If 3 is a magic number, then 6 makes you realize that your little girl is growing up. For reals. 6 is serious business. It’s closer to 10 than it is to 1.

Happy birthday to my girl!

It’s Mia’s birthday week. As it’s also near Valentine’s Day, trying to plan any kind of celebration is stressful, so we’ve opted for small home parties every year alternating between different groups of friends on the invite. This year we wanted to have our neighbors and their kids over for brunch.

All Mia wanted for her birthday is a pinata. She’s been talking about it for a year, so when we went on a recent shopping trip to Target, she fixated on a purple pony pinata and clung to its neck the whole time in the store. Ok, that’s not actually how it went down. Claudine and Mia fought over who got to hold the purple pony so *I* had to carry that thing around the store. More fighting at home ensued so the purple pony sat high out of reach on our dresser in our room. The thing scared the crap out of me sometimes in the mornings when I’d forget it was there.

On the eve of the brunch we dumped all the Valentine’s themed candy, plastic gemstone rings, heart stickers and little bottles of nail polish on the floor and stuffed that pony silly. Turns out the pony didn’t really have such big capacity to hold a lot of stuff, but we did our best and left it by the window till morning. The cat came over and sniffed it.

It’s official. There are no babies in this house. Claudine’s been potty trained since last spring, but we’re officially done with pull ups at night now too. And if you must know the truth, she’s been ready for a good long time but we were the ones too lazy to initiate the night thing, not to mention we had bought a huge case of pull ups at Costco and damn it, we were going to use them regardless. But one day last week as we were getting the kids ready for bed and Mark was reaching for the pull ups, Claudine broke out and said “WHHHHY do I have to wear pull ups??!??”.

Okaaaay. And that was that.

If it happened a bit anti-climatically, it’s still a truly significant step in our house. And I know that we have other battles ahead of us, but I feel like we’ve finally moved past all the hard baby stuff and that some of the unknown has now been figured out. I remember when I was down to my last trimester with Mia, freaking out about childcare, freelancing and how it would all work out. We don’t have gobs of money now, but we really didn’t have any money back then and the prospect of hustling for work while taking care of this new little person was terrifying. We couldn’t afford a full time nanny and day cares around here didn’t take babies. So we got creative, hired a PT sitter 2x a week for 16 hours, traded off childcare duties when we didn’t have her, pulled our hair out when we both got slammed with work, cried when it got too much, slept less hours and drank more coffee. After 6 continuous years of having babies and toddlers in the house, we made it!!

And the pull ups? We’ll be giving the dozen or so we have left away and pocketing that extra $30-50 a month saved from wipes and diapers, plus we gain an extra free cubbyhole in the bookshelf where they were stored (you laugh, but in NYC where storage is a premium, an extra cubbyhole is like winning $500 at the slot machines). As for those baby cravings that I get now and then (I love babies and I actually love the whole baby stage), shooing those feelings away now…

I think I’ve hit a wall. I was coasting along all happy and motivated, planning my (hopeful) escape route and then I started drawing.

It was not good.

I mean it was fine, really, but I’ve been so out of practice that it made me wonder how I even made it through art school. Now I’m not going to say this to brag, but I will tell you this story just to make a point. When I was applying to colleges here in NY, all the art schools except Parsons had scholarship competitions as part of their admissions process. One school (Cooper Union) had us do a take home exam where you had to complete specific art tasks and then hand them in while the faculty looked over your portfolio. Two schools had us take the art test on location at the school with a bunch of other hopeful bushy-tailed candidates (Pratt, SVA). We had to do things like draw a crumpled up piece of paper and take off our shoes and draw them. I won full scholarships to 2 of those schools and the Parsons guy told me my portfolio was in the top 3 portfolios that he had seen that year.

Again, I’m not telling you this to brag, but on the contrary, I’m mentioning this because it’s funny how little it means, then and especially now. Talent might be a gift, but if you don’t keep at it, you risk squandering it away. As I struggled to finish my first year of bootcamp at Cooper (we had to enroll in like 8 or 9 different classes a semester. Yeah, you heard that right), I realized deep down that while I was technically proficient, I lacked a certain passion and uninhibited creativity that many of the other students had. I just didn’t have it and the work that I did was not good. Some of you may already know my struggles with art, but while it’s true that I lost interest in art that first year, I also gave up on it and myself. I felt totally uninspired and deflated (though I would later gain it back with music).

I have this problem, see. I’m both cursed and blessed with being a perfectionist and I tend to give up on something if it’s not turning out the way I envision. It’s incredibly frustrating and I know it’s stupid. I tend to focus on the goal and not the process, even though I like the idea of process and it seems that I *should* like the process of, well…process. So I found myself reverting back to these unrealistic expectations that I set out for myself. I did a drawing and it wasn’t good. I shouldn’t have cared so much about the way it looked, but should have been encouraged by the fact that I was trying to draw again. And instead of getting upset with myself, I should have just kept going, working at it and doing it over and over and over again. But the perfectionist, Type A with a capital T, control freak in me didn’t make that happen.

I’m starting over again tomorrow. The good news is that I have a lot of ideas right now. The bad news is that I have a lot of ideas right now and can’t focus on anything. Seriously, I’m all over the place, but I look over at the girls and see how freely they draw and paint. They will both literally draw the same person figure over and over, day after day. I have whole sketchbooks and piles of loose papers with these people, but there’s a lesson in there! Focus and perseverance will get you to the place you want to be.

And before you say it, I know. I get it from Claudine all the time. “Chill out! You have to chillax, mommy!”.

Sometimes you just need a recipe just so you can eat caramelized onions.

Caramelized Onion Tart (serves 4-6)

2 large onions, peeled and thickly sliced
2 Tablespoons butter

1/2 cup butter
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup ice cold water

Sliced fresh or sun-dried tomatoes
Crumbled Goat Cheese
Fresh Oregano Leaves
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Coarse Sea Salt

First, caramelize the onions. Melt the 2 tablespoons butter in a large, heavy skillet. Add the onions and cook on medium-low heat for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. They should become a golden caramel color. If you find they are cooking slowly you can increase the heat for a few minutes so they start to brown a little, then reduce the heat so they continue to cook slowly. When they are finished transfer them to a container and set aside.

Prepare the tart dough while the onions are cooking. Combine the butter, flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor and process until the butter is mostly incorporated. Slowly drizzle in enough cold water to make a medium-stiff dough. Roll the dough out on a floured surface to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into 6-inch circles, then chill until ready to bake.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread a layer of caramelized onions on the top of each circle of tart dough. Top with fresh or sun-dried tomatoes, followed by the goat cheese and fresh oregano. Drizzle with a little olive oil, and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake the tarts for about 20 minutes, or until the crust is fully cooked, but not too dark. Remove from the oven, let cool for a few minutes, and carefully remove form the baking pan, as the crust may be fragile. Serve warm or at room temperature.

I think one of the things that most people will notice when they come over to our house for any extended period of time is how respectful the girls are of our stuff. And by stuff, I’m talking computers, phones, cameras and any other piece of enticing, forbidden electronic equipment. They also don’t rummage in our bags or play with our wallets or keys. I don’t know that we consciously “trained” them to keep their distance, but given that they’re both fairly different in personality from each other, something got ingrained in them from an early age. Maybe it’s because they’re used to seeing me working on the computer all the time (judging from this photo, ya think?). At one point when Claudine was a baby (that’s her pictured here), she’d associate the opening of the laptop with nursing and would start to expect it when she saw me on the computer (let’s face it…nursing is a bonding experience and all, but after awhile and especially after the second one, it’s really boring just sitting there with a baby on your boob).

If you came to our house and saw where I keep my computer, you’d probably think I was crazy because I leave it on the couch at all times. The girls, however, will never touch it, ever. They’ll bounce around, wrestle and lay down or stretch out on the sofa, but they’ll stay clear of the side that the laptop is on. It pretty much hogs up its own permanent seat on the couch. I know what you’re thinking…um, the couch? Isn’t there a safer place to keep the computer? But the girls are generally “non-destructive” to begin with and I trust them around our stuff completely (ok, I lie. Once Claudine picked up my phone and threw it down on the rug).

Contrary to what this may sound like, the kids are really curious about computers and iphones and if we let them, would probably play with apps and video games all day long. Mia, in particular, seems to have the potential to be an addictive gamer given her keen interest in gaming consoles, computers and anything screen-based when presented with the opportunity, but despite the fact that many of her friends have a Wii and access to computer time, we’ve just held off. I know it can’t be for long and we’re not planning on being super hardball on it as the kids get older. I mean we totally grew up on Atari, the Commodore 64 and later, Nintendo (Summer Olympic Games on Atari, anyone?) and we came out ok (I think). So I’m curious, what are your thoughts on computers and kids? If your kids are using computers now, when did you let them tinker around?

If you haven’t been to the Flea yet this winter while it takes up residence in the former Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower, then do yourself a favor and make your way over there. The building lobby is absolutely stunning and creates the perfect backdrop to the Flea in a way that no interior has been able to so far. The stain glass windows, the remarkable mosaic tiles on the ceilings, the metalwork, the Art Deco architectural detail - I don’t know, but the Flea just fits in well with this space. In contrast to the harsh glare of mid-day sunlight or the fluorescent lighting of some of the boxy retail storefronts that the Flea has taken residency in the past, the 1 Hanson Building just gives everything class and a warm rosy glow. I’m telling you, that vintage spool of thread never looked better.

All the food vendors are downstairs in the bank vault. Pretty cool, huh? But it’s got little of the ambience of the majestic space upstairs. The vault is as you imagine it might be - gray, heavy concrete walls - but perhaps bigger than what you may have envisioned. Still, it’s a pretty unique setting and the Flea’s been packed every weekend.

Mark thought that it might be nice for Mia to be with him at the Flea all day (huh). I wasn’t so convinced, but he was willing to bring her in the morning and see how it went. Mia, of course, was excited to take up her guest salesgirl post again and drew up little pictures of all the products along with their prices so she can study them. This was her cheat sheet.

So there is this one disadvantage to being down in the vault - no cell service. As the morning progressed, I had no idea if Mia was behaving or driving Mark crazy. I tried getting information on twitter from people who had just visited Mark at the Flea. I envisioned him tying her up in the chair with bungee cords to prevent her from running off all the time. Or maybe he was continuously feeding her a line of snacks and sweets just so that she wouldn’t harass the other vendors. I just couldn’t get a hold of him and Claudine decided to take a nap mid-day so we didn’t get down there until after 3. When we got there Mark reported that she was “pretty good” for most of the day, but started to get antsy in the last hour or so. Really, can you expect much more from a 5 year old? I think it’s remarkable that she lasted that long and I’m not really sure what made Mark think she can make it from 8:30am - 5pm at the Flea all day, but there you have it: Mia’s first “full day” at work. Will she be making another all-day appearance again? Yeah, now about that…

Remember last year when I declared that we were going to Paris this year? Yeah, ok. That dream is dead postponed. That Paris fund, which I admit never got its own separate account like I had planned, has now turned into the Claudine preschool fund. Or at least a small percentage because I’m not telling you how much her preschool is going to cost next year for 4 almost full days a week. It’s an embarrassing amount of money, an unthinkable amount of money for 1 year of preschool. Think of an outrageous figure and double that (if you’re not in the NYC metro area, than triple or quadruple it).

So is it worth it? I’m not normally the type of parent who gets caught up in the hype of “only the best for my kids”. We still use the same beat up MacLaren stroller, recall and all, that we’ve used for the past 5 and half years. Hand me downs are fine and welcome, and despite Mia’s insistence that everyone has an American Girl doll, I’m not about to fork over $100 bucks for a doll, especially one from a company that rolled out a homeless doll called Gwen.

In a city like the one in which we live, it’s not hard to become sucked into the competitive and cut throat vortex of preschool madness, where you have some camps who firmly believe that acceptance into an Ivy League college starts with the crucial selection of the “right” preschool. Even if you don’t buy into that crap (and most of my friends don’t, but I know it exists), getting into your preschool of choice sometimes involves getting up at pre-dawn early hours and lining up to get an application, just as you may have done in another life to get tickets to a concert (or a free couch, in the case of the grand IKEA Brooklyn opening). There are school tours, essay questions that make you delve into the psyche and habits of your 2 or 3 year old, and then the interviews. Yes, interviews. With your child. Before you start thinking that anybody in the city is crazy to put up with this (well, we are), it’s really a (mostly) simple explanation of supply and demand.

Now, I must admit, I didn’t go through any of that since the parent/child classes that we started going to way back with one particular new program in the neighborhood when Mia was a toddler organically morphed into a preschool. Mia was just in. And so is Claudine. It just so happens to be an excellent program and one I believe in - the kind where your kid might come home to tell you that they studied Andy Goldsworthy that day or mention in passing, stuff like “DNA is the puzzle inside your body”.

So yeah, I guess I am thinking that it’s worth it. 1 year of preschool at a premium price before Claudine gets thrown into the jungles of public school Kindergarten. We will sacrifice vacations and big purchases and give up many many things this year and next. Sacrifices. Now I’m talking like a real parent, huh?

So Paris Paris Paris, it will be a few more years till you and I meet again. You will always be there I suppose. The kid will only be in preschool once, after all.