When my son was a newborn, I had moments—usually when I was feeling particularly happy and in love with my boy—when sadness would rush through my body, instant and palpable, like a jolt of adrenaline, and my eyes would fill with tears. It wasn’t the baby blues. It was the realization that life is short and fast and finite, and that these moments that were giving me such joy were fleeting, never to be recaptured. I’m guessing that my age—I was 43 when Scott was born—had a lot to do with it. I’ll bet 25-year-old moms are a lot less likely to draw a straight line between Goodnight Moon and mortality.

I’m able to stay more solidly in the present since those first days—no more wallowing in the poignancy of it all—but I have to say, it really does go by way too fast, just like the cliché says. In our September issue, we ran an essay on this fleeting nature of childhood called “The Long Goodbye.” It really struck a chord with readers, staying on our “Most Popular” list for many weeks. I’m not surprised: What parent can’t relate? And it’s a beautiful piece. If you missed it—or if you’re one of the many readers who loved it—here’s a video of writer Melissa T. Shultz reading it, with lots of adorable photos of her son. Get your tissues, sit back and enjoy. If you’re in the throes of holiday shopping and stress, this ought to help you get back to the spirit of the season.

Listen, I love my job. Yes, I need to work but even if my husband made a million a year, you’d have to pull me kicking and screaming from my desk to make me quit. (Sorry to my kiddies. I love you more than anything but mommy really likes putting on her big girl shoes and going to New York City everyday and talking to grown ups. You’ll understand when you’re older.)

Since Sophia started first grade last week (yes, she absolutely loves it—thanks for asking!), there have been no less than 10 (TEN!!!) emails, fliers and invitations to sign her up for events that we will not be able to be a part of. Some are sports or cooking classes that take place in the afternoon but lots of them are school events—like the open house that was scheduled for 11 a.m. or the back to school picnic this Friday at 4:30. Where will I be this Friday at 4:30? At work. And Sophia? She’ll be at After Care at the Y.

It kinda makes you wonder if being a working mom is really possible. I mean, we know that a full time job is more than 40 hours a week and being a full time parent is 24/7 so it just doesn’t add up. Of course, the working parents with babysitters, nannies or even family nearby have it a lot easier. (Remember Amy Poehler’s great speech where she thanked her nannies for everything they do. Loved that.) But I guess for me, I’ll just have to do homework with Sophia until 9 p.m. and then maybe get a few minutes to myself before I crash for the night. (And by “minutes to myself,” I mean packing the girls’ lunches, folding some laundry and cleaning the house.)

I know it’ll get better. It’s just this time of year that is so stressful for working parents. And while we’re at it… whose brilliant idea was it to have Fashion Week the same week as back to school? Certainly not a mom.

I thought about that moment this week when a somewhat conservative male friend saw that my son’s toenails were Kermit the Frog green. I had gone to buy myself some shiny pink polish and my 5-year-old son had grabbed the green bottle and asked if he could have some, too. After pausing for a moment to calculate the risk factor, I’d said sure. It wasn’t a pink tutu. And given his current obsession with cars, trucks, guns, competing to see who’s fastest, and generally being stereotypically male in every way imaginable, I thought it was a nice change of pace.

“You let him wear nail polish?” my friend said, in a low voice, full of judgment. “A boy should not be wearing nail polish.”

“It’s just paint!” I said. “And it’s GREEN, for godsake. Don’t be silly.”

It was just after Gay Pride weekend in New York, where thousands were celebrating their new right to get legally married. And so my friend replied, “All those people in the street, representing their viewpoint. I gotta represent mine.”

Wow, back in the day, I became a drugged-out hippie with the purchase of one wrap-around skirt, and now, with just 10 swipes of a green brush, my  five-year-old son was on a path to get gay-married. (To Kermit, maybe?)

So I was interested to get, in my email inbox the next day, an article written by Stephanie Brill, the executive director of an organization called Gender Spectrum, which aims to get us all to chill out a bit about gender roles and let people be who they are, wear what they like, play the games they find fun, without making too many assumptions about what it all means. Let’s review some basic facts, she suggests: “Colors are colors, toys are toys, clothes are clothes, and hair is hair.”

Crazy talk! Though I might add, for my mom’s benefit, “and skirts are skirts,” as I sit here conservatively dressed, in a corporate office, drinking coffee, reflecting on the fact that apparently that wrap-around didn’t ruin me.

Brill feels that these kinds of superficial things are just about the joy self-expression—that they don’t necessarily have anything to do with deeper issues around gender identity or sexual orientation. She also feels that, by making kids put so much energy into policing their preferences to make sure they fit gender norms, we’re taking away energy they could be using to study, play sports or be good citizens.

This is a topic that’s come up a lot, lately, with the firestorm over the J. Crew ad showing fashion designer Jenna Lyons painting her son’s toenails neon pink, which I guess was part of the impetus for Brill’s essay.

“Should you allow your son to wear nail polish out of the house?” asks Brill. “If he likes it, why not? Wearing nail polish will not make him gay; it will not make him transgender. It just may make him happy!”

What do you think: Is nail polish just nail polish? Is a skirt just a skirt? Or do we really, sometimes, become what we wear?

But The RL Gang is no ordinary book, it’s a completely shoppable video storybook featuring Ralph Lauren childrenswear. It’s a treat for the eyes (thanks to live action kids—adorably dressed, of course—against an animated background) and the ears (it’s narrated by Harry Connick, Jr. who my singing, piano-playing family just loves). It begins: “This is the story of a not so ordinary group of children who came to school and had a not so ordinary day.” The children go on an adventure thanks to “an incredibly incredible book” brought by their teacher, Professor Randolph Lattimer.

And here’s the bonus, after you enjoy the great fantasy story (and I’m sure you will), you can click to buy any of the kids’ clothing featured in the book. (I’m thinking about Zoe’s purple dress for my girls.) Love it so much you want a hard copy? No problem. You can order one here. Enjoy the story!

Somehow, we manage to have a great time in the kitchen. We wear matching aprons and use princess spatulas. We make a lots of brownies, cookies, and cakes from box mixes. And we spend way too much time on the decorating part—see our Ariel birthday cake for evidence of that. (Another Erneta family fun activity is getting store-bought cookies and decorating them with frosting.)

Recently on a trip to my parents’ house, my mom got a few Boboli pizza crusts and the kids (both of them, the 2yr old included!) had a blast making pizza. Their sense of pride was enormous as everyone complimented the chefs.

I asked our savvy Food Editor, Tara Bench, for some tips on getting your kids in the kitchen and she had lots of great ideas. She told me, “Anything that they can layer or build feels like a big treat for them.” That must be why Sophia loved helping me make lasagna. Tara also recommends sandwiches, tacos and fruit kabobs for more layering fun. Some other great cooking ideas for kids: peanut butter cookies (kids love mixing and they’ll like making marks with a fork), no-bake cheesecake (so fun to press in a graham cracker crust),  and easy drop cookies. Pancakes and puddings can be fun too—just reserve the hot stove part for bigger kids only. Happy cooking!

So, tell me: What do you cook with your kids?

This book is a little more serious than your earlier novels.

My characters have grown up as I’ve grown up. I think as you get older and you make the decision to have children,  things become more serious in that your mistakes can impact somebody else. But I don’t see this as a radical departure from what I’ve done. I’ve always written about the complexities of relationships. As I wrote this book I thought a lot about how we tend to view our lives as these fairy tales, these picture-perfect stories, and when something doesn’t fit within that – when somebody disappoints us or a relationship isn’t exactly what we thought – we tend to panic. I write a lot about redemption and forgiveness, because I think forgiveness and empathy are the keys to so much in life. I also think it’s important sometimes to say, okay, there was a mistake made or a misturn, and we need to embrace it. I think there can be beauty in the mistakes.

Where did the inspiration for the new book come from? Did you know what would happen when you started writing?

I definitely start out with a premise, like what if you ran into your one who got away, or what if you and your soulmate suddenly wanted very different things, or if you fell in love with your best friend’s fiancée. From that premise I come up with characters, and the characters really drive it. That said, I definitely have a sense of beginning, middle and end when I write. I have this very basic outline of a story, it’s just fleshed out so much as I get to know the characters.

How’s the movie, Something Borrowed, coming along? Are you involved in the production? [It's currently filming in NYC, and stars Kate Hudson, John Krasinski and Ginnifer Goodwin.]

I’ve been very involved. They have included me in everything from discussions about the script to casting and everything in between. It’s been really fun. When I saw the set design for Rachel’s apartment, and I went back and read the book, I hadn’t even described some of the things yet it was exactly how I pictured it to be. It’s crazy how much it feels like my vision is being brought to life. So it’s really exciting. And I have a cameo!

[BOOK SPOILER ALERT!!!! Well, semi-spoiler alert. The bit I'm giving away happens pretty early! Read on after the jump.]

In your new novel, like in some of your others, there’s a love triangle. Have you ever been in one yourself?

No, I actually haven’t, which is surprising given the fact that it has been a theme for me. My books are not autobiographical, not based on characters or people I know or any sort of reality. But you’re able to explore so many different issues with that one theme. I think this one is much more of a study on marriage, and the mystery of marriage. No one can really understand the inner workings of someone else’s relationship. Sometimes even the two people in it can be very confused by it.

Dex and Rachel from the Something books pop up in Heart of the Matter. Will we see them again in future novels?

Maybe. I love coming up with new characters and stories and creating new worlds. I think that’s one of the most fun parts about what I do, coming up with that world. So I always hesitate to revisit one when I feel like there are so many more characters to meet. But I am curious about them, and I do think about them, which is why I had them crop up in this one. So I think it’s a possibility. I want to give them some time to do something interesting.

Check out the clip below of Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon narrating the first chapter of the Heart of the Matter audiobook.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY0kcBUgP98

We live in a townhouse which means we don’t have a big back yard but we make do with the space we have. During the last storm, my husband Pablo did an amazing job of building a winter wonderland: It had two slides, a snow fort as tall as Sophia, and an amazing snowman. As the fashion editor in the family, I’m always called on to accessorize the snowman. This time I grabbed a straw safari hat (party favor from Lily’s zoo-themed birthday party last year), an old striped scarf from The Gap, button eyes, and a lipstick nose. I had forgotten about the mouth when Sophia brilliantly suggested a cheese stick. Pablo curled it into a little smile and it was perfect. I loved seeing Sophia come up with such a creative solution.

Our new friend, Frosty, melted in a day but he sure was fun to make. And I’m sure there will be a new Frosty on our next snow day. So, tell me…how do you enjoy the winter weather with your kids?

Believe me, this is not a surprise. My husband and I both enjoyed performing in plays and musical presentations back at school. And Sophia’s “creative play” at home ranges from strutting her stuff in a pretend fashion show, belting out tunes from Disney movies (solos only, thankyouverymuch!), and spinning and leaping like she’s Clara from the Nutcracker.  And when you ask her to smile for a picture, you get an over-the-shoulder pose full of attitude.

But what do you do with a dramatic kid? There’s no fighting it—it’s just who she is. How do you hone those skills into something useful?  Listen, if someone happened to spot her “doing her thing” and offered her a high-paying TV commercial, I’d have a hard time refusing. But no, we will not be going to any auditions. Blame my fear that she’d end up like Lindsay Lohan. For now, we’ll just let her be a kid. An overly dramatic, runway strutting, superstar singing, over-the-top dancing kid.

So, tell me…what are your kids like? Shy? Dramatic? How do you nurture their personality quirks?

Famous writer and fellow single mom Anne Lamott has said that the two best prayers she knows are “Help me, help me, help me” and “thank you, thank you, thank you.”  I say these prayers pretty much every time I leave the supermarket.

I usually go in with some reasonable list of things: milk, bread, yogurt, garbage bags. I remind myself that it’s past the home-delivery cutoff time so I need to be selective. But then I realize that my son and I have to actually eat every day, and I won’t have time to shop until the weekend, so the cart gets full and I end up leaving with eight or nine bags, all of which seem to contain cans of buckshot or whole watermelons.

In the suburbs, this isn’t a problem. You wheel the cart out to the car, then you pull the car up next to the back door and make a couple trips into the kitchen, no sweat.

In the city, you load yourself down, suck it up and start walking. In my case, a mere three blocks to my building (in my old ’hood it was eight blocks), and then up 3 flights of stairs. With 40 pounds of groceries and a three-year-old who may or may not be behaving. Sometimes I have to put all eight or nine bags in one hand and drag or carry him with the other. These are my most prayerful times.

I do think, “help me, help me, help me,” but since I’m pretty sure I’m on my own on the sidewalk there, I mostly try the gratitude prayer. As the bag handles cut deep red grooves into my hands, my fingers start to turn white, my biceps burn and my tantrum-throwing son’s limbs flail against me, I tell myself, “You are strong! You are healthy! You have legs! You can walk! What a wonderful thing!”

I also try to redirect my focus from my pain to the wonder of God’s creation: “Hey, check out that full moon tonight! Wow, the leaves are really starting to turn!” And when it’s really bad, I start listing the other blessed things about the situation: “I have a home! I have money for groceries! We can eat!”  The exclamation point is key, here.

In the usual Hollywood version of the Big Apple, every one of us lives in a $5 million apartment and there are no groceries to schlep—we all just wander around cobblestoned streets in our Manolos.  So I loved seeing a movie star loading the handlebars of her beat-up bike with shopping bags. Perhaps my favorite scene was the one in which Uma’s character, a harried mommy blogger, takes her arthritic, semi-incontinent dog out, which involves putting her 30-pound toddler in a backpack and carrying the mutt and the kid down five flights of stairs. Now, that’s New York!

Tell me, what are the special challenges of life where you live?

DO GOOD alert: For the first two weeks of the film’s opening, for every Motherhood ticket purchased on Fandango.com, $1 will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which works towards a cure for breast cancer.

I don’t get out much, so first thing I noticed once I was in the door was all the stick-thin, black-clad 26-year-olds shifting uncomfortably in their 4- and 5-inch heels. Motherhood? I don’t think so! Most gatherings of moms I go to showcase a wide variety of sneakers. Here, just about the only females in sensible shoes were me, Uma Thurman’s 11-year-old daughter Maya, and the one guest who was so pregnant I thought there was a good chance she’d go into labor in the lobby. Uma, stick-thin and black-clad despite being mom of two, wore spike heels as well, but I had to wonder how often she does so. Her walk into the theater was so spectacularly wobbly and awkward that I could hear several groups of women behind me gossiping about it.

It was pretty fun, for a change, to hang out with the high-heels crowd, sit across from celebrities (Minnie Driver was right across the aisle from me, rocking red-and-black 6-inch platforms), see a free movie, munch free 100-calorie bags of Popchips potato chips and chew on free Jelly Bellies. And at the after-party, I got to sip free prosecco and sample cupcakes from Billy’s, the Chelsea bakery where Uma’s character buys a birthday cake in the movie. The party was at this chic lounge called The Gates, and all the same young women were there, doing the same “my shoes hurt” dance as before, sipping prosecco in groups of two and attempting to look as if they belonged there, in that crowd of well-dressed strangers—and not to look as if they were eagerly waiting to spot the stars. For such a packed room, it felt oddly empty.

As the director, Katherine Dieckmann, slipped through the crowd toward the corded-off VIP area in the back, by a fireplace, my friend Sally and I slipped out to get some real food, but were detained briefly by our chatty premiere-crasher pal, who perched alone on a banquette, looking triumphant. She’d successfully talked her way in—giving the name of a company that she knew hired extras for the movies—and had been seated right across from the Thurman family. She just couldn’t believe we were leaving the party. What could I say? Lunch had been 8 hours earlier, and cupcakes just weren’t cutting it.

After a soup-and-salad dinner down the block from the after-party, I bemoaned the price of motherhood. Babysitting: $13 extra to the regular babysitter, $60 to the night babysitter, plus $15 car service for her to get home since it was after 10 pm. Dinner: $25. Total price of free movie: $113.

Sally asked me, “So, was it worth it, to see a new film and sit across from a few celebrities?”

You know what? It totally wasn’t. And not because of the steep bill. Motherhood hasn’t broken my heart, at least not yet.  I’m sure I could be having a lot of fun adventures out in the adult world wearing high heels and drinking bubbly. But the Motherhood event reminded me of one of the major themes in the movie itself: that my usual boring, barefoot evenings of reading storybooks and running bubble baths are precious, full of joy, and just exactly what I want to be doing right now.

What about you other moms? Does a night out on the town remind you of all the glamorous things you’re missing out on, or does it sometimes, like Wednesday night did for me, make you grateful for the unglamorous life you’ve got?