For Everything There is a Season

The good postpartum news:  when I wake up, I no longer feel like there is a strong possibility that one family member or another might actually not survive the day.  But oh!  How fast life is coming at us these days.  Contemplating another week feels like I am facing down the eye of a hurricane, head on, the cold wind beating at my cheekbones, the hard storm weathering away my old face like an ancient rock on the beach. 

But that is how we wanted it, right?  I never wanted things to be dull.  And there is rarely a middle ground between dull and the Category 5 hurricane.

Our Margaux, our delightful juicy mango of a baby is now three months old:

She sleeps from around 9 pm to 2 am.  She is so easy, so pleasant, so utterly beguiling with her blueberry eyes, the other day I allowed myself to make a calculation:  could I have another baby before I turned 40, after weaning her around a year?

No, the answer is no.  Look, I have to be done - the boppy pillow that lasted through six newborns finally breathed its last: 

So when I'm not making preposterous calculations, or quaffing something illicit to remind myself how much I like being NOT PREGNANT, I am working my way through THE BIGGEST VOGUE EVER: 

This ten pound tome is as big as the old Sears Christmas catalogs I used to carefully study to make my Santa list.  Oh, I do love Vogue - and not, obviously, for the clothes - 99% of what is worn in Vogue would be lost here on me, the Tulsa hausfrau - but for the flights of fancy and excellent writing.  It is my midday escape into the worlds of those who have money to blow on $800 purses and oxygen facials.  It is the Upper East side, Barney's, weddings in the French countryside, and yoga on the beach in Cabo.  There are absolutely no references in Vogue to blowouts and Dora.

Oh, and writing:  I always feel vaguely disappointed in myself if I haven't blogged, or worked on an article that day; but really that is too much pressure on myself at this point in my life.  That the children are all fed and alive at sunset is all that matters.  Still, I hope in the hazy future - those years shimmering way down in the distance, when all of my children are in school - I am not too tired, or senile, to write anything good.