Cat in Heels

I’ve really sucked at this blogging this this year.  Sometimes I feel like I kind of just half-assed it through part of the year. Or like I’m running after my life, which is speeding ahead of me, my fingers just brushing it as I reach forward at a full sprint. Maybe this is just adulthood. Motherhood. Career. Frosting Face - or "How my kids became the Joker" Celebrity deaths and politics aside (which so much has been written by others, I have nothing to add) 2016 was not a bad year. I got a promotion. My children and family are happy and generally healthy. My younger sister is engaged. I finally got some medical stuff figured out and started to lose some of the baby weight (plus some put on by a sluggish postpartum thyroid) and got rid of the brain fog that came with it. Yet with all these things, time seems to go so quickly and the days fill up so fast. Lunch hours are dedicated to the gym or work meetings (because who doesn’t love a working lunch). Evenings...

After dinner yesterday I was playing with the girls when the first reports of the terror attack in Nice, France started showing up on my phone. News alerts, Facebook; I wanted to know what was going on. S wanted to wear one of my bracelets to bed and D was trying to decide if she was going to wear a tutu to bed. I finally decided that I need to focus on my twins and the precious little time I get with them every day. The horrors of the world will still be unrolling on Facebook and every major news network when they’re sound asleep. As I put my phone down D walked up to me and handed me a book. “Night-night book,” she said sitting down next to me. I stared down and felt a lump in my throat. The book was “ Brush Mona Lisa’s Hair .” France is under attack again and here I am staring at one of the most famous paintings in the world, which resides in the French’s most famous museum…and my little girl has no idea. She just likes interacting with the pictures. We are rea...

Why are four letter words so easy to say? I mean for us adults they just roll off the tongue in a variety of situations. I haven’t counted how many I use in a day, but it’s up there. I tried to stop once but it turns out not swearing is bullshit that other people do. It’s like cooking or running marathons. Great for some people, but totally not for me. It turns out that four letter words are equally easy to for toddlers to say. How is it that the kids say “beek-a-poo” when playing peek a boo, but “Fuck” is loud and clear. Monkeys are commonly referred to as “on-keys” but “oh shit” doesn’t seem to be tripping them up. Husband said in their defense we probably say “fuck” a lot more than “peek-a-boo.” I'm not sure about that, but the two may be neck and neck. My two-year-old twins are dropping f-bombs at the dinner table while I have a post-work cocktail. They have also recently learned to growl back at the dog when playing tug, which means at least we’re not the only...

Every once in a while a woman comes along, hopping around, flipping hair and flashing manicured nails and spouting off about the dumbest shit in the world, and all you can think is “You’re the type that makes women look stupid.” Enter Meghann Foye, a woman who has written a book and spoken on the topic of “ Meternity .” It’s like maternity leave, but without the baby. You know for single people without babies because it’s not fair that only people who have babies get all this time off. I’ll let that sink in for a minute. According to Ms. Foye, taking maternity leave is a wonderful time that allows women to reflect on Spend vacation hooked up to this every 3 hours. It's fun! life, learn to advocate for themselves and their family, and generally recharge. You moms seeing red yet? I’m not sure about everyone else’s experience, but I went into labor at night, was emailing my boss from the hospital before they wheeled me into an operating room to cut me open, pulled every...

Happy Alien Day! A few weeks ago it was announced that on April 26 (Alien Day) Reebok would be releasing a replica of the the Alien Stompers Ripley wore in the 1986 movie Aliens , which were originally made by Reebok for the film.  For those who wanted something that isn’t a mid-calf gym shoe, there was a lower version, worn by Bishop, also being released. So here we are, April 26. Everyone is celebrating Administrative Professionals Day, and a few are also celebrating Alien Day. (For those who don’t know the date is a reference to the planet LV-426). Let’s go get our Alien Stompers on. Oh, except all you ladies. Yeah. All you ladies that wanted a pair of Alien Stompers like the ones Ripley, our female hero, wears in the film… Reebok says “fuck you.” Alien Stompers only come in men’s sizes. Yep. The shoe worn by one of the strongest, most iconic women on screen, a woman who unapologetically kicked ass movie after movie, who took out the Alien queen, cared for a...

Every month I say I’m going to write, and then every month goes by with me writing less and less. I am still active on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram if you follow me there, which I hope you do because if this is how you get your Cat in Heels updates, then you’re woefully behind. So what’s been happening? The twins turned two, I still work a lot, I haven’t been shopping and have bought zero new shoes for me (the twins on the other hand…) and I continue to stress about every little thing because I’m a generally anxious individual and a mom, which makes you more anxious, so really if there was an Olympic sport for anxiety, I would totally be a contender. In all this working and moming and being a wife, there’s not a lot of time left for me. This weekend I sat with a friend as my twins and her two children tore her house apart and we discussed the woes of moming. There’s the working mom guilt that you never get to spend enough time with your kids, and then on the weekends you...

I’ve always been a little iffy on trends, and since having the twins, I have fallen into the black hole of working motherhood and I don’t know anything anymore. My younger sister had to explain Snapchat to me last summer. Needless to say, I still don’t have one. I have just accepted that in some ways I am totally, and completely out of touch. Who What Where always seemed a little more down to earth when it comes to trends, pricing and things like that. I mean, they have a line with Target . It doesn’t get much more consumer friendly than that. So when I saw a recent article about “ 7 Shoe Styles You Should Definitely Wear in 2016 ” I took the bait. I don’t want to be totally off trend. I am wearing clothes from last year because I’m convincing myself my body is going to get with the program and loose weight soon. I haven’t bought many shoes because I’m waiting on this amazing wardrobe I’m going to buy my new skinny body… Jesus, I wish I hadn’t looked. This isn't a sandal...

Is a love of accessories genetic? The girls have gone from shoe obsessed to everything obsessed. They love when I let them pick clothes. They like the My Little Pony socks Santa put in their stocking best ("pony, pony") are super excited about shoes and hats and tutus and getting their hair done… Maybe not the last one so much. They actually hate getting it cut, but they love doing hair flips and mugging in the mirror as soon as we say, “All done.” Pre-bedtime toddler selfies.  Seriously, what two year-old does hair flips? Playing in my shoes has now elevated to playing in my shoes and dragging my giant Voodoo Vixen bag around. Literally dragging because they can’t pick it up because it doubles as a diaper bag and is full of all of our crap. I’d consider cleaning it out so it’s toddler weight, but then the bag may disappear and I’d never see it again, and I would like to wait a few years before my handbags go missing out of my closet. I’ve even recen...

What the fuck universe? I’m tired of opening Facebook every morning at the train station and seeing someone who died. The last 30 days has been a bad time to be a celebrity, particularly if your British and I am a fan of your work. First it was Lemmy, the Motorhead frontman who prided himself on how much he could drink and toured right up to the end, passing away from an aggressive cancer just before the new year. The Goblin King watches over my babes Next we famously had David Bowie. When I saw it I thought it was an internet hoax, and after some frantic Googling I realized it was real and choked back tears as I sat waiting for a late train on a bitter cold Chicago morning. Now Alan Rickman . The voice of God. The bad guy from Die Hard. The Sheriff of Nottingham. Most famously, Snape. This is a really long list, so I’ll end with that one since almost everyone but me has seen all the Harry Potter movies. All three great. All three taken by aggressive cancer before...

New year, same resolutions. Actually, I don’t even bother making resolutions anymore because they’re just the same damn things I try to do every year, all year. Lose weight Be healthier (fruit is a better snack than a Reese cup and I'm already failing at this) Be more organized (at home, my office is fine) I actually started the whole organized thing before the new year by cleaning out everyone’s closet. The girls fit in things for all of 3 months and then they’re on to the next size, and if I’m lucky everything got worn once. While pregnant my feet went up a size and none of my shoes fit, so I started selling all of them. I also recently came to the conclusion that even if I do manage to once again fit into all the clothes spilling out of my closet, a lot of them won’t be in style, aren’t my style or are something I’ve been holding onto for far too long for no good reason (sequin mini skirt, I’m looking at you). Husband has managed to miraculously lose weight by...