M y ideas for fun trips seem to work in my head much like many of my past relationships with men remembering only the warm fuzzy parts. Something similar happened last weekend when I decided to spend my birthday attending a few Fashion Week shows in NY with my husband and newborn in tow. It seemed like a good idea based on last year’s birthday debauchery, but my recent debauchery is a distant memory my body wishes to forget.
Essex House Lobby
I told myself in September at the last New York Fashion Week season when I was crawling around NYC in agony at six months pregnant that I was going to take it easy in February for the next FW season. However, I have baby brain and I forgot the impact high fashion had on my feet and body going up and down town in my flat-forms begging for cabs to stop and pick up my big butt. Instead, the memories of my last birthday in New York clouded my judgment with scenes of the FW I spent running around kidless with my girlfriends, flirting with foreign men, and sipping endless martinis. Because I was still nursing my second child at this time last year my vodka infused milk tasted like a White Russian according to the drag queens that took a sample one crazed evening.
This year I turned 36 and I wanted a little escape without the guiltiness of admitting to my husband I let a rowdy bunch of Romanians at the Hudson Hotel buy me drinks all night on my 35th birthday. With my newborn in town, my husband offered to accompany me to New York to see a Broadway show and go to a museum, both things I never had time to do on previous trips. After buying the airline tickets I immediately messaged my friends looking for a sitter!
Lazar is six weeks old and caught a cough from my other two kids. The pediatrician wasn’t concerned about the cough so we got the go ahead to go. I was already tired at that point. We entrusted the other two kids to my forgetful, slob of a genius father. We also hired the nanny to babysit my dad, while babysitting the kids. During the trip my dad would call and complain he didn’t need a sitter. I also got messages from the nanny saying my dad most certainly needed a sitter, details to follow.
The weather was mild when we touched down on Friday and I was promptly dropped off at Lincoln Center for my first show Rebecca Taylor. I love this designer because she is a mom, super accessible, and her work is wearable. My next show was Rebecca Minkoff, who was super prego last season with her son Luca, also my son’s name. Well, let’s just say I love her taste in style as well. Velvet pants and angular collared shirts under short sweaters were the take-aways for next season. Ditto for Nicole Miller, whose show experimented with felting graphics and vintage textures.
Mama was back! Never mind that I had baby puke down my shirt and I peed on myself in tiny trailer bathrooms stalls connected to the tents. You would think that people in the fashion world have common bathroom etiquette, but instead the stalls look worse than the children’s museum.
We stayed at the Jumeirah Essex House with all the Kardashian look-a-likes. That first night we dined at an old favorite Tout von Bien. The place is very small and we had to cram into a small table next to a lot of other couple out for Valentine Day dinner. Lazar started coughing and I whipped the boob out. I tried to be as conspicuous as I could, but the couple next to use asked to be moved. I was so tired I wanted to cry, but things looked up when my girlfriend Suzanne arrived. I have known her through my wild and wholly days so seeing me with a baby was a shock to her.
Patrick took the baby home and we headed to the Hudson Jean party at Scoop in the Meat-Packing District. When it got too crowded we went to Milk Studios, my favorite place to see shows. The earlier The show for Cushnie et Ochs was earlier, but the Gillete men’s hairstyling party was still going on. We were scooted into the basement for to the rock’n roll garage where David Arquette showed up. I stood next to him trying to think of something to say, but all I could think of was “So what do you think about babies?”
I went home that evening tired, but there was no mercy that night. My baby was coughing all night. The next day I went to Jill Stuart’s show who reminded me of the clothes in my mom’s attic, all early 70s and Sergeant Pepper. William Porter was next with the same collar in his designs. A cigarette bow-tie goes with oxford shirt look. Incidentally, Jason Wu just produced for a few for Target.
Breastfeeding at the MOMA
My exhaustion was evident although it was my birthday it was hard to not to drink coffee over champagne. We met my sister-in-law and her nearly two-year old daughter Olivia for a stroll through the MOMA. I thought it would be a calm place to escape the city – not. Funny enough I ran into another breastfeeding mom looking for a discreet corner to nurse so we created the booby corner on our own.
That evening we met another one of my girlfriend’s from my days at NYU Amanda, who is married not long ago. I bother her with begging for babies. Sharmaine was my babysitter extraordinaire, she had not watched a baby so young, but she was willing to give it a shot.
Tout Von Bien
After dropping them off the hotel we went to see Rated P for Parenthood, a comical musical about parenting. Let’s just say I cried in many ways, mainly because it was way too close to my current reality. I lamented over a half dozen options, but decided that this one was short enough we didn’t have to stress Sharmaine out too long.
When we returned Sharmaine and I thought about crashing the birthday party in the lobby being held for one of Bon Jovi’s band mates who turned 50. There were a few homemade posters hung in the entrance of the party, so Jersey. We were joined at the bar by my childhood friend Mark Schook. Although my eyes were saggy enough to scream my granny all over them we stayed up until the bar closed.
After another night of coughing baby my head felt like one big giant wrinkle. Patrick and I made our way home much older than we did when we landed.
