Eliza's Wardrobe:
Nicole Miller Tropical Print Strapless Dress

Brought to you by:  Earth Mother Musts

At Your Service...

As the snotty old adage reminds us, good help is hard to find.

Before I had Ben, I probably would have agreed with that. Driven career woman that I was, everything in our lives had to be as perfect as possible. Long work weeks meant that we relied on lots of help to keep our impossibly high standards in place. Dinner parties were catered by the very best, painters knew better than to miss a spot, any brazen weed in our garden was beheaded at first bloom.

When I was pregnant, I thought we could maintain the status quo -- provided we throw a few bucks around. But I learned pretty quickly that even a legion of service providers couldn’t account for the glorious conundrum of confusion we brought home from the hospital along with our newborn... nor would I want it to.

I was confounded at first. The more time and money I spent removing every sign that a baby lived in our house, the less time I had to actually be with Ben. Something had to give, mountains of laundry be damned! I cut back on my hours so that I could cut back on the help.

For me, one of the many gifts of motherhood has been adjusting my expectations. Not lowering them, mind you -- just accepting that people, possessions and places needn’t be perfect to give me pleasure. And so now, I have to remind the gardener to spare a few of those once-despised dandelions... My Ben loves to blow the seeds off them when they turn to white fluff, and me? I’m happy to help.