This bureau was mine growing up at 33 Lexington Avenue. It was a yard sale purchase, never really worked well (the drawers would stick, and the bottoms fell out of several of them). I painted it yellow when I was pregnant with Grace, put it in the nursery, and this morning I took it downstairs to the street (my version of freecycle is to put things on the sidewalk and hope some soul will take them and give them a home). Making room for the big boy bed. Another goodbye.

As I have painstakingly documented on this blog, I have trouble with transitions. With the passage of time (with a birthday coming up you can expect this theme to start crescendoing). Whit’s bunkbeds are arriving on Tuesday next week. That means his days in a crib are numbered. Yes, I know: he’s 3.5 and still in a crib. He’s basically veal. It’s time. I know. I get it. I am still very sad about it. The little man loves his crib, actually, but he loves his new robot sheets for his Big Boy Bed a whole lot more. I keep going in there at night and snapping pictures of him sleeping, and today I got into his crib with him (something I’ve done a lot, with both kids). I am undeniably a better and more engaged parent to an older child, but there is still something very emotional and bittersweet about shedding one of the last vestiges of Whit’s babyhood.

I have a weird and childlike enthusiasm for random questionnaires (and an insatiable appetite for other peoples’ answers).

Excerpted from Elle

If you could come back as a dress, what would it be?
hmmm … one of Mia Farrow’s little boxy minidresses like the one she married Frank Sinatra in, maybe

What’s your favorite color?
orange

What’s your favorite junk food?
In n Out burger

What are you most shy about?
oh, where to begin – cold sores, muscly legs, post-babies chesticles, paleness of skin

If you could have someone else’s body, whose would it be?
Giselle (duh)

Who are your fantasy dinner-party guests?
Oprah, Obama, F Scott & Zelda, Steve Jobs, Anne Sexton (nice combo of liberals and crazies)

Where is your favorite place to have a drink?
Algonquin Hotel, NYC

Underwear of choice?
Hanky Panky

Last book you read?
The Cobweb – Neil Stephenson (not quite done)

Any pets?
no, and other than large dogs, no interest

What’s for breakfast?
3 small vanilla scones from Starbucks, and my venti latte

At age seven, you wanted to be:
a doctor

Do you have any superstitions?
I like “I love you” to be the last thing I say to my parents before I say goodbye to them

What’s your biggest self-indulgence?
my trainer, Kimberly

Favorite place to shop?
the internet

If you were an inventor, what would you invent?
a time machine

Favorite car?
a Smart car

What was your childhood nickname?
Lindsey Mead, She’s on Speed

When and where are you happiest?
watching my children sleep (is this suspicious?), on cross-country flights

Who is your best friend?
that person knows who they are

Who is your worst enemy?
myself

What piece of art would you most like to own?
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Sky Above the Clouds

What’s your favorite vacation spot?
my parents’ back yard in Marion, watching the children run through the sprinkler and drinking white wine on ice.

Who is your favorite fictional character?
hard to pick one – Mamah Cheney, Nancy Botwin, Daisy Buchanan, Eve

What’s your most treasured possession?
my photo albums

Your favorite song/band?
impossible – but certainly something old-school and acoustic from the 70s

What current trend would you like to see disappear?
skinny jeans. Who do they look good on?

Always:
speak your mind. Tell people what you feel.

Never:
take anything or anyone for granted

Which was great even when the skies opened two minutes before the end of her lesson. I do like me a crazy summer thunderstorm. She and I were drenched (luckily I was not wearing only a single layer of white cotton, as she was) when we got to the car. Literally soaked to the skin. Felt pretty great actually. And she has declared tennis her “favorite sport ever.”

These animated children, builders of Lego towers topped with Lego men, devourers of blue frosting … I am trying to let them bring me back from the melancholy that pulls me like a tide. It’s hard.