By: Jen Shoop

One of the hosts of my current favorite podcast (still devouring these episodes — what a delight!) made an off-handed reference to Bonnie Raitt’s “I Don’t Want Anything to Change” song. She invoked it as the perfect song for when you need a good cry, whether you’re nursing a broken heart or grieving the loss of a loved one. And though I was not feeling lachrymose on that particular chilly October morning, I tuned in, and these lyrics left me swallowing, hard, as I walked up Columbus Avenue and thought back to some of the emotions I grappled with when my friend E. was very ill:

I can feel you fading
But until you’re gone
I’m taking all the time I can borrow
The getting over is waiting
But I won’t move on
And I’m gonna wanna feel the same tomorrow

And I don’t want anything to do
With what comes after you
I don’t want anything to change

I always think a lot about change this time of year, because of the turn in seasons. And I think a lot about E. this time of year because her birthday was September 26th — and she loved birthdays. There were always thoughtful presents wrapped in carefully selected paper, long and effusive cards detailing the ins and outs of our friendship, peppered with inside jokes that I can only barely make out as a thirty-five-year-old when I have the emotional stamina to thumb through some of the memorabilia from our young friendship, cupcakes from boxed mixes with goopy letters frosted on top, occasionally balloons, brought to school and stowed by her locker. Do I have this wrong or did we occasionally write on the windows of her car in the school parking lot with window markers to celebrate the day? (T.D.(T) or E.S.(P), please clarify.) And her parents always threw her a proper party at their home in Vienna for the occasion. I can see so clearly her bright and happy face excitedly chatting with all of her girlfriends fanned around her, the entire day joyful and silly and feminine — just like she was.

Oh, I miss her.

When I think of her now, I often wonder what life would be like if she were still alive. Would she come up to visit me in New York? Would we be comparing notes on child-rearing? Would she send me middle-of-the-night texts while breastfeeding her own child? Would we meet in the summer at a beach house somewhere between Virginia in New York, where we would inevitably spend two or three nights re-living our youth? (And would she remember that summer afternoon in the parking lot at Kings Dominion?)

These unfair and unproductive musings are markedly different from the kind of grieving I experienced just before and after her death, when I was appalled to think about the gaping chasm she would and did leave behind. Her absence was a shock I could not accommodate. It was an acute kind of grief that — when I wasn’t thinking directly about her passing — softened around the edges into mushy, maudlin, ephemeral observations of the changes in my life now that she was gone. I would be driving down Wisconsin Avenue past Thomas Sweet ice cream shop and I would think of the evening we marched over there with our parents and a posse of our friends after the awards ceremony that book-ended every school year, and the way we laughed and whispered and held big cups of frozen yogurt with sprinkles as our shoes caught in the red herringbone brick of the Georgetown sidewalks and the sun set behind us. And I wouldn’t think directly about her so much as the fact that we would never walk that stretch of Volta Street together again, or get frozen yogurt together, or talk about that night together — and how everything was changing, and how awful it was.

If you were to toss out the word “change” at random, I would reflexively think upon it in favorable terms: turning over a new leaf! open doors! new beginnings! progress! movement!

But change is a trickster, a Janus. And it can be the grimmest of reapers. It is woven so deeply into the fabric of grief that I occasionally forget that its churning gears are to blame for much of the gritty heartache of mourning a loss. The befores and afters. The retiring of things once used. The way I still wrote her birthday into my planner for many years though I’d bite my tongue every time I’d do it. The acerbic longing for the normalcies of what once were.

And change is hard, full-stop, no matter what age you are or how well-supported and emotionally aware you find yourself. Change is hard when you are a toddler and are suddenly accommodating a new routine, or a new brother, or a new home — or, like our child, all three at once. (Yikes!) Change is also hard when you are a thirty-something woman recovering from a c-section and overwhelmed by all the new thoughts and emotions and responsibilities that are swirling around you. And I would venture to guess that change is still hard when you are in your fifties and sending your children off to college, or when you are in your sixties and retiring from a job your love, or when you are in your seventies and moving from your home into a retirement community.

Why is this? I wondered as I listened to Bonnie’s lyrics again a few days later. It must be in part because we are creatures of habit, attached to what we know, alarmed by and dubious of what we don’t. And if you think about it, every institution in our lives is oriented around stasis. Do you know, for example, how difficult it is to move from one state to another, even in the U.S., a federation of states with a shared government and shared interests? When we moved from Illinois to New York, it felt almost like no one had ever attempted to move between states before we had — everything was protracted, done on paper, faxed to weird back offices, biased against us. For example, it was a multi-month-long challenge to get our fare cards for the L cashed out. We had to fill out a paper form drafted in like 1982 indicating we were permanently relocating, send it via email to a random inbox that I to this day cannot believe did not bounce and wait eight weeks for our check of $108 to arrive in New York. Transferring all of our information and turning off utilities and all that jazz — the entire thing was archaic, tedious, and heavily inconvenient. It made obvious that change is an underprivileged entity. That everything in our lives is optimized for lock-in, for stasis. That there are myriad invisible forces designed to keep us in our places.

And we construct our own centrifugal forces, too: the rituals of our mornings, the sequencing of nighttime skincare regimens, the spots in our home designated for piles of mail, or discarded shoes, or dish towels. Everything around us designed for comfort and habit and routine.

But life is synonymous with change, even when we can’t see it happening. As a mother to two young children, I am often reminded of this fact, as that pair of pants that fit micro two days ago now no longer button, or that puzzle that used to be too advanced for mini is now easily completed — and then, much to my wonderment and glee, placed back in the box and returned to the shelf. (Thank you, Montessori!)

Oh, change, you two-faced woman, at once the mask of grief and the mantle of progress! I don’t know about you or what you’re up to but I’ve come around to the notion that you will be my recurring visitor whether I invite you or not.

Post Scripts: Festive Dressing.

On rather the polar opposite of the foregoing, a couple of items I’m eyeing for some festive occasions in the near future:

+This jewel-collared dress is a prim way to achieve holiday sparkle in a conservative setting. (Also love this style!)

+I’m so bummed I did not pounce on the Ulla Johnson Indah dress when it was stocked in my size (I think it’s sold out everywhere and in every size at this point) — to the point that I might rent it for an occasion from RTR.

+Love this ruffle-sleeved tartan blouse!

+This saucy bustier top (or this velvet one!) would look incredible with high-waisted black trousers.

+Sequinned pants!

+So in love with the Manolo Hangisi this season, but these or these get the look for less.

+In a similar vein: this Miu Miu skirt is EPIC. Pair with this inexpensive Zara score.

+Considering adding this sparkly brooch to my jewelry box to affix to basically everything I wear this holiday season.

+Dying over this jumpsuit.

+This tinsel dress gives me Saloni vibes.

+Love these gold knot earrings.

+This saucy satin number is calling my name. (Look for less with this.)

+Into the embellishments on this peplum blouse.

+Love these mules in the solid black. (I own them in a floral print!)

P.S. More festive dresses worth considering.

P.P.S. She was how she kept time.

By: Jen Shoop

To be honest, my beauty and skincare routines have taken a major backseat to more pressing matters, like feeding micro and moving in Manhattan and getting mini out the door dressed, brushed, and fed within an hour of her waking in the morning. Sometimes I arrive at mini’s school pick-up line at 3 p.m. and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and think — “Oh Jennie. Shoulda reapplied the blush before dashing out the door just now…”

Sephora’s 20% off promotion (if you are VIB Rouge level) reminded me to take a beat, refresh my beauty cabinet, and carve out a little extra time in the mornings to take care of myself. I am specifically picking up these items with the current discount:

OUAI WAVE SPRAY (THE EASIEST WAY TO MAKE MESSY HAIR LOOK INTENTIONAL + I LOVE THE SCENT)

COCO MADEMOISELLE PERFUME (I RECENTLY RAN OUT OF PERFUME AND I’M RETURNING TO THIS CLASSIC, WHICH I WORE THROUGHOUT MY 20S + WHICH INSTANTLY MAKES ME FEEL PUT-TOGETHER)

NARS THE MULTIPLE (FOR ON-THE-GO TOUCH-UPS)

LAURA MERCIER ILLUMINATING MOISTURIZER (I HAVE BEEN WEARING CHANTECAILLE’S TINTED MOISTURIZER BUT I LIKE THIS STUFF RIGHT NOW BECAUSE IT ADDS THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF SHEEN/HIGHLIGHTING, WHICH MY TIRED FACE NEEDS)

LAURA MERCIER EYE BASICS (FOR WHEN I’M TOO LAZY TO APPLY EYE SHADOW — I JUST SWIPE THIS ON AND GO; INSTANTLY BRIGHTENS/EVENS OUT TONE OF EYELID)

IT COSMETICS SUPERHERO MASCARA (THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST)

ARMANI MASCARA (A FRIEND RAVED ABOUT THIS RECENTLY — GOING TO GIVE IT A SHOT IN ADDITION TO MY TRIED & TRUE STUFF ABOVE)

I am also considering stocking up on my favorite go-to products that I never go without:

TATA HARPER EXFOLIATING CLEANSER

BELIF AQUABOMB

OUAI SMOOTH SHAMPOO + CONDITIONER

FRESH BODY LOTION

DRYBAR PREP RALLY DETANGLER

A few other beauty products I had to share as a part of this post (not all are from Sephora, though):

+Laura Mercier is retiring a bunch of products and they’re marked way down right now. I love (!) her caviar sticks for eye shadow, and many of the colors are currently heavily discounted. They’re super easy to apply and I’m all about anything that doesn’t require a brush. Ha! Also eyeing this illuminating concealer.

+Vintner’s Daughter’s Serum. I can’t say enough good things about this serum. It is pricey but it lasts a very, very long time. If this product is out of your price range, I also love Ole Henriksen’s Truth Serum.

+Tata Harper’s Volumizing Lip + Cheek Tint. I’m pretty sure this is the only blush I’ll ever wear for the rest of my life. I absolutely love the flushed effect it achieves — and it is perfectly pigmented. Sometimes I find liquid/cream blushes are too intensely colored and therefore difficult to apply (i.e., I look like a clown after I’ve swiped some on). This blends like a dream and is easy to build. I freaking love it and have gifted it to my mother and a girlfriend already! (That’s how you truly know I love something!) Sephora does carry this product but it keeps selling out. It’s that good. (Also — you can use this balm on your lips! Love a multitasking tool like this.)

+These DryBar hair clips continue to be used daily. They last forever. I think I’ve had the same pack of four for like eight years? I’m not sure, but I’ve had them forever and ever amen. I use them to clip back my hair when washing my face. I will say they aren’t ideal to use on just-blow-dried-hair as you’ll get a little crimp in your hair; for that purpose, I ordered a set of these to pull back the hair around my face when applying makeup.

+Still loving this shower caddy (so well-designed — does not rust, does not slip/slide around, and has little hooks for a loofah, a tray for a razor, etc, etc.) Just perfectly designed and slick-looking.

+I steered my Dad in the direction of one of these monogrammed Weezie robes for my mom, and she has been raving about it. I think I need one, too.

+I am kind of swooning over the velvet hairbow at the top of this post. You can get the look with this, this, or this (bargain!).

P.S. Many of the products above are already in my roundup of my all-time favorite beauty products, in case you want a full list of my favorite products. (And here is a list of my favorite beauty products under $50.)

P.P.S. Some musings on self-care after I fell and split my head open last winter (almost a year ago!). God willing, you will not endure a similar incident, but if you or someone you know does: I have to swear by this silicon gel and La Roche Posay fluid sunscreen, which I applied religiously every single day and I have to say that the scarring is minimal. My fall actually came up this past weekend with a friend we’d not seen since the accident, and he said he wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t pointed it out! I will claim that as a victory because I of course do.

P.P.P.S. What are your favorite go-to fall recipes?

By: Jen Shoop

I’ve written about this fairly extensively, but there is nothing more humbling as a parent than a second child. Aspects of raising mini that felt easy or “clicked” readily have been more challenging with micro, and vice versa. At the risk of sounding nihilistic, this suggests to me that many of my efforts as a parent have been accidentally related to outcomes. And that perhaps I have underestimated the intrinsic force of my children’s personalities and predilections — or, alternately, the power of circumstance and environment. Let’s take as an example my struggle to get micro to sleep through the night. I felt I was trying everything under the sun and then virtually within a week of transitioning micro to his own nursery in our new apartment, he started sleeping through the night with regularity. I’d observed that he was an exceptionally light sleeper earlier, but this confirmed my suspicion. Meanwhile, mini could sleep through world war III — a fact we mistakenly took no small amount of smug pride in, as we felt it was because we’d always been unfussy about where she slept (“sure, we’ll grab dinner at 7 and just keep her in her carseat!”) and had a cavalier attitude that we would continue to live our lives at full volume rather than tiptoe around our home. Hill’s wakefulness at the creak of a floorboard disproved this theory, however. And frankly, once he started sleeping through the night in his own nursery, I realized I’d been haranguing myself for no reason, as there was simply no where else for him to have slept in our petite two bedroom apartment and nothing we would have done — no new sleepsack, no new bedtime routine, no new approach to feeding — would have gotten the job done. He needed his own space and that was that, and we couldn’t give that to him until we moved.

And yet what else is there to do but test new approaches and ponder small tweaks? Nothing. Because every now and then a new adjustment does seem to yield a marked change. And at a minimum, the puzzling over symptoms and the thoughtful observation of behavior can afford me the temporary impression of progress. Example: this past weekend, when micro launched into a very strange pattern of wanting to eat every three hours and wake after only thirty minutes of nap — this, despite the fact that we had been in a very regular routine of eating every four hours and napping for at least an hour or longer each cycle — and I ran through the gamut of possible explanations. Was he simply adjusting to his new environs? We’d assembled his crib, rolled out his rug, and rearranged the room — and so maybe he was waking and feeling confused about what he was seeing? I’d also started to have him sleep with one arm out of his transitional sleepsack in a slow transition to arms-free sleeping, and maybe this was rousing him? Or maybe it was a textbook growth spurt, and he was just hungrier and fussier? He’d been a little more congested than usual — maybe it was a cold that was bothering him?

But then it hit me all of the sudden that he was drooling like crazy and, when I took a look in his mouth, sure enough: a tooth was jutting through his lower gums. Aha. That would explain everything.

It would explain why the Magic Merlin suit had worked for two nights and then suddenly made him irate: when he wakes, he tries to self-soothe by putting his hand in his mouth and the Merlin suit makes that impossible for him to do, as his arms jut out at his sides and he can’t reach his fingers.

In fact, it might explain the sudden nursing strike that has persisted for the past few weeks and left me sadly weaning him earlier than I’d hoped.

And it would certainly explain why he was anxious to eat more often, and why he might be waking in frustrated pain every thirty minutes.

At any rate: once I’d gotten to the bottom of this, I felt better just knowing what was going on, even if there appears to be very little that I can do but wait it out. (We’ve been freezing teethers, trying different types of teethers — he likes this one best right now — etc.)

These milestones and the attendant flurry of “I wonder ifs” on my end are the stuff of parenting a newborn, and sometimes I sit back and think that my boy is a force all his own, hurtling himself through his days at his own speed and according to his own instincts. I will always be there, attempting to smooth down the road around him, guiding him along as best I can, occasionally pruning or trimming back the hedges to make his passage less encumbered and more pleasant, but much of the unfolding of his sweet little life will happen in ways that I can neither anticipate nor control. I had a different outlook as a parent to one. I felt more complicit in the shaping of mini’s life, in the handling of transitions. Now I see that though I will never stop fretting over the minutiae and testing and tweaking various elements of their routines, my primary role is to love them. To rock micro for hours on end because there is nothing else that seems to erase the pain of teething. To go into that nursery to soothe him back to sleep countless times per day because that’s just what’s called for right now. To accept that our nursing days are behind us (though I’m still clinging to that one dream feed when he will still breastfeed!). To — in the words of a Magpie reader — power through with love.

All that to say that I have become increasingly suspicious of baby products that purport to solve very common frustrations for new parents. I mean, does the Snoo really work, for example? It claims to handle a lot of the rocking and soothing of a newborn on your behalf, but I’m skeptical. I think instead there are tools that make those moments easier or that perhaps abbreviate the length of time you spend doing certain things. And below, I am sharing a roundup of some of the products that have my life as a second-time mom to a newborn a lot easier:

1 // Tubby Todd All-Over Ointment. Micro has always had fairly dry skin — but especially as a newborn, when he was also prone to acne! Poor thing. This ointment was the only thing that truly moisturized his skin and that also, strangely enough, resolved his acne! I also use it as a diaper cream to treat rash.

2 // Love to Dream Swaddles. We swaddled both of our babies in swaddling blankets when they were itty bitty (under three months), and mini actually loved (!!!) being swaddled until she was around five months old! (She was late to roll over, so that wasn’t a concern for us.) Micro, on the other hand, outgrew his swaddles seemingly overnight around three months and grew too strong and resistant for them anyhow. These Love to Dream swaddles have been such a godsend. He has always liked to have his hands up by his mouth, and the zip-off sleeves have made a slow transition to arms-free sleeping possible for us. (We’re currently have him sleep with one arm out.) We also did try the Magic Merlin suit and I will say that the second I’d zip him into it, he’d fall asleep — truly, like magic! — but because of his teething situation, we’ve had to retire it in favor of the Love to Dream swaddle until he’s through his teething woes. (And at that point, he may well be comfortable sleeping with his arms free.)

3 // Nuna Adapters for the Yoyo Babyzen Stroller. I’ve always loved the Yoyo, but now that the Nuna Pipa carseat can clip into it with these adapters, it has officially become the perfect stroller for traveling city-dwellers. Think about it: there is literally no circumstance for which you are underprepared. Need to grab a cab? No worries, you’ve got your carseat. Need to walk down stairs? No worries, you can unclip the carseat and fold up the stroller base. Finding yourself in a super tiny restaurant? Put the carseat on a chair and fold up the Yoyo under the seat. Taking a plane? You can gate-check the carseat (or take it on board if you paid for a seat for the baby) and fold up the stroller base in an overhead bin. It is truly a perfect stroller for so many occasions. I have also seen a lot of parents with the Doona around Manhattan, which seems to do a lot of the same things. However, the Yoyo can also work as a stroller for older children! (The Doona only works up to a certain age.)

4 // Baby Bjorn Mini. I thought I hated babywearing until I tried this. It is so, so easy to use and comfortable. I wear micro constantly, which is truly a godsend since I often need my hands free to tend to mini. I am devastated that he is quickly outgrowing it and on the market for a well-designed carrier for slightly older babies.

5 // Red Rooster Sound Machine. I thought this little travel sleep sheep was adorable and helpful with mini but micro proved to me the superiority of a true white noise machine, especially given what a light sleeper he is. This one is inexpensive, small, and can operate with just a battery if need be (i.e., can be used on the go or while traveling). I do think putting him into a routine with this sound machine on at every nap and bedtime has made him very, very easy to “put down” — I draw the blinds, tap on the sound machine, and zip him into this sleep sack, and he turns into a drowsy little snuggle bug almost immediately. (Yet another difference between the two babies — I recall rocking mini for long stretches of time and often resorting to turning on the shower, which lulled her to sleep. Micro usually takes a one or two minutes of snuggling and rocking to quiet, but can then be placed into his crib while still awake. It’s amazing. I still — even five months in — find myself startled by how quickly and easily he falls asleep. But is this intrinsic to who he is? Or is it something I’ve done? Or is it the Red Rooster? We will never know, but I will persist in the use of the RR because I think it has helped and because I know for a fact that it drowns out the seemingly constant noise in our apartment during his naptimes — mini’s shrieks, the dog’s barking, the clang of pots and pans.) I will also say that we received this travel owl music/sound machine thing and we clip it onto the bar of his stroller, and he absolutely loves it! He will be fussing and then we’ll turn on the music and he’ll just stare up at the owl in silence.

What are your must-have products?!

Post Scripts.

+More of my favorite baby products here and my all-time favorite baby travel gear here. (I still standby all of these picks across two children!)

+I was chatting with a fellow parent earlier this week who has been struggling to transition his daughter from bottles to sippy cups. I remember that phase so well! I want to re-endorse the Nuk sippy cup — it was the only one that got the job done for us! We now also use these RePlay sippy cups and are feeling like we need to start transitioning to true cups soon, since she uses those at school. (I just don’t know if I’m ready for the daily messes that will ensue until she’s really steady with them…) Caveat: I love the Nuks but I will say that mini has a bad habit of chewing on the spout to the point that she tears a hole in it and milk spills EVERYWHERE when it inevitably topples over. She cannot destroy the spout of the RePlay sippies since it’s hard plastic, but then you have to be mindful of removing the little rubber piece that goes on the underside of the top of the cup and washing it separately — if you don’t, milk gets trapped in there and it will mold over! Anyway, I very much like the Nuks as an ideal transitional tool and the RePlays from a sturdiness standpoint. (Also like the styling of the latter!)

+These collapsible snack cups are genius! I am now often finding myself in need of one for mini when we are out and about. Love that I could collapse this and just keep it in my diaper bag for her.

+One of my favorite late-night activities is prowling around Etsy for vintage smocked dresses for mini. I have found so many incredible scores that way for great prices. I mean — look at this beautiful dress! It looks like a Rachel Riley dress, which would easily set you back $125 or $150!

+My mother in law gave mini one of these playmats and we have been getting so much mileage out of it. Mini no longer naps in the afternoon (actually, she has not napped in the afternoon since she turned about two) but we always put her in her crib for “quiet time” with books and toys from around 2-3 P.M. on the weekends. It’s a good break for everyone involved. However, lately we’ve started letting her have “quiet time” in her bedroom, out of her crib. I’ll pull out this mat and we’ll together select some books and toys for her to use. Then she’ll sit in her mat and play there, on her own, for about an hour. It’s amazing! I have to credit Montessori for introducing and reinforcing the idea of “working” on a mat. She loves having her own dedicated space to sit in.

+I’ve heard really good things about sleep sacks from Kyte and Woolino. A number of Magpies have recommended Kyte — what about Woolino? Any users?

+Now that micro’s nursery rug is sorted (it arrived and it is beautiful in person — I will say that it’s not the softest underfoot, but we added a thick rug pad so it still feel plush and comfy) and this is on its way to our apartment for our master bedroom, I have turned my attention to mini’s room. I am totally perplexed on which direction to go in. First: her room has a strange shape to it so I’ll need to think strategically about where to position/reposition the furniture in her room so the rug makes sense. (Or rugs? Maybe we buy one for under her crib area and another for her play area? Ahh! Or do we have one special cut? That seems extravagant given that we don’t know how long we’ll be here.) I will say something playful like this has caught my eye…but color is going to be a challenge to figure out…

+Some thoughts on what the little ones should wear for Thanksgiving here.

+Christmas gift ideas for babies and toddlers!

+UNRELATED BUT SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT: Everlane’s temporary $100 cashmere sale!

By: Jen Shoop

I had a couple of readers ask where I find artwork for our home for my most recent Magpie Mail post, so I thought I’d dedicate a post to a roundup of a few of my favorite sources. I will first say that I have discovered a few things about my taste in and approach to collecting art for my home over the past many years, and will provide those insights to set the table:

  1. Ideally, it’s better for me to collect pieces slowly. I tend to find that the most incredible pieces present themselves when I least expect them — and certainly not when I am desperately in search of a piece of art for that wall, and STAT. I am reminding myself to take this medicine right now, as we have a slew of guests scheduled for various entertaining occasions for the next few weeks, and I would like nothing more than to “finish” at least some of the rooms in our new apartment. But, in the long run, I know I would rather live with bare white walls for awhile than to rush into settling for something.
  2. One of the biggest problems I ran into early on was that I kept finding pieces I loved but buying them in a size 11×14 or 16×20 only to learn that those sizes were simply not suitable for the expanses of wall I tended to be hoping to cover. In my opinion, nothing looks sadder than a small, floating piece of art against a sea of painted wall. I’d almost rather have nothing at all! It’s tough because the bigger sizes tend to be exponentially more expensive than the smaller ones, but in the long run, I think it’s wiser to invest in fewer, bigger pieces.
  3. That said: a gallery wall has been a great solution for us in many of our homes as it has enabled us to cover a lot of wall space with small, well-loved pieces of art and memorobilia. Our new apartment may well be the only home in which we do not compile one.
  4. Framing is expensive. I nearly always underestimate the cost and feel furious when I discover that framing a $300 print will cost…close to $300. Ugh! There are some less expensive options — Framebridge, for example, or purchasing a frame yourself from a store like Pottery Barn (if the artwork is small enough) — but if you have something properly matted and framed, it costs a small fortune for reasons that are unclear to me. (Do I underestimate the craftsmanship and complexity of frame building?) Over time, I’ve just had to accept this cost and mentally round up when I am considering a work of art. I’ve finally come around to the same thinking when it comes to furniture — for years, I would “forget” or “overlook” the cost of shipping the furniture and now when I see the sticker price, I have to pause and remind myself it’s actually likely to be $200 extra for delivery. At any rate, the same goes for art and framing. This is also why I very much love stretched canvas artwork (not sure if that’s the official term) — you can hang it without a frame for a kind of painterly/modern look.

Now for a few of my favorite sources for artwork / artists I’ve been eyeing for a long while:

Sally King Benedict — I love the color and composition of her artwork. So fanciful and playful and feminine!

Inslee — I was a fan of hers long before we became friends. What a talent! I especially loved her series of figure studies last year and her more recent collection of color spots. I have a little watercolor of hers on my desktop right now as I write this!

Saatchi — This site requires more thorough investigation and study as it is essentially a marketplace for independent artists and you have to be patient and/or know what you are looking for to strike big. But I discovered and fell absolutely in love with a Spanish artist named Javier Montesol on the site and we invested in one of his large-format toro paintings (ours is close to six feet by six feet) — similar to this one. We had just returned from Spain when we purchased it for our new home in Chicago so it bore personal meaning to us for that reason, too. I absolutely love it. In the few minutes I spent scrolling around the site while writing this blurb, I also discovered this incredible oil on canvas and am daydreaming about it in our bedroom…

Paule Marrot Textiles — I have long lusted after one of these framed reproductions of the iconic textiles of Paule Marrot. I love this specific one with the birds, but this one with the doves is also gorgeous.

Furbish Studio — This boutique always has fun and playful discoveries. A pair of these Melvin G. compositions would be cool in a powder room or nursery, for example.

St. Frank — Their framed textiles are absolutely stunning. I’ve always loved their otomis and infant robes. Such a cool and unexpected way to add texture and color to a room.

Andy Warhol Reproductions on Canvas (seen above in situ in a gorgeous interior design situation dreamed up by the one and only Bailey McCarthy) — I am actually not an enormous Andy Warhol fan (in fact even less so after seeing an exhibit on him at the Whitney earlier this year), but I have always appreciated his series “Cowboys and Indians” because it speaks to a complex and problematic part of American history that I studied fairly extensively as an undergraduate and I find some of the archetypes that he depicted in this series highly resonant with my own childhood iconography (I shared some adjacent musings on this topic here). I was thrilled when I one day found a reproduction on canvas of his General Custer portrait on eBay and have since come to learn that you can find similar pieces there regularly. Much of our artwork is more traditional, so this particular piece stands out. This Brigitte Bardot or this Elizabeth Taylor could play a similar role in a bedroom or closet or powder room in your home.

Charles Ryan Clarke Matchbooks — Such a cool way to memorialize an important restaurant in your life.

Chinoiserie Panels — You can find amazing scores in this vein on Etsy, like this or this, and they are enormous!

Framed Audubon Prints — My mother-in-law has enormous (poster-sized), vintage Audubon prints in her sitting room and they are gorgeous. I immediately emulated her by finding four small and non-vintage Audubon bird prints on Etsy and framed them myself when I was maybe 24 — but I have repurposed them in every single home I’ve had, though I’ve reframed them a few times. I love that there are so many varieties to select from, and this is one inexpensive way to line up a series of 11×14 or 16×20 prints to make a grand impact. You can find framed versions here or go it on your own here.

Jayson Home — Super cool pieces with a distinctive (animal-centric) vibe. I love this macaw and this woven bull head.

Floriosa — I love the cheeky, modern take on chinoiserie here, especially their monkeys and birds.

Old Try — For those with Southern roots / connections: I get incessant questions about my “Old Dominion” letterpress print from Old Try. It’s a lovely way to pay homage to Mr. Magpie’s home state and to our shared love of Charlottesville, VA.

Ashley Longshore — Specifically her Audrey series. So, so cool.

Etsy — This is vague but I have found so many insane pieces here. One of my favorite strategies is to thumb through one of my favorite interior design books (I especially love Nate Berkus) and, when struck by a particular piece of art, spend some time nosing around on Etsy searching from similar pieces. For example: “vintage oil on canvas horse” or “vintage bullfighting painting.” You just never know what you’ll find — for example, this original Francisco Goya, which I would promptly re-frame in a very modern setting (white wide mat and a slim black frame).

Mirrors! — They can be just as impactful as artwork. Anthro actually has some really cool, vintage-looking ones, like this, and I have a very inexpensive round mirror hanging on a leather strap that wins a lot of compliments in our home. Mirrors have the added advantage of making a room look bigger than it is.

Hunt Slonem Bunnies — Borderline iconic at this point, and very very expensive.

More generally (and I realize this is excessively vague): Mr. Magpie and I look for inspiration literally everywhere. In Chicago, we loved taking guests to Publican restaurant and they have these enormous, quirky pig paintings on the walls. I found a pair of (very, very small) versions in a similar vein on Etsy here that we then hung in Chicago home and they always bore personal reference to a cherished hangout of ours. Similarly, my mother-in-law has a series of silhouettes of Mr. Magpie at various ages hanging on her wall, and he commissioned one of mini that he in turn gifted both his mother and I for Christmas. My eyes are always peeled for similar inspiration — and when I run dry, I think back to my childhood. I considered hanging a series of vintage Babar prints (especially love this one) or vintage Madeline prints in mini’s room — both beloved characters from my youth.

Related to this post: inexpensive ways to personalize your home and luxuries for even the smallest apartment.

Liminally related to this post: can I just say that this vacuum is one of the best investments we made to date (thank you to all the Magpies who encouraged me in this direction). The one I linked is the exact model we purchased and if you are in the market, let me say that while Miele is an incredible brand for home appliances, their various lines are very confusing. What’s the difference between a C1, C2, C3 vacuum?! So confusing. I ended up selecting the exact model above because it is optimized for (and comes with attachments for) both hardwood floors and high-pile carpets (and also upholstered furniture and more). It is AMAZING. It is so quiet, so powerful, and so easy to use. I love that it has a very long power cord, you can easily wheel it around (and carry it — it is light!), and there is a button to retract the power cord when done. It’s just brilliantly designed all around but — I’ll spare you a longer review. Trust me: it is one of the best purchases we’ve made recently. (And we’ve made a lot of purchases for our new home already.)

P.S. Time to prep for Thanksgiving and my favorite products for home.

P.P.S. I’m kind of digging these tie-waist jeans.

P.P.P.S I’m also eyeing these dish towels, these fun dining chairs, this skirted bench, and this bath mat and these towels for mini’s bathroom (look for less with this).

By: Jen Shoop

My Latest Snag: Nursery Rugs.

I went back and forth on rugs for micro’s nursery and for our master bedroom. I had initially wanted this for micro’s room but then I put together a very rough rendering of what the room would look like with all the furniture, artwork, etc in it, and I felt it’d be too busy and would compete too much with the rest of the room. It also had a bit of a boho flair that did not jive well with the rest of the items I was considering. I went back and forth on what to do for a long, long time but Mr. Magpie kept telling me he thought this Erin Gates rug in the denim color would be the best and most practical fit. And you know what? I think he’s right. It’s simple, grounding, and I kind of like the Navajo vibe — it suddenly made me realize that the room could have kind of a “Western” feel to it: the Lionel Train print we’ve been eyeing for his room made sudden sense, as did this cool red and blue Pendleton pillow we’ve been using in our living area that doesn’t really belong there. And we have a reproduction of an Andy Warhol General Custer print that would be incredible in the room! Suddenly everything was clicking.

(Maybe he needs this train? Also thinking this ticking stripe changing pad cover will tie things together nicely.)

You’re Sooooo Popular:

The most popular items on the blog this past week:

+These discounted Oscar earrings. The perfect holiday jewel.

+This teddy coat!

+My favorite way to serve little nibbles at cocktail hour.

+Our new sconces.

+A lot of love for my past-season Isabel Marant boots.

+Such a fun blouse.

+My latest Amazon score.

#Turbothot: The Incongruous Emotions of Motherhood.

Earlier this week, I padded into micro’s nursery for his dream feed, tired and ready for bed myself, and also longing to finish the glass of wine I’d abandoned couch-side. We haven’t yet ordered micro’s glider because his crib just arrived a day ago and we want to set that up and situate it in the room to make sure a glider can squeeze in and not be an impediment before committing. (But we are almost definitely going to order this one in the navy with white piping — thank you so much to the Magpie who suggested this! We wanted something very petite, inexpensive, and easy to keep clean — i.e., non-white — for the room. This fits the bill and gets great reviews.) At any rate, I usually set up a mound of pillows and quilts on the floor for his bedtime feed, and then unceremoniously plop down on the floor with him at this hour, as I find it’s too stimulating for me to carry him into another room when the lights and TV are on.

So I sat there in the dark, my eyes adjusting to the contours and shapes of his nursery, my body aching and my mind racing ahead to the items I needed to handle as soon as this feed was over. (I needed to finish slicing mini’s fruit for her lunch! And switch the laundry before going to bed! And also make a note to order more Murphy’s Oil!) And then I dialed back in on micro, his fingers grasping my own. And then I remembered something I wanted to tell Landon. And then I reached for my phone to start making a list. And then I glanced at how many ounces were left on the bottle. And then I felt my throat constrict as I admired micro’s long eyelashes, the flutter of his eyes, his dazed sleepiness occasionally punctuated by a sudden flail of his arms.

And I thought: oh, this moment is a metaphor for motherhood. It has all the markings of that mixed bag of emotions that have defined matrescence for me.

There is the heart swell, the weepy and overwhelming and intense attachment.

There is the practical, perfunctory, overly detailed: the this needs to get done first, and the attentiveness to the clock, and the this many ounces, and the sequencing and particularity and consideration afforded every single aspect of this baby’s life. (“Not that bottle! He hates that one!” and “This cream for diaper rashes, this ointment for his dry legs!” and “The sound machine needs to be up another notch — mini must have been playing with it…”)

There is the low-key and ongoing buzz of desire for relief, for a break — the occasional way I count backwards from 60 when rocking him to sleep. The eye on the flow of milk in his bottle — “OK, only two ounces left…”

And there is the attendant guilt for such thoughts, too. A reader once wrote: “Never wish away the age of your child.” And though desiring a return to my glass of wine is not the same thing as wishing his age away, I have been chastened, in my fleeting desire to just get him back to sleep, by the thought that he is only young for so long and one day I will watch a tall and lanky teen slam the door to our apartment without so much as a goodbye and think: “Oh my God. I wish he were still in the crook of my arm, wanting and needing my embrace.”

All of these things together form the well-worn emotional terrain of my day-to-day life as a mother, strung together like beads on a necklace that I reflexively, absent-mindedly reach up to touch. They form a pattern of emotion that I know by heart and by rote and by blind feel: the strain of the guilt against the billow of affection, the tick-tock-tick-tock of just getting through the minutiae of the day, and the surging desire to still be myself, to still carve out moments to fritter away over text message with my girlfriends or lost in a book or even just lingering in front of the fridge, deciding on an afternoon snack.

I wrote maybe a year ago that I did not want my motherliness to sit as a counterbalance to myself. That I saw myself as me first, and that my roles as mother and wife and writer were a part of me, but not all of me. I still feel that way to a certain degree, but in the dark of that room that night, as I juggled the various familiar emotions of motherhood, I thought to myself that I would do well to recenter on that aspiration. That I was me in that room, not “mom me.” That I could forgive myself for aching to place him in his bassinet and tiptoe out of the room because I am human, and sometimes I am tired and selfish and just want to drink a glass of wine, uninterrupted. And that it’s impractical and absurd to expect myself to stare idly, admiringly, at my baby at every hour of the night. And that my determined solicitude for my son can sit alongside those desires and realities, even if they seem on the surface irreconcilable.

I think that as I grow into motherhood, I am growing increasingly comfortable with accepting that these incongruities can and will always coexist. And that it doesn’t make me a bad mom to occasionally grimace at a cry in the middle of the night. It’s just me being me. Realizing I need to get up, recognizing that I don’t want to do it, and doing it nonetheless.

Does anyone else feel me on this?

Post-Scripts: Sale Sneakers + Pink Snowboots.

+My favorite sneakers are on sale in such a chic colorway!

+Love these pink snowboots.

+A cute gift for a little gal (add a monogram!)

+Love a skirted table. Actually contemplating doing something similar to my desk, which has seen better days but I’m not sure we’re ready to invest in a new one given all the other furniture acquisitions we are eyeing that are much higher priority. I wonder if I could have someone make a fitted skirt? Hm.

+Inexpensive ways to personalize your home.

+The cutest mittens for a little one. I own these in the grown-up size and absolutely adore them — they are lined with the softest fleece. So warm!

+This is absolutely adorable. I am so missing the bubble/romper phase of mini’s life! Not only are they impractical now that she’s out of diapers, but I feel like the look is a bit infantalizing on her since she’s so tall!

+This dress for an Audrey Hepburn moment.

+Are you a baker? What are you baking this autumn?

+This colorblock sweater is incredible! Love that it would completely make an outfit — I’d wear all black elsewhere.

+Another fun statement earring for the holiday circuit.

+I love my box spring cover.

By: Jen Shoop

1 // Shopbop Sale.

Shopbop is running a temporary sale on tons of items, and today is the final day to pounce. A good time to buy one of these on-trend headbands (love the blush gloss!), AGOLDES, or this fun faux fur! (I love investing in splashy statement coats for winter — they get a lot of wear!!)

2 // Liner Jackets.

I’ve been writing a lot about these but have been seeing them all over the place in NY and finally got my hands on this one from Everlane in the ocher color. It’s a great alternative to my Barbour field coat — it feels a little dressier and trendier, and I like the sheen as a texture contrast. I also love this one from Anine Bing, this one from Burberry, and this variation from RL.

3 // Janie + Jack Winter Collection.

There are some standout gems in Janie & Jack’s latest collection! I am dying over this knit train romper for micro, these toile leggings for mini, and oh if only mini was little enough for this set, which gives me major La Coqueta vibes for much less. (And speaking of: how precious is this?!)

4 // Tula?

I’m almost scared to write the name Tula here because it has been promoted so pervasively that I feel like I hear about it in my dreams…ha! Has anyone tried their dark circle undereye treatment?! It’s been hyped quite a bit and I do have some horrific undereye circles so…? Please share if you’ve tested it!

5 // Gap / IRO.

This plaid Gap coat nails the IRO look for much less! I think I prefer the Gap one without the shearling collar, and it is detachable! Woohoo.

6 // Hand Towels.

I went down a ridiculously long rabbit hole looking for attractive hand towels for our bathrooms. I initially wanted to go with Weezie, but then decided to poke around and see what else appealed. I love these scalloped Matouks, but with monogramming, you’re suddenly spending a bucket load of money on a hand towel. Something simple like this — purchased in bulk — is probably the way to go for mini’s bathroom, where I am wont to toss the towels into the wash nearly nightly, but I fell hard for the elegant monogram on these and the heirloom quality applique style on these, too. And so suddenly I had decision paralysis and I still haven’t come to a decision point on these. Does this happen to anyone else?

P.S. These dachsund-print hand towels would be so precious in a little boy’s bathroom, but they wouldn’t work in micro’s, which is anchored by this shower curtain.

7 // Saloni Jumpsuit.

Dying over this jumpsuit. I mean, their entire winter collection is nothing short of breathtaking! How chic would this be with jeweled pumps and big splashy earrings for a holiday party? You can nail the look for under $70 with this dress, which really gives me Saloni vibes!

8 // Crib Sheets.

I ended up having a really tough time nailing down micro’s nursery design because the room is oddly shaped and very small and we were also trying to think ahead and ensure that whatever we bought could be repurposed when we move the two kids into the same room and convert micro’s nursery into an office/den. I’ll share full details soon, as we’re still making decisions and waiting for pieces to arrive, but one element that proved surprisingly challenging was crib sheets (!) We went with a navy carpet and are likely ordering a small navy glider and the rest of his furniture is white, while his artwork contains pops of red. So I wanted something that introduced pattern to the mix. I fell in love with this graphic-print oyster sheeting from Lewis Home, which my mother-in-law found! The scale is interesting and oysters are a nice homage to our Mid-Atlantic roots. I also ordered this large-scale gingham because — well, I just can’t say no to a gingham. Beyond that, I am currently weighing a couple of options from Carousel Designs, whose prints I am in love with (!!!). I adore these watercolor sailboats, these ABCs, and these trains. My issue is that I don’t want too many competing prints/patterns, but also don’t want to be too “themed” in his room, but also don’t want to have a random sailboat here and a fire truck there and an oyster over there. Ahh. It’s been hard for me to figure out exactly the vibe I want!

P.S. Speaking of navy and furniture, I am swooning over this raffia nightstand, console, and etagere from OKL!

P.P.S. A humble thing.

P.P.P.S. Things I want to know more about and 9 years of marriage.

By: Jen Shoop

With my flurry of recent Christmas gift posts, it dawned on me that maybe I should take a beat and recognize we’re coming up on Thanksgiving first, especially as there were a number of questions about Thanksgiving prep and entertaining submitted by my Magpie tribe.

As a preface, I will say one of the highlights of our Thanksgiving meal for the past several years has been the reading of this moving prayer, which my parents also read every year and which many Magpie readers have adopted, too. (And rarely a year goes by when someone does not dab away a tear during its reading!)

Thanksgiving Tablescape.

I usually start with the runner/tablecloth/placemats and work out from there. I am drawn to an autumnal plaid like this, a burlap like this, or a quilted solid like this in the white. Then I’ll mix in items like:

PLAID NAPKINS, GINGHAM NAPKINS, OR LINEN NAPKINS IN NEUTRAL (DEPENDING ON RUNNER/TABLECLOTH SELECTION)

WOODEN SLICE PLACECARD HOLDERS

THANKSGIVING POPPERS (ALSO LOVE THIS SET)

OLIVE LEAF GARLAND

TURKEY COCKTAIL NAPKINS

PRESERVED BOXWOOD SPRIGS TO TUCK IN WITH NAPKIN

MY TURKEY TUREEN IS ALWAYS FRONT AND CENTER, USUALLY UP ON TOP OF A WHITE CERAMIC CAKE PLATE SO HE’S ELEVATED

ALTERNATE TO MY TURKEY: CERAMIC QUAIL (WHICH I ALSO HAVE…)

WHITE CANDLESTICK HOLDERS (FOR A MORE RUSTIC LOOK: THESE)

GOLD CANDLESTICKS

THE ENTIRE JULISKA COUNTRY ESTATE TABLE SETTING IN THE FLINT COLOR IS THANKSGIVING GOALZ

I love the leaf garland above as a simple way to introduce green, texture, and botanicals to the table, but I have also enjoyed putting together flower arrangements that make heavy use of winter cabbage, which you can often find at Trader Joe’s! Pair with other dark purple/maroon flowers and eucalyptus leaves for something inexpensive but elegant. Alternately, buy a ton (!) of white or orange mums and place them all in an enormous centerpiece vase. It’s amazing the effect you can achieve when you buy something inexpensive like that in volume — for example, I normally hate baby’s breath (Mr. Magpie will often remove it from floral arrangements before I see it — ha!), but if you buy it in big quantities and heap it into a vintage silver vase, it’s EPIC.

Thanksgiving Menu.

I’ve had a lot of questions about our Thanksgiving menu, and we are creatures of habit when it comes to this meal. We make the same exact thing year after year and though it’s pretty straight-forward, you should definitely check out the stuffing, cranberry sauce, and carrots (recipes follow) if you’re looking for twists on old standbys:

ROAST TURKEY

CORNBREAD + SAUSAGE STUFFING

ZIPPY CRANBERRY SAUCE

DANIEL BOULUD CARROTS

GREEN VEG (BRUSSELS, GREEN BEANS, MAYBE SPINACH?)

MASHED POTATOES

Shoop Cornbread + Sausage Stuffing

This is just rib-sticking good. It has some unique ingredients (an apple?!) and requires some advanced planning (we cook the corn bread from a Jiffy box a day or two ahead of time and leave some plain old white bread out on the counter overnight to dry it out), and then you need to finish it once the turkey is out of the oven and resting (because you make use of turkey drippings before baking the stuffing at the end), so it’s not exactly the easiest of dishes, but…I absolutely love it.

  1. Preheat the oven to 350. In a skillet set over medium heat, brown 1 pound loose country pork sausage (you can absolutely use something like Jimmy Dean for this — I won’t tell anyone if you won’t) and transfer to a large bowl. Pour off fat from skillet.
  2. Set the skillet back over moderate heat and melt 6 tablespoons butter. Add 1 large onion (diced) and 1.5 stalks celery (diced) and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes.
  3. Add 1 granny smith apple (peeled, cored, and diced) and cook for a few minutes longer, until everything is a little soft. Transfer to a large bowl.
  4. Add 6 cups crumbled stale white bread, 2 cups crumbled stale corn bread, 1/2 cup chopped pecans, 2 tablespoons minced celery leaves, 1 tablespoon minced fresh sage, 1 tablespoon minced thyme, and more salt and pper.
  5. In a small bowl, combine 1/2 cup turkey drippings or stock, 1/4 cup applesauce, and 1 large beaten egg. Stir. Add to the stuffing mixture and stir to combine.
  6. Transfer stuffing to a buttered baking dish, cover with foil, and bake 25-30 minutes, or until heated through. Remove foil for final 10 minutes of cooking to crisp up the top.

Zippy Cranberry Sauce

This is another novel take on a classic and the flavor is amped and sharpened with the addition ginger, lemon juice, and granny smith apples. It’s more of a chunky, tart condiment and serves as an excellent foil to creamy mashed potatoes and fatty stuffing. We make this the day before and it keeps beautifully.

In a saucepan, combine 1/4 cup dried apricots (finely chopped), 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup raisins, and 1 cup water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and stir while simmering for five minutes. Stir in 3 cups fresh cranberries, 1 granny smith apple (peeled, cored, and chopped), and 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest. Simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, 1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger, and 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Daniel Boulud Carrots

We make this recipe year-round and often serve it with roast chicken and steak, though the flavors (thyme! garlic!) make it a perfect addition to the Thanksgiving menu. It is our absolute favorite preparation of carrots. Full recipe here.

For dessert, I often make the pecan sorghum pie I mentioned here! I might make a traditional pumpkin pie this year instead, as I simply love it and do not eat it enough. I’ll probably use the Martha recipe for it.

Thanksgiving Outfits.

I shared some thoughts on Thanksgiving dresses here, but several of you have asked for less formal options.

Casual: I like the idea of a statement sweater like this, this, this, or this with some fashion-forward jeans. Alternately, love this plaid cape thing with light-wash denim.

A little dressier: Coated jeans in a fall color (brown, rust, moss green) with a cableknit sweater in cashmere or cotton (the longer length on this one would be flattering, too) OR this shaker knit tunic sweater. Any of the above outfits would look amazing with these flats or this tweed bag! Such good fall colors, and so versatile.

Even dressier: bow-front trousers and a puff-sleeved top (white) with jeweled pumps (currently dying over these).

For little girls: I love this dress, this gingham romper set, this gingham dress with a big monogram on the front, this blue velvet romper (mini has the dress version, but it’s now sold out!), a flannel jumper, and this plaid poncho (less formal).

For little boys: I bought micro a head-to-toe look from Nanos that is similar to this; I also always love a cashmere set (look for less with this), a cableknit sweater with brown pants, loafers or smoking slippers (omg).

For Mr. Magpie: this flannel with jeans for football watching and this sweater with corduroys caught my eye.

Thanksgiving Finds.

Finally, a couple of other miscellaneous finds that caught my eye:

THIS VINTAGE TURKEY PLATE!

PERSONALIZED DOORMAT

BAYLEAF WREATH WITH BURLAP HANGER

P.S. Still settling into our new digs, still evaluating various purchases. Will do an update on all of our picks soon but one addition to the line-up is this rug for our master bedroom, which Serena & Lily is generously sending me and I am crazy excited about its arrival. I’ll take pictures of the room soon as it’s the closest to complete out of everything. (Our living room isn’t far off either, but we need to hang art!) Mini’s room and the dining room need a lot of love…so much to figure out.

P.P.S. I found the comments on this post on going from 0-1 children vs. 1-2 children fascinating.

P.P.P.S. Do you live with regret?

By: Jen Shoop

On the heels of last week’s post on what to buy toddlers for Christmas, a guide to some great Christmas gifts for babies. We own or have gifted the vast majority of these toys ourselves, and all get the Magpie stamp of approval.

(Note: above, you can see some of the most darling Petite Plume holiday pajamas! Neiman’s is running a promotion right now and many of their holiday styles are 25% off!!! I especially love this for mini and this for micro.)

Under-$30 Christmas Gifts for Babies.

WOODEN KEY SET

CHRISTMAS IN THE MANGER BOOK (GREAT FOR GODCHILDREN)

HAPE MUSIC SET

SKIP HOP FOLLOW BEE CRAWL TOY*

FISHER PRICE CHATTER PHONE

MINI COROLLE DOLL

DUPLOS

BRIO PULL-ALONG DACHSUND

LITTLE TIKES SHOPPING CART FOR EARLY WALKERS

PLAYGROUND BALL

VTECH PLAYPHONE

*This really encouraged mini to start scooting/crawling!

Under-$60 Christmas Gifts for Babies.

VTECH SIT-TO-STAND ACTIVITY WALKER

TENDERLEAF TOYS SHAPE SORTER

HUNTER RAINBOOTS AND UMBRELLA

GREEN TOYS FIRE TRUCK

Big Ticket Items for Babies.

PERSONALIZED BLOCKS

SKIP-HOP ACTIVITY CENTER (A MUST-OWN!)

A WHEELY BUG

Stocking Stuffers for Babies.

SENSORY BALL SET

CRINKLE PAPER

STAY-PUT RATTLE SET

HAPE CLUTCHING TOY

RUBBER DUCKY

SILICON FEEDERS

SNACK CUP

MEASURING SPOONS***

***Of all the toys we’ve ever given mini…she has always loved playing with kitchen implements almost best of all.

P.S. This personalized Christmas ornament would be a sweet gift for mom!

P.P.S. Any of the books on this list would be incredible gifts for a little one, and here are some of my current favorite books to read to my children.

P.P.P.S. Affirmations.

By: Jen Shoop

I received so many inquiries for this round of Magpie Mail that I am going to run another mail post next week to answer the rest, so sit tight if you’re waiting on an answer!

Q: Any ideas for special and festive ways to celebrate ringing in the new year at home? I just ordered some champagne coupes as a start.

A: Yes! This is the only way I’ve rung in the new year for many, many years now. Mr. Magpie and I like to pull out all the stops on a fancy dinner at home for NYE — sometimes with a few friends, but usually just us. In the past, we’ve put together “seafood plateaus” (not sure why we insist on that name): steamed lobster with drawn butter, spiced shrimp with cocktail sauce (shared the recipe here), and oysters with mignonette sauce. We have also occasionally splurged on caviar served with blinis or steamed red potatoes and creme freche, and I usually put together some other fun party food — once or twice I have made savory butter-dill monkey bread and one year we made crab hush puppies from our favorite Southern cookbook. I always buy or make a fun dessert, too — for some reason I tend to want to make a cheesecake for the occasion (?). And of course great champagne!

Even when it’s a small group, I like to make the occasion special by pulling out an NYE garland, festive decor, and even confetti poppers, which are kind of a nightmare to clean up but so fun. I also put tons of candles out and pull out all my favorite servewear (<<shared a bunch of my favorite picks here).

We usually watch a special movie, too — my parents watch “Casablanca” nearly every year and so we’ve done that on occasion. I also love “When Harry Met Sally” because it concludes on NYE and occasionally “The Godfather” trilogy feels just right?

Over the years, we have also spent some portion of NYE prepping for New Year’s Day festivities. Some years, that means I am making overnight cinnamon rolls to be devoured the next morning and others, that means Mr. Magpie makes reubens on the griddle for lunch along with bloody marys.

Finally — put on something you LOVE! I am into the idea of feathers this year in particular (see gorgeous mini dress at top!), and the brand 16Arlington has some amazing scores along these lines. (For something a bit more toned-down, check out this.) However, I am thinking I need to own this dress for some holiday occasion this year, and it might just be NYE. I also love this with some glitzy earrings or a fun brooch; this (on super duper sale!); or this (<<budget buy!).

Q: Need a rec for affordable (under $75) camel, non-bulky sweaters please.

A: My first thought was J. Crew’s Tippi sweater, which is on sale every other day. I own this in the camel and wear it frequently. I especially love it with light-wash denim and then an oversized cashmere/wool scarf in tone-on-tone camel / some print that incorporates camel.

I also like this on-trend (affordable) blouson sweater tucked into skirts or jeans and this boxier style (still not super-chunky, though).

Also: this camel roll-neck sweater dress would look incredible with some sleek pointed toe flats.

Q: What was the process of having movers pack up all your stuff before moving? And did you like it? We may be moving later this year and I just can’t see myself doing the packing part. Any tips for making the most of what you’re paying for?

A: I am so, so glad you asked me about this because having the apartment fully packed was worth every last penny. Given logistics (two small children and a dog, the quick turnaround, and the small amount of space in which we lived), I simply could not figure out how we would have packed ourselves. I mean, where would the boxes have gone?! We would have had to live in a wall of boxes for weeks if we’d tried to do this on our own! It took a lot of the stress out of a very stressful few weeks, even though I felt ambivalent and wistful about the move at the time. I can’t imagine we’ll ever move without being packed again. (We also had movers pack us when we moved from Chicago to NY.)

A few suggestions:

+Get several quotes from reputable movers. I tapped my network of friends to learn who they’d used when moving within Manhattan and had those companies come out to do “on-site/visual” scans well before we’d found our apartment so they could provide us with an estimate and so I could get the wheels in motion quickly once we did have an apartment lined up. Then I negotiated. I was especially attracted to movers that had worked in our building in the past, as they understood all the stringent regulations it had (certificate of insurance hell).

+Assume they they will underestimate the amount of time it will take to pack you. Both times we’ve had companies pack our homes, we have been gritting our teeth nervously as the clock ticks on. (“Will they ever finish?!”)

+Spend some time before the on-site/estimate deciding what you will keep, donate, sell, etc., and be sure to flag what you will not be taking with you so that those items are not factored into the estimate. Focus the rest of your time on donating / selling / getting rid of whatever you don’t want to take with you. Now is the time to watch Marie Kondo.

+Negotiate! I got a few hundred dollars knocked off the estimate just by asking.

+Separate valuables and move them yourself. Anything that is truly important to you should be handled on your own. I would not have lived with myself if somehow a ring I inherited from my great aunt had gone missing in the move! We made a few hauls to our new apartment for prized possessions — things like my designer bags, jewelry, inherited artwork, silver, etc.

+Tip the packers at the end of the first day as well as at the end of the second day. (We also provided them with water and gatorade.) These people are working SO hard — can you imagine a more exhausting job?! Plus, they are handling your entire life! Good to be in their good graces.

+Our team packed most of the apartment on day 1 and returned to finish the pack and handle the move on day 2. Accordingly, they left our beds/cribs and bathrooms largely untouched so that we could sleep comfortably on our last night in the apartment. I would confirm that they will leave everything you need intact for that final night.

+Take pictures of everything that catches your eye, i.e., “Ooh, that couch looks like it was dragged…” or “Why is this box smooshed?” We did that and have been able to recoup some money from a couple of items damaged in transit because we kept meticulous record.

+The trickiest part of having the apartment packed was making sure we had everything we’d need the final night in our old apartment and the first few nights in our new one. Some key things I am very glad we had thought to keep out for ourselves: trash bags, paper towels, a wine key (!!!), a few cups, toilet paper, more changes of clothes than you think you need for your children, bottles/formula/sippy cups, a dishwasher pod or two, snacks.

Q: Recs for visiting NYC with a toddler/small child? We are taking my three year old in December.

A: Such a magical time of year here! We have spent a lot of time at the Museum of Natural History and Children’s Museum of Manhattan in the winter, both of which are highly appropriate for small children. If weather permits, the children’s zoo in Central Park is a beloved pastime of ours. (Mini loves feeding the animals!) The Color Factory was also really fun last year both for mini and myself, and you might check out the new Museum of Ice Cream, too, though I’ve not personally been. We took mini to the train exhibit at the New York Botanical Gardens last Christmas, which was fun, though I’m not sure I’d say it’s worth the trek if you are staying in Manhattan for only a few days.

Because it will be Christmastime, I would spend some time walking up and down Fifth taking in the Christmas decorations! The windows are spectacular and mini enjoyed looking at them. I’m guessing it will be a little bit of a nuthouse, but an F.A.O. Schwarz flagship store opened by Rockefeller Center last winter, and I have been daydreaming about taking mini there for a special excursion at some point. Pure magic for a kiddo!

I love Bubby’s for brunch with children — it’s a non-fussy, kid-friendly, ebullient environment and the pancakes are insane.

P.S. My favorite travel gear for little ones and an activity I never leave home without for mini.

Q: Favorite brick and mortar stores?

A: I rarely shop in-person anymore unless Mr. Magpie needs new gear, as he prefers to go somewhere, try on fifty things, and then move on with his life. (We have recently shopped at the Todd Snyder store in Flatiron. Great mens’ clothing — they aren’t afraid of color! Eyeing this alpaca crew in the pink or lime green for Mr. Magpie right now.) I also occasionally stop in to Zara and Intermix if I need something for an evening out. I always find incredible stuff at Zara at a great price and Intermix does a fantastic job styling/merchandising their clothing.

Q: I’m new to cold weather. Any ideas for practical but cute work shoes for winter?

A: I would invest in a pair of high-shaft black leather boots with a low heel that can be worn with skirts/dresses (or over jeans, if your work permits!) I’ve owned a few pairs of Loeffler Randall boots along these lines that get heavy use every year. I re-sole them and have the leather treated for salt stains at the end of each of season. Their Mathildes (no longer made, but you can still find them in a few sizes here and gently used here) are my all-time favorite. I also like the look of these or these.

I also own a few pairs of ankle-height kitten-heeled booties that are already getting a ton of use this fall. My favorites are these Alexandre Birmans in the cool sparkly/gunmetal color, though those are a bit much for work. These snakeskin ones would be such a cool way to add panache to a predominantly neutral/dark winter work wardrobe. These python ones are also incredible. Get the look for less with these.

Finally, buy a couple of pairs of Darn Tough micro-cushion socks. They are SO warm and the cushion on the sole makes them so incredibly comfortable. I wear these in my boots every day of winter!

Q: Have you had postpartum hair loss and how have you coped?

A: Yes! I made an emergency trip to my hair stylist, who suggested moving my part over, more towards the center of my scalp, to help with my uneven hairline.

In the meantime, I am using some volumizing shampoo (I love this stuff — it actually works) and texturizing spray to make my hair look fuller.

The truth though? No one notices as much as you do!

Q: How do you store jewelry? Especially earrings!

A: I have this large jewelry box from Pottery Barn (also love this style) for my finer jewelry, but for my statement jewelry, I threw away all of the boxes/dust bags they came in and transferred the pieces to these inexpensive plastic jewelry bags which I in turn keep in a pretty box like this. This has been the most space-saving approach, and the individual plastic bags keep things from getting tangled while also making all of my jewelry easy to find!

Q: I’m a massive list-maker: grocery, amazon, to do, etc. Any tips on organizing?

A: Same here! List therapy, my friend. I use Wunderlist for most of my lists on my phone because it’s always at my fingertips (i.e., if I’m out on the town and think of something I need to add to a list, my phone is right there!) and I can share the lists with Mr. Magpie when need be. This latter functionality has been so helpful in the event that he runs to the grocery before I do, as he can see what I’ve already added to this list (and vice versa). It’s also helped us divvy up tasks for various projects, i.e., getting ready for micro’s birth, moving, etc.

But more generally, I organize my day around my planner, which always has a list of calendar-based to-dos that I check off as a I go through the day. I like these Day Designers because they have enough space to write down a set of to-dos every single day of the week.

P.S. More organization musings and, in the vein of daily tidiness, an email hygiene tip worth trying!

Q: Do you miss going into an office for work?

A: It took me a minute to think about this, and the truth is: not really. I so deeply value the flexibility my current arrangement affords in this season of life. I am able to see my children throughout the day, dash out to complete an errand, walk my dog, etc. (And up until recently, was able to breastfeed my son on demand.) I feel that right now I am able to be more productive as a member of this family stationed at home and so I haven’t given the alternative much thought. There’s too much upside with this arrangement!

That said, I do struggle with closing the door and focusing solely on writing because I’m often interrupted or distracted by household chores, and I do miss the camaraderie of colleagues and the intellectual challenge of navigating those relationships and dynamics from time to time. It feels good to exercise those muscles. But I find other avenues for that kind of stimulation.

P.S. The dotted lines between personal and professional life. Loved your comments on this post!

Q: Could you recommend some every day dishes and glassware?

A: I absolutely love my Aerin for Williams-Sonoma scalloped plates for everyday dining. I have come around to the perspective that white plates are the best option for everyday dishes, and the scalloped trim affords them a little something interesting. I have also always loved Juliska’s Berry and Thread pattern if you’re looking for more of an investment. Timeless, gracious, and a perfect blend of casual/elegant.

For glassware: these bodega glasses are fun and modern-looking (I love to drink wine out of glasses like this, per the Spaniards in San Sebastian!) and I love French-style tumblers with bees on the side like these (we inherited a set when we were married!) Perfect for juice/water. I also like these elegant highballs for a beautifully-set table. That brand is amazing for stemware, too!

Q: I’m looking for some timeless pieces of heirloom jewelry to pass on to my children.

A: Ooh! Wow! I love the pieces from Aurelia Demark. She does a lot of custom work, engraving, etc., and I’m sure you could create something magical with her.

Q: I need help finding the perfect dark green everyday bag.

A: The Lee Radziwill bag in green croc has been on my lust list for a full year now. Ugh. Perfection.

The Cuyana in the forest green would also be a great pick (I have several of their bags and they are sturdy, well-made, and reasonable-priced). Mansur Gavriel also has a tote in green out this season that is worth considering.

If you are less of a tote gal and more of a pocketbook lady, splurge on a lizard Hunting Season or a Mark Cross!!!

Q: Where do you get your blog photos from? They’re always so appropriate!

A: I still use and love Pinterest and Tumblr all the time. I love collecting inspiration/mood boards on Pinterest in particular, and I scroll through there to find the right image for a post. I also save images I like on Instagram!

By: Jen Shoop

I’ve been on the hunt for a few chic fall dresses for various gatherings and occasions — principal among them, Thanksgiving Dinner! (I love dressing up for the occasion!) Below, I’m sharing a few of my favorite options:

On the dressier side…

THIS GORGEOUS VELVET *

THIS ORGANZA MINI

THIS SALONI BOW DRESS (DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE)

THIS VELVET BUSTIER WITH A PENCIL SKIRT

OR THIS BOW-FRONT SWEATER WITH A PENCIL SKIRT

THIS POLKA DOT CHIFFON

*Would love to wear this with a classic Manolo Hangisi! (Look for less with these.)

On the more versatile side…

THIS PRETTY REJINA PYO

THIS ULLA (OR THIS ONE)

THIS FLORAL MINI (LOVE WITH SUEDE OTK BOOTS!)

THIS BUTTON-FRONT MIDI IN THE GOLDENROD COLOR

THIS STUNNING DOEN (IN CLOVE COLOR!)

THIS FORM-FITTING REFORMATION (IN THE DARK FLORAL)

THIS LEOPARD SHIRTDRESS

P.S. Fun accessories: this pearl-studded bag, these bow earrings (under $50!), black velvet padded headband (under $10!), tortoise hair clips.

P.P.S. Another look option: this cream sweater dress with this fall headband (in the olive check) and these perfect suede pumps (look for less with these or these).

P.P.P.S. More fall musts.

By: Jen Shoop

My Latest Snag: The $22 Dress.

Every now and then I check out the latest dresses on Amazon from the vendor R. Vivimos, now famous for its wildly popular under-$30 caftan, which I wore all summer long. I have also loved its $32 Doen dupe. I am normally dubious of dresses so inexpensive, but with two little ones wont to smear peanut butter on my cashmere and drool all over my silk scarves, I am more open to testing budget buys these days. And this brand does not disappoint! The quality is decent for the price and the styles are great. Well — my latest acquisition is this $22 printed mini, which has a kind of Rhode-Resort-meets-LSF-meets-Reformation vibe. AKA: all the ambient trends in one place. I debated between black and blue for a long while before settling on blue. Black would be better with tights and booties, but blue just spoke to my soul.

You’re Sooooo Popular: The Liner Jacket.

The most popular items on the blog this past week:

+I’ve been seeing these liner jackets all over NY. Love. Bonus for you: Everlane is running a free two-day shipping offer starting tonight at midnight for one day only. Jump on that!!

+This ruffle sleeved blouse is perfect for a night out with the gals. (Or night in with the gals.)

+The prettiest rain jacket (this brand gets rave reviews).

+Stylish shearling-lined boots for the impending mush of winter.

+Teddy coats are all the rage these days, and this is a good one.

+The cutest holiday dress. (Would work with a second trimester bump, I think!)

+Oscar earrings on sale!

+In love with these great everyday boots. They’d work with dresses (including the $22 one above!), jeans, leggings, etc.

#Turbothot: Be True.

Today, I feel compelled to share this famous line from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”:

This above all: to thine own self be true.

So many of you indicated that you are inspired by authenticity in your responses to my “Getting to Know You” post (which, by the way, I’ve read and re-read many times — so many wise, thoughtful, elegant readers!) and I’ve been dancing with that theme in some of my more recent writings, whether I’m musing over why I see myself as one who “lives quietly” versus “lives loudly” or sharing some of the heartburn over weaning earlier than expected.

Even though I feel I’ve settled into my own skin in my mid-30s and spend a lot less time worrying about what everyone else is doing, sometimes I find myself in need of that Hamlet phrase when I’m feeling judged or uncomfortable in someone else’s company, which happens to all of us. And I thought I’d trot it out here and see if anyone else needed to hear it today, too.

You do you // you do you // you do you. Nothing more uncomfortable than contorting yourself to fit someone else’s expectations — or what you believe to be their expectations.

Post-Scripts: Fall Candles.

+I have been a devotee of Diptyque’s feu de bois scent for fall/winter for the last few years, but am intrigued by a friend who raved about the Cypres scent, which purports to smell like evergreen trees. Testing promptly. (Also love Nest’s holiday candle for a true Christmas scent.)

+Rothy’s does children’s shoes?! How cute are these?!

+OMG – I saw this striped sweater and tried to figure out how to buy it for myself before realizing it’s for children. So cute. (I was like, “What’s going on with the sizing here? Is this Dutch or something?”)

+I own and love these earrings in the neutral color (now on sale).

+I used this Pam Munson tote (now on sale, too) all summer long. It was ideal for carrying both kids’ stuff around when I had the stroller to hook it onto. And it went with virtually everything in my wardrobe.

+Loving all of the trendy sweaters and teddy coats from this label for mini.

+This is a great ($15!) dupe for the navy laundry bin I bought for micro’s nursery.

+Swooning over the cashmere sets for babies at La Coqueta. Zara also has some amazing cashmere sets (this for itty bitty girls, this for itty bitty boys) for about 1/3 of the price — thanks to Caitlin from Daily Cup of Couture for the head’s up over Instastory a week or two back! I should note that I have bought the cashmere sets from Zara in the past and they aren’t the greatest quality I’ve seen, but then again — they are wont to be stained and snagged anyhow, so…

+I am living for all of Gucci’s loud, herringbone-and-tweed centric pieces this autumn. It’s like 1980s Princess Di on steroids. I mean, YES to this jumpsuit, this skirt, and this sweater. Extra yes to this boucle jacket. It’s a mood and I’m so into it. Seeing all of this goodness has led me to dig out my vintage Chanel button earrings and a gold chain Chanel belt my mother gave me. Flossy.

+Everyone needs an oversized blanket scarf. I have a similar one that I like to layer over my camel cashmere crewneck for a tone-on-tone sitch.

By: Jen Shoop

I wrote earlier this year about some challenges I’d encountered with breastfeeding and then, as before, I will caveat these posts by saying that this is likely informational overload if you have not breastfed a baby or have no interest in learning anything on the subject, for which I would not fault you. (And if you are in that category, can I direct your attention to this delightful podcast instead?) In fact, I willfully avoided contact with this subject even when I was pregnant with my first. It seemed complicated and fraught with peril from what I’d heard, and so I decided to just learn on the fly which — incidentally — I wish I had not done on further reflection. Someone once told me that taking a breastfeeding class before the baby comes is like learning to drive a car without actually getting into a car, and I understand what they mean. It’s impossible to learn things like how to hold a baby and latch and all of that — but I wish I’d better understood some of its basic tenets, like the law of supply and demand, and how often babies will need to eat, and some common pitfalls. Instead, I walked in blind and was, well, blind-sided by the heft of it all.

At any rate.

As I have written about many times, I had an undersupply with mini and the same exact thing happened with micro. (Is it too frou-frou to suggest a different term for “undersupply,” as it kind of makes me feel like a failure? I can’t think of an accurate but more gentle word. But I digress and I’m probably being oversensitive and precious about the whole thing anyway. That said, I have entirely boycotted the word “miscarriage” in favor of “pregnancy loss” and a thoughtful reader suggested I delete the phrase “forgiving to a post-partum figure” from my vocabulary and she was absolutely correct — what’s too forgive?! Words matter, especially to an exhausted and hormonal and sensitive new mom who feels like a failure more often than she should already.) Though I tried with both babies to pump after feeds in order to increase my supply, I threw in the towel after a month of that rigamarole with mini and after a week of that chaos with micro. It is mad-making and I believe it led me to stop producing milk altogether with micro, as I was so stressed about the entire thing.

So — with micro, I committed to the same routine I had with mini: breastfeed for 8-10 minutes on each side at every single feed, and then supplement with formula from a bottle. I am lucky in that both of my babies seemed fine with the switch from breast to bottle mid-meal and were fairly unfussy about bottles/nipples to begin with. (I’ve heard other moms have not been as fortunate — ugh, what an irritating fly in the ointment that must be.) Though this entire routine is kind of a time-suck (feeds typically take about 35 minutes on a good day when you factor in burping and so forth), I have been comfortable with it. During the day, our nanny feeds him the bottle and burps him and so my contribution is typically 20 minutes per meal — though I am on my own before she arrives at 9 and after she leaves at 4.

I detail all of this because I am proud of the effort I have put into breastfeeding my son. It has, for whatever reason, mattered tremendously to me to breastfeed both of my children to the best of my abilities, which has arrived as a shock to even me, as I like to consider myself fairly level-headed about most things when it comes to child-rearing. But I have been determined to breastfeed both mini and micro with a kind of ferocity I neither anticipated nor can remotely explain, but it is likely the aftermath of admiring and attempting to model my own mother, who breastfed all five of us until we were six months old.

All that to set the table for my latest travail. About two weeks ago, micro started getting fussy during our daytime nursing sessions. He would latch on one side and then be huffing and puffing as he’d wait for the letdown, to the point that sometimes I’d find myself holding my breath or saying a Hail Mary as he was angrily awaiting his milk. But then when I’d try to switch to the other side, he’d lose his mind — probably because he did not want to wait again for more milk to come out and there’s a kind of strange lag I have noticed (when pumping, etc) between sides. Anyway, he’d usually freak out and then refuse to latch at all — arching his back, wailing in hunger. And I could literally not wrangle him back onto the breast. I thought for a time that maybe I needed to be more diligent about burping between sides (was it gas that was angering him?) but that didn’t seem to alleviate anything. I wondered also if maybe the hold on the second side had grown uncomfortable for him, so I played around with positions — arm up, arm down, tilted up, etc, etc. Nothing seemed to help — except for the bottle, which he would take instantly and hungrily. And so I’d give him the bottle and pump on the second side. Then a few days later, he stopped wanting to breastfeed full stop–and when I say “stopped wanting,” I mean that he would come at me with the wrath of a wronged deity any time I’d attempt to nurse him. He might latch for a minute but then arch his back into almost a “c” shape, screaming and kicking and turning his head away from me. And his hungry wails distressed me. I tried to nurse him every single day, at every feed, only to give into the bottle, for about a week. Curiously, he would still breastfeed just fine in the evening hours — at his dream feed and first thing in the morning — but during any daytime hour, my attempts were met with fury. My sister suggested I nurse him at every feed in the dark, in quiet. She rightfully pointed out that babies are highly distractible at this age, and I did notice that sometimes his fury kicks in when his sister disrupts his feed or the dog barks or I sneeze or what have you. But I tried the silent-and-dark approach and it did not seem to help; he’d still wail for the bottle. Then I wondered about my supply — but every time I’d pump, I’d produce about 2 oz per side, which is consistent with the amount I’ve always been able to make.

I was distraught.

I was not ready to wean and I felt ambushed by the sudden change. And I also did not want to commit to exclusively pumping. I think it might be PTSD from pumping to improve my supply (described earlier), but I literally loathe and despise pumping, especially because I did it every two or three hours for the first month of mini’s life, and when I wasn’t pumping, I was nursing or cleaning pump parts and ooof that is not a fun time. All I did for a full month was feed my baby. And so, thus far with micro, I have done everything in my power to avoid pumping — even sprinting home from the subway, cutting away from a dinner date early, etc. — because, for me, it erases the feelings of warmth and bonding that I get from breastfeeding. I remember so clearly the many times I would be sitting downstairs with visitors or Mr. Magpie and it would be time to pump and I would retire to my bedroom upstairs in our old Chicago house and sit on the bed and pump in isolation, listening to the muffled sounds of friends laughing and chattering, and the occasional gurgle or wail from mini, downstairs, without me. (At the time, I used a hospital-grade pump that was annoying to move around the house, and I didn’t want to be sitting with the pump on in front of company anyhow.)

I should pull up here and say that I understand that there are many moms — tons of moms, in fact, most working moms! — for whom exclusively pumping is the only path to feeding their children breastmilk and I bow down to you. I also have several friends whose babies would not latch and so they committed to pumping for many months on end. And so I don’t want to denigrate the pump because it has empowered a generation of women to feed their babies and bring home the bacon, or feed their babies even when their babies refuse to breastfeed, or feed their babies even when other circumstances make breastfeeding on demand impossible. And I also understand that some women do not mind it or treat it as a time to read or sit in quiet in an otherwise chaotic day.

But pumping is a specific kind of hell to me, and that’s simply been my irrational and likely over-fragile experience.

So there I was — what to do?!

First, of course, I cried about it. I was positively devastated that I was having my final nursing sessions with micro and had not even given those moments adequate attention, so perfunctory had breastfeeding become. There were several evenings when I boycotted my phone and Kindle and instead just stared at him while nursing him and crying quietly. Absurd, I realize. Typing it out actually makes me cringe a little bit. But that’s the truth.

Second, I consulted my mom, my sister, and my #momtribe, including many empathetic magpie mothers who messaged me over DM in response to an Instastory on the subject. There were many helpful thoughts:

+”Often, breastfeeding strikes are temporary. Stick with it! Have faith!”

+”Switch back to a lower-speed nipple on the bottle that more closely mirrors the speed during breastfeeding.” (I had not thought of this, but we did graduate micro from 1-speeds to 2-speeds a few weeks ago. Mini didn’t seem to have any trouble switching from breast to nipple even when she was on a 3-speed, so this was a good point.)

+”It’s not impossible to only breastfeed at night and either pump — or not pump! — during the day, if your supply is regular in the evenings.”

+”Could be teething. Mine would go on nursing strikes while teething.”

And then my favorites:

“You’re doing great.”

“Remember that any breast milk is better than none, but also, it’s OK to stop whenever.”

“Fed is best.”

My mother had an interesting reaction that I hadn’t anticipated: she reminded me, gently, that since my M.O. has always been to follow the cues of the baby, maybe he was pushing me to wean. Maybe it was time. Maybe he was a hungry, growing boy and he needed more milk more quickly and this was just his way of showing me the the path forward. She also reminded me that my goal had been to get to six months, and we’re just a month shy of that target, and — well, how great is that?! I made it most of the way, and not without substantial effort.

I hadn’t expected that reaction from her, though she has always been fiercely protective of me and my sanity in the breastfeeding process, and has repeatedly told me that formula is just fine, Jennifer. But I carried those thoughts with me for a few hours and realized that maybe I was trying to force my own agenda — my selfish (?) desire to breastfeed him for longer! — over his apparent needs. I held up a mirror to myself and realized that breastfeeding for me is about the bond. It’s about taking a beat every few hours to sit with him in my arms. It’s about giving him something that only I can give him. It’s about dropping everything I am doing and calming him in a way that only I can calm him. These are silly thoughts, perhaps, but when I sat and truly asked myself why this mattered so much to me, there it was: I love to be needed by him. I love the way his fingers idly roam around my shirt, grabbing onto my hair or my finger or the trim of my blouse. I love when he looks up at me and smiles, his mouth full of milk, and we hold each other’s gaze before he turns back to his meal. I love the togetherness of it, the intimacy of it.

But these are not moments that will be entirely lost should we wean.

He will still need me.

I am his mother.

I know the way he likes to be rocked. I know the difference between a bored, play-with-me cry, a gassy cry, a cranky and tired cry, a hungry cry, and — worst — an I’m-in-pain cry. I can tell almost immediately — just by looking at him and the carriage of his body — when he needs to be burped. I can anticipate a fuss session about a full minute before it sets in. I know when he’s closed his eyes whether he’s really “out for the count” or whether he will wake immediately upon being placed in his crib. I know him as only a mother can know her child.

And I can still commit to taking a beat every few hours to hold him just because or to feed him his bottle. It doesn’t have to be “Well, breastfeeding is done, I won’t get those bonding opportunities back.”

For now, I have committed to pumping twice a day (I dropped one daytime feed entirely) and nursing him in the evening. I am hoping we can stick with this pattern for at least a month so I can get to the six month mark and feel that I achieved my goal. Plus, I started weaning mini around six months, too, though I didn’t fully stop until she was eight months old (almost on the dot), and maybe we can make it that long if he’s still OK with nursing just before bed and just after he wakes in the morning for another few months.

And so here we are. I will admit to shedding a few tears while writing this post, and I think my emotions can be chalked up in part to the desire-to-be-needed I described earlier, but also in part to hormones (I was so cranky when I weaned mini and I didn’t even put two-and-two together until maybe a month afterwards!), in part to not wanting yet another transition in my life at this juncture (we *just* got through a big move, transitioning mini to school, transitioning to life as a family of four, etc.), and in part because I have a feeling micro is our last baby and I am struggling to accept the finality of all of this. This could be the last time I ever nurse a baby. For some reason, I feel a pit in my stomach when I think that. Did I adequately cherish all of his firsts and lasts?!

As with most things pertaining to motherhood, it is all of a cloth. You pull on one string and something else frays or snags. It’s never “just breastfeeding” or “just sleep training” or “just disciplining.” It’s all tethered to deep, unwieldy, primordial emotions and impulses that occasionally bubble over, red-hot and frothing, catching us all unaware.

To my fellow mamas out there on their own baby-feeding journeys: saluting you today. I see you.

Post Scripts.

+In other baby news: micro is now rolling over in both directions (fairly infrequently, but still), and I know it is time to retire his winged sleepsack, which has been one of my absolute favorite baby gear snags this go around. (He outgrew his swaddles around three months — too big, and also unhappy with his arms pinned down. These sleepsack things are GENIUS and micro has loved them. Sometimes I just zip it on him and his eyes flutter clothes immediately!) The brilliant thing is that some of the bigger sizes have zip-off sleeves for just this purpose! However. I have been trying to transition him by unzipping just one arm at night and his arm movements always wake him up. There was one night where I told myself: just bite the bullet, take off both sleeves, and let’s get through it. Mini didn’t take long to accommodate this, neither will he. Wrong. I was going in there every hour to calm him until I finally just zipped back on the sleeves. At any rate, I ordered the Magic Merlin suit this go around (scheduled to arrive tonight — stay tuned for a full review). So many moms love this thing, including my sister, who insisted it was worth every penny. We shall see! (Also considering this as an alternative.)

+Once he’s comfortable with sleeping with his arms free, I’m transitioning him to a sleepsack by Louelle and some of these super-soft Kyte ones that many of you recommended.

+Some really cute Rebecca Taylor pieces are on sale at Nordstrom — love this and this.

+The lopsided dance of motherhood.

+Considering this for our front hall runner. I want something on the more modern end of the spectrum because most of our furniture and rugs are somewhat traditional and I want to introduce more of a mix. I have been eyeing this CB2 runner for like two years, but I am now far too practical to buy an entryway rug whose primary color is ivory, and the reviews are dispiriting. I think the D&A will be a good sub.

+Recently switched from one of these microfiber cloth mops (which get such good reviews, BTW) to this butterfly mop and I’m so thrilled I did. I like that you can wring it out so easily with the lever and I found the cloth mop grew stinkier faster. Encouraged, I also bought the OXO broom. Their home products are second to none, IMHO. (This is another new OXO obsession. So well-designed!) It’s the little things…

+Miscellaneous motherhood dispatches from another day.

+And speaking of little OXO things: I mentioned this in an Instastory, but this stainless steel measuring jigger is the bees knees for cocktail-fixing. Its design is patented! You can see how much you are pouring from a birds-eye view, without having to bring it up to eye level. GENIUS.

+Ordering these for mini.

+Will do a complete Christmas clothing (and jammie) post soon, but how darling is this print for mini?!

+Great gear for babies and chic Amazon finds for little ones.

+This knit duffle jacket!!!!

+These waffle-knit jams look so comfortable. (I love their nursing pajamas!)

+I already own a pair of Golden Goose sneaks so these are so frivolous, but I am kind of itching for a pair of GG high-tops…

+It’s really hard to think about warm weather clothing as we barrel towards winter, but Shopbop has put a bunch of amazing summer finds on sale and they might be worth buying now for use next spring/summer: this stunning dress for a garden wedding, this linen dress which I wore at least once a week (so comfortable and cool — and also nursing-friendly), these statement heels, and these raffia slides.

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