I knew this day would finally come.

For more than a year, our apartment building has been surrounded by heavy machinery, ginormous cranes and ever escalating floors of concrete. I figured that eventually my 3 1/2 year-old daughter would notice the noise, debris and chaos and actually mention the two huge buildings going up outside our door.

And she finally did…

She pointed to a white pipe protruding from one of the concrete walls.

“Mom, look at that. That looks like that thing you use in the potty.”

“A tampon?” I responded. “You’re right honey. It does look like a tampon.”

Wow. It feels kind of weird to show a big picture of a tampon on my site. Oh please guy readers… don’t log off. Come on.. it’s just a tampon!

While we are on the subject of girlish things… I actually got a real life sighting of Ms. Contributing Mama Daphne Biener in New York City. The transplanted Colorado girl with an East Coat soul was in town to visit family. And she made time to see me! Now, Daphne initially comes across as a laid back, granola, I-don’t-need-makeup, low maintenance kind of girl. She told me to pick ANY restaurant. She was FLEXIBLE.

We sat down at Josie’s, a popular, healthy New American sort of place on the Upper West Side. Daphne is nibbling on cornbread and perusing the menu. She says, “Wow, usually when I look at a menu, a million things pop out at me. But I’m not really seeing anything.”

“Everything is really good,” I promise.

Daphne looks at the menu some more. Apparently, not a lot of “popping” going on.

“We can leave. We can find another place,” I offer, not really thinking she’ll actually make me get off my arse.

“Let’s go get sushi,” Daphne says. So we throw down a few bucks for the half eaten cornbread and walk out. And after checking out three restaurants in the neighborhood, we finally pick Citrus Bar & Grill which turns out to be pretty perfect.

Just a couple of super flexible, laid back, low maintenance girls out in the city.

One last tidbit. As you all know, I have two close friends who both just had their second child. In the spirit of a supportive mama community, I want to give them a tip for managing two.

When the baby cries at night and your toddler is trying to sleep in the same room, ear muffs come in very handy (no matter what time of year it is). Just ask Dylan who used this technique last night.

To take this photo, I risked waking TWO children. There’s nothing I won’t do for you all.

mama bird notes

We have an an awesome giveaway this week from Maidenform! You have the chance to win $300 worth of bras, underwear and shapewear from Maidenform (that you get to pick out from the website!).

If the winner turns out to live in the New York City area, you’ll have the bonus opportunity to visit Maidenform’s Madison Avenue showroom for a personal fitting. And their best fitter has touched the boobs of some very high profile celebs. I’m sure you can get the dirt when you go. If the winner doesn’t live in the NYC area, you’ll simply give them your sizes.

Man, who couldn’t use some properly fitting, sassy bras and underwear? To enter, just leave a comment on the mama bird diaries this week. You also need to forward a post to a friend. See that little pink box that says, “send to a friend”? Click there. Of course, I would never spam. Plus now (thanks to a very smart suggestion from mama bird reader Valerie), you can type a note when you forward posts.

Feel feel to write, “That ridiculously bossy Kelcey is making me forward this post so I can win fabulous underwear.”

Good luck mamas!

Seats are buckled and we are off to my mother’s house in Connecticut.

We drive four blocks. Dylan pees in her car seat

We briefly contemplate whether it’s cruel to let our child sit in her drenched car seat for an hour. Although clearly the more convenient option, it somehow just doesn’t feel like good parenting. Sort of like when I look at 16 month-old Summer’s eyebrows and think, wow, they could use a good tweeze but I know that’s not appropriate. Good parenting is just something you feel in your gut.

We loop around the block.

After a change of clothes, we finally make it to my mother’s house.

Within a few weeks, she’s moving to Northampton, Massachusetts to pursue a master’s in social work. I hope it’s kind of a crunchy place because my mom is wearing these today.

So we are here for a party to celebrate her new adventure. The invitation read, “Susan (that’s my mom) and Lilly (that’s my mom’s dog) Cordially Invite You To Come Celebrate The Changing Of Our Lives, Mine, Yours, Your Families and all Sentient Beings.”

I’m still not sure of the definition of a “sentient being.” My mom often skates along on this sort of esoteric, Buddhist plain that I don’t always quite grasp.

This is my mom’s house.

We moved here when I was 14. A popular kid named Tim lived here before. And his best friend Teddy was mad as all crazy hell that his best friend moved away and I moved in.

Teddy viciously taunted me on the school bus.

He told me Tim’s dead cat was buried in the front yard.

Fortunately, Teddy is not invited to the party.

The salty smell of the Long Island Sound immediately brings back my youth. Water skiing. Roller blading. Soulful, heart destroying crushes. Real boyfriends. Sailing lessons. Cruising through town. The pursuit of the perfect fake ID. Throwing a party and having someone steal the phone off the wall. Swearing that I did not throw a party despite the missing phone and other very compelling evidence. Best friends. Breaking up with boyfriends. Leaving home. Coming home.

But there is no more coming home. My home is somewhere else now. This is me today. Kind of mopey.

But today is not about me. It’s about my 65 year-old mother who despite her fear, is moving joyfully on to the next chapter of her life.

Dylan has been on spring break all week. With her three rigorous mornings a week of preschool, she was really ready to blow off some steam.

So she’s been getting totally wasted on Milwaukee’s Best Light and raging hard with her gal pals down in Ft. Lauderdale.

Well… actually, she’s mostly been hanging out with me and Summer. I guess the flights to Florida were booked. Or she just thinks her mum is super cool. Or maybe it’s because she’s 3.

But she’s still living it up toddler style.

She felt the sand between her toes at a Tribeca playground and flirted with 8 year-old Michael.

She REALLY wanted to help Michael build his sand castle but the guy was a bit of a loner. Or maybe he’s just coming off another relationship and the timing isn’t right.

Anyway, Dylan got over Michael real fast, and moved on to a somewhat older crush, Jimmy the plumber.

I was practically in love with Jimmy too, with the way he arrived on time and fixed my bath drain. Dylan thought Jimmy was way cool but just so damn focused on his work. Don’t you hate when guys are like that?

Dylan even started a diary this week. She can’t keep all these exciting vacation adventures bottled up inside.

She narrated out loud as she pretended to write, “Summer had major poop. So big we can’t believe it. It was so big we had to go to the doctor and then I got a cold.”

Well, the poop part is accurate. I must say Dylan was fibbing a bit with the doctor and the cold part. But let’s cut the chick some slack because who hasn’t exaggerated a little when telling spring break tales.

Then we had the opportunity, to watch a young boy pee this morning on a flower bed of fresh tulips, as we walked to the coffee shop. I guess sometimes you really gotta go… on someone’s beautiful flowers.

But the very best, most awesome part of this week was meeting this gal… Lila Drew Bales.

Yup. Even better than accosting Michael Kors. Congratulations to contributing mama Jordana Bales, her hubby Michael and big sis, Ava. But mostly to Jordana who had a VBAC with the little miss who weighed in at 9 lbs, 12 ounces. That is some strong work, girlfriend.

And I saw pictures people. Very graphic pictures. Vagina. Blood. Baby. Placenta. Seriously.

I love the name Lila Drew so much I’m thinking of changing my own name to Lila Drew. Is that creepy? She was so scrumptious and sweet and fuzzy that maybe I’ll just…

Or crap… BIG sign about facing serious penalties if you leave the floor with a newborn. Can you believe that I’m bossy enough to make poor Jordana, after giving birth to a 9 lb plus baby, take snapshots of me pretending to steal her baby?!

Fine. I’ll give Lila back. Jordana deserves her. She did carry her for 42 crazy long weeks.

And congrats as well to the Bowyer/Cruise family on their new little boy, Samuel Alden Lester Cruise. If Lila, an upper east side girl, has a thing for downtown boys then maybe a little something can be worked out here. Not too early for those baby lovebirds to start planning spring break ’28. The Milwaukee is on me.

mama bird notes

As a parent, I sometimes feel like I’m on fast forward… especially during the bedtime routine. Contributing mama Daphne Biener got a lesson in slowing down by the great Mary Poppins. Or at least someone fitting that exact description. Click on drooling over this to read more.

We have an awesome giveaway coming next week from Maidenform. Details to come…

I have a toddler and just gave birth to a new baby. Please someone explain to me how to fit in a shower with two very young children? I need immediate tips if I’m ever going to be clean again.

By Daphne Biener

The village stopped by on Friday night with a long overdue reminder: Slow The Heck Down. Hard to believe it’s been four years since the last kick-in-the-pants was delivered by Kira, who stopped her stroller with dragging feet to crack through my busy-mama ice-facade with this earnest plea:

“Mommy, please? Please can’t we stop and smell the flowers?” Ouch.

The more recent message came to me by way of Mary Poppins, aka the elementary school librarian, who blew down our chimney and sprinkled a teaspoon of sugar on our bed time ritual. Amazing what a little magic can do.

Let me backtrack a minute: Last week was disco night at school. We boogie-oogie-oogied ‘til we just couldn’t boogie no more, which as it turns out was about 8pm. The raffle included a chance to win an intimate night for 43 screaming kids at Chuck E Cheese. I am thrilled to report that Kira’s winning ticket earned us instead a night of bedtime stories with Mrs. Scott, the iridescent-winged, fairy-dust sprinkling school librarian. Sometimes luck smiles down.

Nobody loves books like I love books. It’s all I can do to contain myself when Kira disappears upstairs like cookie monster en route to devour a chocolate-dipped chapter of Nancy Drew. Naturally, bedtime stories should be my forte. But, no.

I’m a bit of a freak about bedtime. I calculate how many hours my babies need to turn them from screaming kids into smiling children, and then I click the stopwatch. Go! Go! Go! I urge them to eat faster and brush quicker. I skim their stories of extra adjectives and present them with butchered cliff notes. I am an awful, awful person. Smell flowers? I’m lucky if I haven’t trampled them all in my mad dash through motherhood.

Mrs. Scott showed up Friday in bathrobe, slippers and smile, lugging a Prius-sized basket brimming with books, cookies, and four monogrammed cups of milk. The girls spread a blanket on the living room floor and eagerly plopped down in their pjs as if they had front-row-center seats at the circus. Mary Poppins plopped right down beside them, and read and read and then read some more.

They spent weeks on a single page. They searched illustrations for wild antics in the periphery. They flipped back and forth to compare what the crazy cat was wearing on page one and then on page eight. The girls listened and laughed and hung on her every word for over an hour while Dave and I silently dipped Oreos in milk and bowed our heads reverently.

As she read I heard Kira’s three-year old voice tugging at my speedy soul. ‘Yes,’ my heart answered hers. From here on out, I promise, no flower shall be safe from our plodding noses. I’m an old dog, for sure, but I dissolved like butter under Mary Poppin’s sparkling spell.

One week later, and I’m happy to report that the dandelions pushing their way through our spring lawn have become beautiful bouquets on the kitchen table that I ostentatiously sniff every time I pass by. And Kira and I are on chapter five of Little House in the Big Woods. We’re reading it together; she listens dreamily with her head on the pillow, and I do my best to avoid the siren’s call of the infernal ticking clock. Our minds dance with tales of Laura Ingles and life in that log cabin in the woods.

And I swear I can smell the pine trees.

You can read more of Daphne’s work here on the mama bird diaries or visit her site, Sestina Queen.