest for all to see. Paired with a pair of Converse (old sneakers are also on the list) and some comfy jeans and I’m ready for a day at the park chasing screeching toddlers who are somehow covered in dirt before they even get out of their stroller. Leopard print – Screw you stupid writer (I refuse to name her and give h...

I love shoes. It turns out buying them for my girls is as fun as when I buy them for myself. I am also already dreading the day when they get an opinion and stop letting me pick out the ones I like best. My girls only had gym shoes, which worked great this spring, but I needed to get them ready for summer, so a few weeks ago we piled into the car, drove to the mall, piled out (seriously do you have any idea what goes into taking twins to a mall?) and wandered into the nearest mall. The new shoes getting ready to jump into action at the park. Of course the store I wanted to go to was on the opposite side of where I came in, so we schlepped across the mall with all the people stopping to point, yelling out things like “Are they twins?” and “Oh my god, how do you do it?” (double stroller people) and went to Stride Rite . Lucky me they were having a sale on sandals, but of course only a limited selection. We picked out one style for both girls, and then literally as I am being ru...

After working 40+ hours a week, commuting, being a mom, a wife, doing some kind of sad excuse for housework (does folding laundry that’s been sitting in the dryer for 2 days count?) and various other crap that makes me who I am, I stare at my closet full of clothes (many of which are too big or too small) and my new collection of shoes, some of which were bought with the intention of running after toddlers, and I think “Who the fuck am I?”. Last night I was giving the girls a bath and we made shampoo mohawks, played with rubber ducks and splashed until they managed to start splashing water outside the tub and were turning into squawking baby prunes. S finally demanded “Up” which is universal for any position other than the one she’s currently in (down, off, out, and sometimes actually up) and we started drying off. With two babies you can imagine that there’s some kind of madness that goes along with getting them bathed, dried off and diapered. “Don’t stand in the tub.” “Don’t ru...

DSW is seriously the best. I've said it before, and I stand by it. They have a customer for life here. Plus I have all those rewards, so there’s that. They looked great , but hurt like hell.  Let week my procrastinating self decided that silver shoes were needed to complete my outfit for a wedding I was attending. After scouring the internet, I found a great pair of Betsey Johnson silver heels with a rhinestone embellishment. Seriously amazing looking shoes (named Gia if you're looking for it). Despite the cost of said shoe, I didn't qualify for free shipping because I’m not a platinum member (on account of being all pregnant for like a year), so I had to pay upgraded shipping so the shoes showed up in time (hopefully), and then of course I bitched about it because it turned my $80 shoes into $100 shoes. I should have really just worn what I have, but whatever. DSW jumped on Titter, responded to my bitching, and upgraded my shipping for free. Yep. Awesome. So m...

I’m not sure exactly what happened recently, but I’m pretty sure my life has been sucked into a black hole. The girls started walking, I got a new job, started the new job, bought the girls shoes, went to work, came home, did some stuff, tried to be a good wife and mom, worked some more. That doesn't leave much time for anything else, but I renew my promise (again) to try and be better about writing and posting. For real. I’ll write on my phone while chasing the girls in two different directions. One wants to play with the dog toy (which really pisses him off) and the other wants to play on the stairs. Always the stairs. What the hell kids? It was like watching a dog with boots on. She was pissed. I’m going to start putting their shoes on them inside because the shoes actually slow them down. Neither one really knows what to do right away, so they just stand there like tiny little statues. Eventually they figure out how to walk again and we’re off to the same old mischief...

Most women have a stash of shoes in various places. Drawers at the office, the trunk or backseat of the car, or all of the above. We have this because our needs are constantly changing. I walk almost a mile from the train to the office. I can’t do that in the heels I’ll wear all day. Plus all that walking can’t be good for the heels (or my feet in the heels).  Then there’s the after dinner drinks, lunch that you’re walking to but is still professional so you want heels, weekends and time chasing kids, or going out on the town. Never mind that we need shoes in different colors or styles, the main reason we hoard shoes in a million places is because one height doesn’t work for everything. You can’t walk a mile in stilettos twice a day for years, just like you can’t wear a low heeled oxford with a dress on a date night. This constant changing is how we end up with drawers full of shoes scattered throughout the various Heels with flames. Love this. places we live our lives like s...

There’s life changers that are really obvious and turn your entire life on its ear (like the day I came home with twins), and then there are the subtle changes that you don’t really notice until you have some reason to look back. At that point it sometimes makes you wonder “Who am I?” The other day I was texting with a friend and we were discussing work, jobs, next steps and the path that got us there. We've been friends since we were about 15, moved to the city around the same time, spent our 20s putting in 50+ hours a week at the office, trying to establish ourselves in careers, and spent weekends bar hopping, drinking too much and making some questionable decisions. Eventually we started spending weekends in, got married (me, not him), moved, got new jobs, kept working a million hours a week (does that stop?), had twins (me again) and once in a while we manage to not have meetings on the same day and we meet for lunch. Closet vomit. I seriously need to get this under contr...

These are not pretty or flattering. I've decided this week it’s a good thing I’m not a celebrity. I mean it’s unfortunate because if I was I’d have a lot more money and would be able to do things like see my kids for more than an hour a day and go to the gym, but it’s good because the world would think I am a complete an utter bitch (which I can be, but part of that is also an Olympic case of bitchy resting face). But I already have enough problems saying what I think and having an overly dry sense of humor, and in today's humorless society, that would not go over well. That means I get to leave the funny comments to real celebs, who will then be jumped all over by a humorless Internet full of people grasping their Starbucks cups and pretending they're going to yoga right after this last Facebook post. Case in point, Eva Mendes who said sweatpants cause divorce. Good for her. They’re horrid things that don’t look good on anyone and aside from being comfy, have no ...

I think in past years I have blogged about how I epically fail at spring fashion.  Something about the bright colors, airy fabric and colors (yes, it’s worth mentioning twice) that are really a problem. By the time summer rolls around I spend my days in variations of black skirts, dresses and cigarette pants with sunglasses firmly planted on my face until it cools down to fall. This year I have my girls and their bright, pastel infused, happy looking baby wardrobe to highlight So happy and pink. my epic fails at spring. They have a dress covered in a pink tailed mermaid paired with hot pink leggings. I am in black leggings and a short sleeved burgundy sweater and ankle boots. Denim dress with floral leggings for them, black pants with a black top and a leopard infinity scarf for me.  I even went out and bought a pair of leopard loafers for the spring and summer that can be easily slipped on and worn to chase children all over the place, but they’re pony hair (which is p...