But, right now my daughter is downstairs watching a Disney Princess movie as she decompresses after school and I have been trying to think of the right way to articulate what I want to convey with this post, and all that keeps coming into my head are the lyrics from the Broadway version of “Beauty and the Beast”. Human again.

So let me give this a try.

Life around here has been extra tough

tumultuous

trying

tiresome

lately. But, because this is not actually my story to tell, I am not going to do so; You can just take my word for it.

If these past two years were a mountain climb, I can say that we fell down the mountain many times and even when we got back up we were faced with things like unexpected hail storms and serious injuries. But This past week, man. This past week has been the part of the mountain where all of a sudden the incline becomes impossibly steep and trees appear, creating a canopy so dark that it is hard to see the surroundings and there are snakes. Lots of slithery snakes.

But, something amazing happened. I am scared to even type it, for I don’t want to jinx anything (we all know that I am incredibly superstitious) but this week, my lungs were able to adapt to the altitude, my legs were able to manage the tough incline and my eyes could see keenly through the darkness.

This is not to say that I have reached the top of the mountain; Actually, if I think about it, I don’t think I ever want to reach the top of the mountain. My goal is to keep climbing, to keep going up and up and getting stronger along the way, seeing more and more of the world around me as I get so high.

In any case, something kind of miraculous happened for me.

For the first time in a very, very long time, I felt like a human again.

March of 2012-October of 2013 I was a pregnant woman.

November 2013 I started with the severe postpartum depression and since then it has been a journey of battles and falls and sickness and weakness.

I have felt so fragile. Sometimes, I have been incredible fragile emotionally, and other times, I have been so very fragile physically and then, at the worst of times, it was both.

I have felt like this delicate shell of myself, going through the motions of life, which were too hard to begin with, and feeling so much like an other (which, by the way, I do embrace).

But, this week, I felt human again.

I can’t explain the shift, but it is perceptible to those close to me as well.

This week I was able to attend several social functions, despite incredibly stressful things going on in my personal life. I was able to work hard professionally and on my journey towards healing.

I enjoyed my friends and my family and life in a way that I haven’t in years. Literally, years.

I stopped losing weight for the first time since September. As I mentioned in the highlighted post before this, I am incredibly sensitive as to avoid any triggers for my readers. But let’s just say this. I stopped the loss, stabilized, and have gained a couple of pounds. This may seem like a small victory, but after having lost weight every single week consistently since September, this is huge. For me, it is huge.

And I am going to keep going because I have to keep going because I want to keep going.

When I was out for my one of my oldest and very best friend’s 30th birthday party on Saturday night, I got to sit next to two of my other very best friends and enjoy delicious food and laughter as we reminisced about the past. My friends, who have been very worried about me, didn’t worry about me as I sat next to them, that night. It isn’t that I am all better; I am far from it. But I am better. I feel human again.

For the past six months I have had a uniform, mostly because my normal clothing has not fit; Black leggings, a long tank and a sweater. This past week I branched out, wearing clothing in my closet that I have never touched before, trying new things, finding a new personal style. I wore a silk blazer with over the knee boots one night and a one piece, black lace jumpsuit the next.

The shift in me was never so palpable as it was yesterday, Sunday, as my family of four went to the mall.

This may seem like a mundane activity, but for us, it was a huge accomplishment for many reasons.

And not only did we go to the mall, but we went with no agenda. I had no timeline, nothing was off-limits. We let our kids create stuffed animals at Build-A-Bear and my husband and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes.

“Crying happy.”

We went shoe shopping for my daughter, and as both of my kids walked around, I pushed a stroller that contained one Rainbow Bunny and one Superman Bear.

My daughter said, “Mommy, it’s like we have three kids, but I’m the nicest one.”

I was reveling a bit in my new status as a human being, as we were getting ready to pay for my daughter’s shoes.

“Can I ask you a secret question?” My daughter leaned into me. “Is this the place with the popovers?”

“No,” I said. “That is Neiman Marcus, but if you want to go there, we can go there for a special, late lunch.”

I was able to go with the flow, something that has never been easy for me.

And then…

My son got lost.

My son got lost on the top floor of Nordstrom.

My son, who does not know how to effectively communicate, wandered off on a busy Sunday and was nowhere to be found. My husband ran to get security so that they would lockdown the store and I held my daughter’s hand as we searched and asked people if they had seen a little boy with strawberry blonde hair and glasses.

I consulted with all of the salespeople, and I did not feel anxious; I felt numb. I felt nothing.

In my head I thought, “Oh my god, someone kidnapped my son. What is going to happen to him? What are they going to do to him?” But I couldn’t really feel anything. I think that if I had felt, I would have crumbled, fallen off of the mountain to the very bottom.

I might not have survived.

After the scariest five minutes of our lives, an associate brought my son, his face formed into the saddest pout, into my arms.

I lost my son and was lucky enough to find him. And when my daughter asked if we could still go out for popovers, my husband and I both said that we could. We were shaken, obviously, but we could still function. We could keep going. We could keep living. We were human.

And so, the four of us sat down for our first meal out of 2015 (truly) and we toasted to our little family…over little mugs of chicken consomme.

And we toasted to the fact that it was the 9th anniversary of our first date.

And this little boy was his normal, happy self.

I had this feeling of pride as we left the mall yesterday, 4 hours after we had arrived, because we had done something that we hadn’t been able to do in years; We went out, without a plan, and actually enjoyed it.

Needless to say, I gave my kids extra hugs before bed last night, but I think that the crazy day brought my husband and I closer and that felt good.

This whole idea of being “human again” wasn’t something that I was able to articulate at the time, but today, when I thought about things, I realized that this transformation had occurred, subtly, but profoundly.

Today, I took care of my son, without childcare help, which, again, may seem like nothing to most people, but for me, it was an accomplishment. And, it was a joy.

So now, a day later, I feel a bit stronger. I feel like I have found my voice, with which I can advocate for myself. And I just watched my two kids dance to “Loving Cup” as my husband played the Exile on Mainstreet album through the speakers, filling the house.

Songs swirling in my head, emotions still being teased apart and understood, but all I know is that for the first time that I can remember, I feel human again.

And to feel human again is the greatest feeling,

as now I can keep climbing up my mountain, stronger, more skilled, and with a gratitude and an appreciation for the small things–

an unexpected field of wildflowers,

a break from the sun on a cloudy day,

a family sing-along–

and a-climbing I shall continue to go.

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I love this, in that I believe we should all celebrate life when we can, cherishing every drop of it.

But, I also worry about this, as I know that today there are many people who are not happy, not even close, and I don’t want these people to feel (perhaps further) marginalized.

On March 8th, prompted by an emotional local news story and other, smaller issues that were more close to home, I wrote a post on my personal Facebook that has been shared since on several pages.

I am glad that there is light shining out from the terrible cracks that recent tragedies have caused in my home community. Awareness is being raised for mental illness, and issues that are typically talked about in a whisper are being presented openly.

A common refrain that I hear is that this person or that person “wasn’t sad or depressed at all” before it was too late to save them. I realize that this is said as a warning, trying to caution parents and people that “this could happen to anyone”. But, I implore you to read, again, what I wrote above. Someone can be smiling, giggly, vivacious, social…

and still be severely depressed. There is no “face of depression”. So try to be good to people. Try to look at them a little more deeply and not just at how they look in an Instagram post or what their Facebook status says about doing really something cool/being somewhere really great/feeling so ecstatic.

Obviously, mental illness is a disease of deceit, even fooling those who are ill themselves, so it is impossible for you or anyone to be able to “catch” every case of something being off. I do, however, ask that you treat those who are suffering with sympathy and not with scorn or stigmas.

Okay. I can climb off my soapbox now and talk about being happy.

For me, it is easier some days than others. I am happy throughout the day, at times, every single day; for that I am so grateful. But am I happy all day every day? No. But, who is?

I will share with you what my #happiness is today:

I mentioned recently that our little boy is going through somewhat of a mama phase, but really, it’s separation anxiety in general, which is totally age appropriate.

This morning, he woke up calling out for his “Dada”. I got up to get him, and when I turned on his light and reached into grab him from the crib, he flung his body down, crying. “Dada! Dada!” he cried. He would not let me hold him. And so I had to finally bargain with him.

“If you let me pick you up so that I can change your diaper, I will bring you into bed to be with Dada, ok?”

And so he came to me and I made good on my promise.

My son chanted all the way down the hall to our bedroom, as I carried him, saying “Dada! Dada! Dada!” and when I put him on the bed, he did not jump on his dad as I would have expected with the enthusiasm he had been showing;

Instead, he quietly crawled over to him, curled up into the crevasse that his shoulders created in his back, put his thumb in his mouth and just snuggled into his dad.

And in that moment, while my husband was still half asleep (and asking me about how my stand up comedy show in Orlando went), I felt so much happiness. I felt so happy to have these two boys in my life, two out of the three greatest that I know. And I felt happy for my son, as he has the best father, who always puts him first and loves him warmly and affectionately. And, most of all, I felt happy for my guy, as he deserves this kind of unconditional love from my son, and from all of us, which he has. He is a truly good human being. His happiness is my happiness. He deserves nothing less.

Happy #InternationalDayofHappiness

Even if it is a small thing, like hearing a song on the radio that you like, or making a green light, I hope that today brings you, at the very least, a moment of happiness.

And, if not, that’s OK, too.

Because I know, with all of my heart, that you will find that happiness again.

#IAmLivingProof

[*Author’s Note: This post was originally published using the title and term “International Happiness Day”, which I have since corrected to “International Day of Happiness”. But don’t waste your time trying to edit my post; go find your happiness.]

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My love for my son is no less fierce or intense. But yes, it is different. Part of this is clearly because of their 3.5 year age gap. For example, communication: My daughter has a stunning vocabulary for her age and a wisdom that is hard to put into words. My son is just learning to speak. It is easier for me to relate to my daughter in many ways, because she can tell me how she is feeling and what she wants and she will sit down with me, whereas my son uses non-verbal communication, his dozen words and a lot of running.

But, as I said, my love for him is unquantifiable. Just this morning the four of us were up early and all cuddled on the couch in the basement, listening to my son’s new favorite song (and let me tell you, he makes it known) and I kind of nuzzled up to his head and inhaled him, like people do with newborn babies. He smells delicious. I can’t describe it, but I got so lost in that smell, I could have stayed there forever.

But if we are being really, truly honest, which I always am, I think that the part of my relationship that mixes me up a bit is the fact that he was born and I subsequently lost my mind. So my feelings about our introduction are a combination of bliss, gratitude, joy, terror, sadness, pain, guilt and some PTSD. Once my mental health started to improve and I was left alone, again, to take care of my son, I thought, “How am I going to do this? How will we work?”

My little guy has surprised me from day 1 of his existence in my womb, and hasn’t stopped. He cracks me up, for in the span of 3 minutes, he will steal my kale smoothie, switch the Living Room TV to a setting that I can’t figure out how to fix, take apart my bathroom vanity, while marching around, bag of pretzels in one hand and blowdryer in the other. (This is what he did after lunch today.) He just tried to race his Matchbox cars over my computer keyboard. He is just different than I am. I am lazy. I like to play chill games. He likes to go go go go go go go go go go.

But something hit me today, as I got dressed, and I was inspired to journal it, as he deserves it. I wanted to write about him. My closet happens to be in my son’s bedroom, so as I picked out my outfit, I sat him on his glider and talked to him. “I’m just putting on my shirt now! What do you think?” And I smiled at him as broadly as I could and he smiled back, with his entire face. I ran to the bathroom that is across the hall from his bedroom and waved to him. He continued to beam.

“We are doing this,” I thought.

This, this period of time right now, is an odd one; This is not what I expected from my life, and I feel the entire spectrum of emotions when I think about it, ranging from extreme sadness to pure happiness. This morning, on that couch, my head in his hair, I was as blissful as anyone could be.

And then there are other times, when I am trying to figure out my path forward, and I get down.

But I realized today that I have this constant reminder with me; My little strength symbol.

I want to be happy, not just for myself (in fact, I put myself last, but that’s a whole different story), but for him.

So right now I am sitting on the floor of the basement, perched on his “Anywhere Chair”, typing, as he runs around, playing trains, sliding down the rollercoaster, handing me a plastic croissant and saying, “Apple, mama?” as he shoves it into my mouth, climbing on the furniture and continuing to mess with yet another TV. I am now listening to the sound of my home phone dialing.

But we’re doing this.

And even though I just had to get up from my chair on the floor (despite my inherent laziness) to hang up the phone because he actually did just call someone, we are doing this.

And so I am going to go now. Not just because he is dialing more numbers, but because I want to give him my time. I want to play with him, cooking together in his fake grill. I want to help him to do a puzzle. I want to smell his head.

So, it may not have been the easiest path,

and every single day still has it’s challenges,

but I get to smell a heavenly head, and see a huge smile that has all but 2 teeth filled in, and laugh at the little drop of milk that gets caught in the cleft of his chin and live in a constant state of surprise and amazement and awe.

And I get to continue to learn, from my baby, how to be strong.

(Our respective perches. At least for this second.)

Update: My mom just called.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Nothing. You called me? I got a missed call from your home phone.”

My son freakin’ called my mom.

“His first call to Bubbie!” she exclaimed, so excited.

“He is delicious.”

And I have to agree.

The post We are doing this appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

And by friends, I mean everyone.

It’s called Pinterest.

J has been trying to get me to join for years and I finally just took the plunge. I have 1 board, 3 pins and 0 followers. It actually took me 10 minutes to figure out how to follow Jordan.

I actually don’t even know how to find my own Pinterest page. Hold on, let me try.

Okay, I found it. Mommy, Ever After on Pinterest. It is currently the worst Pinterest account ever, but I will work on it. I promise.

I was a late to join Instagram as well, and now I love it. In fact, I think it was J who was also behind that leap towards the future.

So yesterday I posted a picture (that is filtered horribly, might I add) from my favorite store.

J just texted me about this picture, in fact:

So, once again, J to the rescue. They are holding the fox for me.

(I called up and said “Hi, I am looking for an item that I should have purchased yesterday but didn’t, and it’s on the left hand side of the store and it may be in a section of silver things and it is a fox, but kind of a swirly fox.”)

But J is right, I really do have to get it.

Anyway, so now I almost up to date with all of the cool kids, and will be adding to my Pinterest page regularly if you want to follow me (if that’s how it works).

The next and final step is happening in 28 days; Emojis. I don’t have Emojis.

I said I was going to wait until I turn 30.

So for now, my friends have to get texts from me that look like this: :-*

Slowly but surely, as they say. Or, I am sure there is a much more eloquent way to express that sentiment.

I bet I can find it on Pinterest.

The post Pinterest. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

you will know that I am an enormous fan of the person and musician named Brett Dennen. You might know that my favorite song is “Sydney (I’ll Come Running)” because of it’s profound meaning to me. Or that I cover his song “Make You Fall in Love With Me” with my band, Fox & the Hounds.

If you know me in real life, you will know that I don’t just love his albums for the quality of the music, but because they have lifted me up during some of my lowest times while enduring my “Hard Story”;

Or this amazing story, during the height of my postpartum, and how, so serendipitously, the liner notes for “Smoke and Mirrors” read, “This album is dedicated to those who might have lost their way but found it again from within.”

Well, it has been a great ride following this person.

And then, he liked my Instagram photo.

Did you catch that?

Oh, hi, Brett Dennen.

Brett Dennen, himself, liked my Instagram photo. Sure he has favorited my tweets; yeah, he called me out for having a “beautiful voice” during his last acoustic show in Wilmington, DE; but when I saw this, I really think that my heart stopped. And I can hardly type, I am so shaky. I am a total nerdy fangirl right now.

This particular gesture means so much to me because it has to do with my kids, both of whom share my love for Brett Dennen.

My daughter likes to play “I’m Kristina Jackson“, Brett’s beautiful partner who is also an incredible natural foods chef and “holistic guru”.

We are both totally nerdy fangirls. But it’s OK. We totally own it.

Because that’s what Brett’s music is all about; be who you are, make no apologies, live your best life.

So today will forever be the day when I woke up from a two hour nap, walked in my daughter’s room to see her listening to Brett Dennen on the iPad, posted a photo on Instagram

and had Brett Dennen like it.

The end.

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I am choosing to interpret them as reminders to be strong.

It is hard, sometimes, to remember, but, as my fortune cookies said on Sunday night, “Fate will find a way.”

Yesterday my mom randomly spotted this feather on the ground, next to me, in a place where it shouldn’t have been.

And then this morning, my daughter came into my room to snuggle in bed as we were all waking up, and handed this to me:

This is the bracelet that honors my late Uncle; my superman.

Why did she bring it to me, today of all days, to wear?

Because, as this beautiful spirit just texted me, “And tomorrow. We march forth.”

It will be 8 years ago tomorrow that we lost him to melanoma.

This beautiful friend has reached out to me every single year on this day since.

In any case, because yesterday was both triumphant and hard, I feel so blessed that my angels are reminding me to stay strong,

as always.

The post My angels. appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

I have been fighting some major fatigue for the past two weeks and today was just a long day.

By 4pm, I had face planted onto the bed in the guest room, as the kids snuggled and played around me.

I snapped an iPhone selfie so that I could publish it with the words “I am too tired to write. I love you.”

And then I decided to look for a quote about Wednesdays to fill in the blanks, as I am truly unable to come up with anything worth reading, and it hit me! One of my greatest Wednesday stories of all time:

It was Springtime, during my Freshman year of college. I remember leaving a computer lab on campus and I am sad that I cannot remember it’s name now (maybe it was the West lab? Not the underground lab by the library, but a big, two story lab, kind of in the center of campus? You had to walk in to a freestanding building and walk up and it was a huge open room with computers?) and seeing a girl with what looked like some smeared charcoal on her face. I silently wondered if I should tell her, but kept quiet. And then I saw several more kids, all coming from her direction, with similar smudges. “They must have been doing some kind of art project in a studio class,” I figured. I met up with my boyfriend and pointed out this group of people with grey-smeared faces.

And that is how this Jewish girl from Philadelphia found about about Ash Wednesday.

And goodnight.

(p.s. I have now looked up computer labs on campus maps and I am really frustrated with myself; If you can help me to figure out which computer lab I am thinking of, I will buy you a Creamery cappuccino.)

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Today, I was fortunate enough to get one of those chances. I was connected with Jill Rosen, a personal stylist for J.Hilburn, a custom clothier for men, and I spent the hour that she was here scurrying around my house with excitement. Literally.

I am calling Jill’s custom made clothing service the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for “Him” (whether it is a romantic partner, a dear friend, a parent, a sibling, the list is endless, really) because that is the word that my husband used himself; He described his experience today with Jill as “perfect”. It is no secret that I love love, and I particularly love making my husband feel happy and special.

So let me give you a little bit of company info before I talk about our experience.

In reading about J.Hilburn’s founders, Veeral Rathod and Hil Davis, they are quoted as saying,

“If you had told us that one day we would start a men’s clothing company, we would have flat-out called you crazy. Back then, we were a couple of Wall Street guys with a passion for custom-made dress shirts and for the way we felt wearing great-fitting clothes. We studied the men’s luxury market and saw that nobody was delivering quality custom clothing and personal service at a price that didn’t break the bank. So we set our vision, and J.Hilburn was born. We now offer exclusive Italian shirting and trouser fabrics, luxury performance knits, and a top-shelf accessories line that marries the best in handmade designs and European quality.”

That all sounds great, right? But let me tell you how it really works.

Jill came to my house this morning with a little rolling suitcase filled with measuring apparatuses, a book of fabric swatches, a tablet and a sense of kind enthusiasm that was overflowing so that it impossible not to feel and mimic her excitement.

Our goal was to create a custom made shirt for my husband, who loves clothing, style and looking good.

  When Jill told me that she would help us to create a shirt that was custom made for K, I thought that sounded really cool; I had no idea exactly how specifically he was able to customize his shirt, but in a half hour we were able to make something that was his absolute ideal (down to the addition of two buttons at the top of the neck, something she had never seen done before!)

The experience didn’t just “measure up” (ha!), it far exceeded our expectations.

First Jill chatted with K a bit about his lifestyle, preferences and taste.

She asked basic questions, like his work wardrobe v. what he wears on the weekends,

and then questions so specific that they blew my mind, like whether or not he liked his watch to be able to peak out from under his shirt when shaking hands with someone.

(By the way, she took note that K wears his watch on his left hand, which means that in custom making the shirt, the manufacturers will make that cuff ever so slightly larger to accommodate the tiny bit of extra “bulk”.)

In all, the measuring process takes about 20 minutes, where she gets all of the numbers she need to ensure that the shirt is an absolutely perfect fit.

Today, this was done in our living room, as our kids played around us (and my daughter got to help a bit) but besides coming to homes, Jill also goes to places of work, so that a man never has to step out of his office to get custom fitted. And once the measurements are done (assuming his size stays the same) he never has to be measured again; he can simply go onto his J.Hilburn account with Jill and order anything from shirts to suits to sport coats to sweaters and more.

I do not wish to embarrass him by saying this, but today’s experience made my husband feel kind of like a model; and kind of like a baller.

Except,

and this is the big except,

these finely crafted garments are no more expensive than what you would buy at a nice department store.

When the garment is finished being made, Jill then has it professionally steamed and hand delivers it to either the home or office.

This is a luxury service for a “normal person’s” cost.

Today we ultimately decided on the above fabric, in a European slim fit cut with no pocket, double buttons and no pleat down the back. My husband was able to choose every single detail, and we had a hard time narrowing down the final fabric from her book of hundreds.

Because he was so torn, Jill later sent him a personal style-board so that he can remember what other fabrics and pieces he was interested in for his next purchase. And next time, as I said, he can just call her or go to her website and place the order, no measuring required.

So, you may now ask, what is in it for you?

Jill is offering a $25.00 gift certificate for you, Mommy, Ever After readers, off of the price of your first shirt (which I maintain is the absolute perfect Valentine’s Day gift for your “him”).

This is how it works: You contact Jill and she will either send your guy a gift card to present on Valentine’s Day or she can create a beautiful email that says something like, “Your adoring wife Becca wanted you to have a custom made shirt, so you can feel like the gorgeous man you are. Happy Valentine’s Day!” or “I am tired of looking at your old, ratty shirts, I am having one custom made for you. A nice lady will be coming to your office. Don’t be rude. Happy Vday.” Whatever you want! The point is, this is the ideal gift, as you can present your special someone with the promise of a custom made shirt and then he can arrange his fitting/fabric choosing at a time that works for him, at home, at the office, at the gym, or wherever is most convenient. With the fabrics that my husband was looking at today, the retail price of a shirt would be $139, so with your gift card from us, your custom made shirt would be $114. That is pretty darn amazing; Just like him!

And my husband may be bold in his fabric choices, but she has swatches that range from the most conservative to the most wild (I saw a bright orange gingham today!) so he is bound to find his perfect match; Just like you!

This is the kind of gift that really shows that you care.

It is the kind of gift that will make a man feel like a million bucks (for a fraction of the cost of other handmade clothing).

It is the kind of gift that says, “I adore you, and I want you to feel special.”

I say this sincerely, with all of my heart, I do not think my husband will be buying a shirt, suit or sport coat from a department store ever again.

Happy Valentine’s Day, men,

from J.Hilburn, Jill Rosen,

and of course, your lover-of-love,

MEA.

Mommy, Ever After is proudly partnering with Jill Rosen of J.Hilburn; All reviews, ideas and opinions are, as always, 100% my own.

The post The Perfect Valentine for Him: A custom made shirt from J.Hilburn appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

kids squealing at their own joke;

Two mouths but one laugh.

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