Cat in Heels

It feels like day 300 of the stay-at-home order, but in reality it's only been about a month. 23 days since everything closed according to the numbers on the doors of my kids school. 23 days of working from home, long days, home schooling twin kindergartners and being with the husband 24/7. The dog is confused and has been on more walks in the last week than in the last couple months. My vow to workout while working from home was a giant joke and workouts have been replaced with 16 hour work days, time with the kids and Netflix. I vowed to bake and instead have made one loaf of blueberry bread. From a box. One kid hated it. My sleep schedule is fucked, I go days without showering, only put on makeup for a conference call once a week, and I don't have enough casual clothes to comfortably have a quarantine wardrobe without wearing the same shirt multiple days in a week. Still I consider myself lucky. I'm still working and the girls do their school work, generally ...

That’s how long it’s been since the twins were born. Five looooong years. Or five short years. It feels like a couple months ago they were infants. Now they’re full blown children. Big kids, as they now refer to themselves. Kids who are reading and writing and soaking the world up like a sponge. Kids who are arguing and developing opinions, a sense of style, and a very serious set of likes and dislikes. Kids who want to be part of everything and do all the stuff big kids do, but still tell me they don’t want to be adults because they don’t want to not live with me. Twin Powers, Activate! This is an amazing time. This is magical. This is what I never could have imagined during those long days and nights of that first year. Twin parents, hang in there. Five year olds also means that Husband and I have survived as the parents of twins for five full years. We may not have slept a lot, and some of it was hard. Like really, soul wrenchingly difficult. I can’t compare to somethi...

Cue the mid-life crisis. Or not quite yet. I did have a birthday this summer, but it hasn't pushed me to 40 just yet. And it's not so much a crisis as it is a revelation and the decision to do something to take myself back. In the last year so much has happened and I haven't written a word. Well, I have written, but then I get a draft, get busy and move on. By the time I think about posting it again it seems dated and like it needs a total rewrite, which I don't always have time for. Now I'm making time. I'm taking charge of something in my life and I am making time to write. I feel more like me when I write. I have so much to say, and yet I'm a very private person who isn't the best at doing things like going out or making friends. I always joke with my extroverted husband that I only have like eight friends. That may be an exaggeration now and the number is actually lower, but they're all really, really good friends. The kind I can call if I ...

Every morning as I get ready for work the twins come wandering into my bathroom, rubbing the sleep from their eyes and telling me about their crazy dreams. I finish my hair and start doing my makeup and they crowd around me, grabbing at makeup brushes and asking what everything is as I apply each piece. About a month earlier at Ulta trying not to touch everything.  D: "What's that for?" Me: "It's foundation so Mommy's skin isn't blotchy." D: "Oh. You put it on with a cat egg?" Me: "It's a beauty blender, sweetie. Cats don't lay eggs." S: "What's that for?" Me: "It's an eyebrow pencil so Mommy has eyebrows again because she waxed them into oblivion in the '90s." S: "Oh. Oblivion? Do I have eyebrows?" Me: "Yes bay, they're right here above your eyes, and they're beautiful so don't ever mess with them even if thin brows come back into style." And...

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...

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...