When I was a kid, my parents went to an auction and bought a pallet of bricks. We lived in a brick house, and they wanted to put in their own patio, but trouble arose getting the bricks home.

My mother would retell the story of how the car stalled when the trailer they were hauling got two flat tires up a steep hill, on a blind curve on Falls Road. Consternation, yelling, and threats of divorce ensued.

I’m reminded of this story as I stand in the cold warehouse at Second Chance with my husband, contemplating a pallet of  hardwood flooring the size of a baby elephant that we intend to load onto my dad’s old trailer and haul back to Baltimore County for a kitchen remodel upon which we never intended to embark.

Last summer, we had a minor refrigerator-related flood that ended up causing a huge headache. Although the amount of water that got on the floor was relatively minimal, our ancient laminate floor was not properly installed, and the water was able to get underneath it.

The laminate buckled, insurance was contacted, a disaster company arrived and cut a huge swath of the floor away—down to the original 1850s subfloor—and installed industrial-grade drying fans that whirred away at such a clip we got an alert from the power company that we were using an exponentially larger amount of electricity than usual.

When everything was dry and the disaster guys packed up and gone, the long slog with the insurance company began. Six months later, they coughed up a check for the floor…and only the floor. This was not particularly helpful as the problem was no longer the floor—it was what was under it.

When the disaster company began cutting away the laminate it rapidly turned into an archeological exploration. The laminate sat on top of white vinyl, which was on top of a subfloor, which was on top of linoleum, and so on. By the time we got to the true subfloor, we’d gained about an inch of height in the room. All the trim around the walls would need to be redone and the cabinets reset.

Worse, the subfloor was in terrible shape—dry rotted in some places and cut away and shoddily repaired decades ago in others. The insurance check, when it arrived, was going to be a drop in the bucket. And we had no choice but to fix the issues in this old house.

Here’s the thing about old houses. If you watch enough home renovation television, you will be led to believe they are charming. Lies. Living in an old house is like taking care of a geriatric patient: There is always something wrong, or something about to go wrong, and that something wrong may or may not be related to a pre-existing condition, but you can’t be sure without an expensive exploratory procedure.

Example: Ever since we bought our house five years ago, the kitchen floor has had a bit of a spring in its step. This is because our house is built on a support of trees. Note I did not say “beams.” Beams imply trees that have been hewn into something with a structural appearance. No. Someone cut down some trees 200 years ago, put them in the ground, and built our house on top of them. They still have bark on them in places.

They are solid enough, with one big caveat: You can’t have a level floor on trees, so parts of the floor have always been a bit wobbly, unnervingly so, like an indoor trampoline.

To replace the floor properly would require some structural support and no small amount of expert leveling.  We had no money and no plan, and the situation was literally deteriorating. It was like every appliance and structure in the kitchen realized things were headed south and decided they, too, may as well throw in the towel.

One of the upper cabinets started to pull away from the wall. And our refrigerator, which had been limping along, blew a gasket and the drawer tracks cracked so they would no longer run smoothly in and out. To add insult to injury, we noticed one day that its doors weren’t staying closed. Reason? The front wheels had sunk through the dry rotted subfloor.

There was no love lost between me and our minuscule side-by-side fridge. It was so small you could store a head of lettuce, a gallon of milk, and a stick of butter in it and little else. It was not even remotely practical for a family. But our kitchen is small. People have walk-in closets bigger than our kitchen, which is deeply ironic, as my husband and I are both huge cooks.

I’ve been fantasizing about new fridges for years, but even the smallest on the market now is about a quarter inch too big to fit in the opening we currently have. A quarter inch doesn’t sound like much—if your hair is a quarter inch too long, you trim it off; if your dress is a quarter inch too tight, you pull on Spanx. There are no Spanx for appliances. If the fridge is a quarter inch too big, you need a sledgehammer and a contractor.

We were now pulling the thread on the proverbial sweater. Replace the floor, replace the cabinets, open a space for the fridge, replace the countertop. And so on. It became hard to remember the trickle of water that generated this geyser.

This project was getting less and less Joanna and Chip Gaines’ Magnolia Home and more Tom Hanks and Shelley Long’s The Money Pit with each passing moment.

Contractors were duly contacted. Most took one look at the house and said “no thank you” or offered an estimate that would have made it more plausible for us to buy a new house. Finally, we found an intrepid contractor with experience working on old homes.

Through prayer, credit cards, and crowdfunding with generous relatives, we cobbled together some funds, cabinets were ordered, a counter top was selected, and hardware was chosen from Etsy. I ordered the fridge of my dreams, and such was my joy at finally having a functional, normal refrigerator, I couldn’t get upset that it was installed in our living room, the only place it would fit while the kitchen was ripped apart.

Demo day was scheduled. I moved the entire contents of the kitchen onto our dining room table. The dining room looked like we were hosting a yard sale and there was now a coffee maker on our living room end table, but things were finally moving forward.

The first issue arose around, shocker, my nemesis, the fridge. As soon as we moved the old one out and disconnected the line to the freezer, water began leaking out of the gate valve at a rapid clip. Cue the plumber. This project was getting less and less Joanna and Chip Gaines’ Magnolia Home and more Tom Hanks and Shelley Long’s The Money Pit with each passing moment.

Demo day—or as liked to call it “the opening of Pandora’s box”—arrived. From my place in my home office, it sounded like they were dismembering the entire house, which, in a way, they were. Around lunchtime, when the sound of saws and crowbars silenced, I took a peek behind the plastic sheeting covering the doorways. The floor was completely gone, exposing the original 1850s beams and, below, our cellar. Then I noticed a little sliver of daylight visible through the floor.

“What’s that?” I asked. “That,” said the contractor, “I want to talk to you about.”

For years we’ve had trouble with the pipes in the kitchen freezing. (The year this happened on Christmas Eve when we had a house full of guests and were hosting 20-plus people for Christmas dinner is a memory that still stings.) Well, it’s little wonder the pipes were constantly frozen as we now know that part of the plumbing was outside the foundation wall. I could see it there, the under-the-sink plumbing, basking in the sunlight of a cold February day. Cue the plumber, part II.

Working in an old house, there are no perfect solutions, only creative work-arounds. One was found for the plumbing and now our pipes are cozy and warm indoors where they belong. We also discovered that one of the beams had come away from its footing, which was causing that trampoline effect on the floor. Stabilized, we would be able to walk across the kitchen without needing sea legs.

But oh, the kitchen floor. Another misleading proposition of home remodeling is reclaimed wood. Every design show loves reclaimed wood. The reality is not so glamorous. Wood is a living thing. It warps, expands, contracts, and molds itself to its surroundings so when you pull it out of one home and put it in another you will never have perfection.

Never ones to let the perfect get in the way of the good, we were thrilled to salvage our wood flooring from Second Chance—saving trees, space in the landfill, and a tremendous amount of money—but it did mean the crew laying down the floor had to meticulously clean and match each piece in a way that would be unnecessary with new flooring from a manufacturer. Once the floor was finished it looked beautiful, but I think the contracting crew left with a massive headache.

The cabinets arrived and more “interesting” issues arose. The corner of the room, for example, did not make a 90-degree angle, which required the installation of a system of shims and meant more headaches for the contractors, who were now attached to their levels as if they were some sort of third arm. Often, I would hear the contractor telling the crew that the goal was “flat not level,” as achieving perfect lines in this house was out of the question.

But finally, all was installed but the counter. That installer, who was also responsible for the sink, arrived and took meticulous laser measurements, and then began the long wait for fabrication. Meanwhile, washing dishes in the bathtub and making scrambled eggs on the grill outside was getting tiresome.

The day finally came for the counters to be installed and then everything happened all at once. The counter and sink went in, appliances were reinstalled, final paint and touch-ups took place, and then—blissful silence.

The saws, the hammers, the nail guns, the crew member who started every day singing “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan—just packed up and left, leaving a new kitchen in their wake.

While we never expected to embark on this expensive adventure, the final result is stunning. Having the opportunity to design every inch of a space from the ground up, I was able to get the kitchen of my dreams, and one that functions well despite its small size.

And we stared down our old house with all its quirks and survived to tell the tale. So maybe it’s time to update that master bathroom…

I’ve always loved things with a past. I have a small shelf my father made in his high-school shop class that is on my “what to grab if the house in on fire” list, and every time I use my jar opener, I think of how my grandmother’s hands held the same one to pry open those tough lids. I have an old cast-iron pan that my Italian great-grandmother would use to fry her meatballs and pepperoni for the family sauce recipe, and I wouldn’t dream of using any other pan when doing the same.

I like that each of these items has a story and has been loved before. So, it was a given that from the day we bought our almost-100-year-old house in 2005 in the Lake Walker neighborhood, I would adore it. It’s small and constantly in need of an update or repair, but it sits in a neighborhood filled with kind, creative, interesting people, and it oozes charm that always feels cozy and welcoming.

When my mother made her very first visit to 717 Hollen Road she was delighted to discover we lived just a few houses down from where her father, Herman Einolf, grew up. I knew that my maternal grandfather’s family had lived in the area, but family stories were always about Cedarcroft, which is the neighborhood on the other side of York Road, so I had always assumed that’s where they lived. (Most old-timers still call my side of York Road Cedarcroft or Upper Govans.)

She then recounted how she would walk from her grandparents’ house on Hollen Road to York Road to catch the No. 8 streetcar to go shopping downtown, always a special treat because her father was the driver. Naturally nostalgic, I imagined that the Einolfs might have known and been friends with the people who once lived in my house. And even contemplating such a shared history with my ancestors and the people who previously lived in my home made me love it even more.

A few years after we bought our house, I spotted an older man walking down our street. I was busy gardening out front and a little grumpy that day, so I tried to avoid eye contact. Luckily, he disregarded my body language and walked with determination straight for me. He told me his name was Billy Storck and that his daughter often dropped him off in the neighborhood for a walk.

His childhood home was just a few houses away and he liked to reminisce about his younger years. I asked if he knew my grandfather, Herman. He looked like his heart exploded with joy as he poured out story after story of playing with my grandfather’s youngest brother, Henry, and the boy who lived in my house. They would make plans to sneak out of their houses at night to meet, sit on their roof to be sure their homes were safe from air attacks during World War II, and played baseball at our intersection—my house was always home base.

After his visit, I was full of joy thinking that my grandfather might have played on my own front lawn. My sons—Noah, 19, and Benji, 17—have played baseball at the same intersection with their neighborhood best friend, Leo, and my yard is still home base. My house felt even more loved and meaningful to me.

Fast-forward to Christmas Eve 2010. I was home with my sons and husband, John, when we heard footsteps on our porch. We weren’t expecting anyone, so we were curious and maybe a little suspicious when we peeked outside and saw a large, wrapped gift leaning against the porch. We could tell it was a framed picture of some sort.

We brought it inside and opened the card, whose message was just as mysterious as the gift-giver. It simply read, “So many happy memories . . .” There was no signature, but included inside the card was a very old photo of a young boy in front of our house. We unwrapped the gift, which was a framed sketch of our home. I imagined it must have belonged to the boy in the photo—who would now be an old man—who also loved our house so much he had commissioned a sketch.

I wished for years that I could thank the person, who was not only thoughtful enough to wrap and deliver the picture, but also thought that the house’s new family—us—might enjoy it. I dreamt of telling him how much I treasured the gift and that I hung it up immediately. I wanted to ask him if he knew my grandfather or Billy Storck. Did he play baseball at the intersection, too?  

A decade passed. The world changed. And then finally lockdowns from the pandemic started to ease. I was working from home and just happened to take a lunch break at the same time a group of four people were walking up the street. They weren’t the usual walkers I see in our neighborhood, and the three younger ones looked like they were recording the older gentleman. I was hoping that this was yet another clue to my house and so I decided to go check the mail—a perfect excuse to go outside for a chance encounter.

Sure enough, they enthusiastically called out to me as soon as I stepped outside, “Our father lived in your house!” Their father, Denny Brooks, was the older gentleman in the group. And it turned out Mr. Brooks was the mystery gift-giver.

I immediately told him how meaningful the gift was to me, and I invited them in to see it hanging on the wall. Mr. Brooks shared many stories, including one about how he almost burned down the house as a child. He loved that the tin ceiling was still in place, that the stairwell looked the same, and he marveled that the floors were in decent shape after so many different feet walked across them over the last 100 years.

While he remembered my grandfather, Herman, he was closer to his youngest brother, Henry. He said the three of them—Henry, Billy, and himself—would play baseball, and he smiled when I shared that my sons also played baseball at the same intersection. He smiled even wider when I told him that I met his old neighbor Billy Storck.

Mr. Brooks was also thrilled to hear that my youngest son is attending his alma mater, Baltimore City College, and he properly scowled when he found out my other son attends Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (any Baltimorean would understand this reaction). He graduated from City in 1953, 70 years before my son will graduate from the same high school. Knowing the love Mr. Brooks had for his childhood home, his nephew sketched the house. He said it hung over his fireplace for years before he decided that it belonged to the house. So that Christmas Eve, he wrapped it up and dropped it on our porch on his way to mass, hoping that it would be just as special to us as it was to him. 

Every December 24, I’m reminded of this story. The stories from my mother, Mr. Storck, and Mr. Brooks replace all those home ownership aches—leaky roofs, rusty pipes, and the rest—with the warmth of belonging to something bigger than us, beyond the time frame we are here. We are all just stewards of the history this house holds.

There we were—the hubby and me—in the sonogram room at our obstetrician’s office waiting to see that little eight-week-old blob that would be our baby in 32 short weeks. The tech kept looking at the screen and moving the wand around my goopy belly. Finally, she uttered the words you never want to hear—especially from your sonographer—”How are you with surprises?”

Let’s take a pregnant pause for a little bit of background. Not too long ago, my husband Ron and I, happily married for six years, were the parents of two kids under the age of four, one big dog, and living in a cozy row house in the city. We had talked about maybe one day, down the road, possibly (if the stars aligned and we won the lottery), having a third baby. But weeks earlier, an anniversary trip to the Four Seasons in Washington, D.C., plus a forgotten birth control pill, had resulted in a missed period. Four days, a few glasses of wine, and a whole lot of denial later, I took a pregnancy test. Then I waited another eight hours to tell my husband.

For the next few weeks we let it sink in—yes, we were going to have another baby and we would make it work.

And then the bombshell. The tech turned the screen to face us and pointed out two little embryos. “Twins.” As in, not one more baby but two. As in, not a family of five but six. As in, our SUV wasn’t even going to cut it anymore.

My husband looked lovingly at me and then—never one to mince words—turned back to the tech and said, “Are you shitting me?” She was not. I went to the bathroom and stared into the mirror—my face a mix of elation and sheer terror.

The staff at the obstetric office was ecstatic. “We love twins around here,” one of the nurses told me. “What a miracle!” said another. Ron and I exchanged another look. Glad they were so excited about it.

The car ride home was a mix of hysterical laughter and blame. And then we didn’t speak about it for a few weeks.

Ron and I moved from D.C. into a two-bedroom row home in Canton in 2004, the fall after we got married. We figured we’d enjoy life as a childless couple for a while in an exciting new city. So much for our best laid plans. A little over a year later—the week I started my job as lifestyle editor of Baltimore magazine, coincidentally—I found out I was pregnant.

Our second bedroom, at the time an office/guest room, was promptly converted to a nursery, and Milo arrived in October 2006. In January 2009, Willa joined the family. When she was six months old, we moved Milo into a toddler bed, she got the crib, and the room sharing began. No big deal. Sure, our family room had slowly lost the good (i.e., hazardous) objects—no more glass coffee table with deathtrap edges, trinkets, and a big bowl of matchbooks—and we had to buy things like outlet covers and gates for our stairs. And yes, our rooms were taken over with their stuff—bins of toys, a baby swing, a high chair, and a playmat. Still, manageable.

But four kids in a two-bedroom row house sounded like the makings of a reality show. (My working titles? Janelle & Ron Lose Their Minds. Or Diamonds in the Rough. Not as catchy as Jon & Kate Plus Eight—but hopefully a happier ending.)

“Who has four kids anymore?” Ron kept asking me. I would mention a friend of a friend. “They have three kids,” he retorted. Right.

It got better once we told family, although we did it in a sneaky way. We put Willa in a “Big Sister” T-shirt at the beach and waited to see who noticed.

“Wait, what is Willa wearing?” my sister finally asked.

“A baby?” squealed my aunt.

Actually, two.

We sent out an e-mail to friends in mid-August: Well, we have some news. We are expecting a baby this winter. And another one. Yes, TWINS. Yes, we’re still in shock-and-awe mode. Yes, we realize we need a minivan. Yes, we are aware we’ll never eat out again. We just started our second trimester. We saw both babes last week—and two good heartbeats. Holy crap.

The responses flooded in with lots of exclamation points and all caps. Friends without kids would squeal, “TWINS!!!!!!! WOWOWOW. So cool.” Friends with kids would say, “Oh, wow. Are you okay?” We became an urban legend: Trying for one more baby? First, let me tell you about my friend Janelle. . . .

The weeks started to fly by. Soon it was fall. My belly was growing. At 20 weeks, Baby A and Baby B became two boys. I felt great. I’ve always had easy pregnancies. This one was only slightly different. I was hungry constantly the first trimester, felt great the second trimester, and started to expand greatly the third. We saw the boys every four weeks via sonogram to make sure they were growing at the same rate (they were) and that my body was happy (it was). During one of the appointments, the boys were head to head—already plotting against us. I was constantly being kicked and punched by eight limbs. We put our house on the market, with no success (if anyone is interested in a well-loved two bedroom in Canton, call me), and made lists of what we needed.

At what ended up being my last doctor’s appointment before I delivered, I was measuring roughly 16 weeks “bigger” than what I actually was. Sleeping became a chore—between my girth and heartburn, I was up constantly. My last pregnant week, I had my spring fashion photoshoot for the magazine. I had circled that date in my calendar, telling myself I just wanted to make it to that shoot. And I did. The following Saturday morning, my husband went into work and I was home with the kids. Around 8:30, I started getting some pain in my lower belly. I sat in my glider with my two-year-old on my lap (well, what was left of it), and slowly rocked. I knew what was happening, but was in denial. Was I ready? It was January 22—one day short of 36 weeks.

Just before 2 p.m., Zeke Gray entered the world weighing a respectable 5 pounds, 14 ounces. And a minute later, his little brother Gideon Levi, two ounces lighter. They were healthy and perfect. Zeke looked just like his brother Milo had—a shock of black hair, little almond shaped eyes, and a look that said he wasn’t entirely happy with the situation. Gideon looked like Willa—a sweet face, a decent amount of hair, happy and content.

It’s been eight weeks since we became a family of six. We’ve all had several good cries. I’m exhausted—it’s hard to remember what sleeping more than a three-hour block feels like. I can now feed two babies at once, burp two babies at once, hold two babies at once, and apparently type while nursing and simultaneously rocking the other baby with my foot.

We’re in what can best be described as survival mode. We say yes to anyone who offers us anything—food, a sleepover for Milo, taking over carpools, holding babies, dog sitting. At times, I’ve been almost overwhelmed by all the generosity.

My big kids have adjusted amazingly. Milo likes to hold his brothers (briefly) and promises them his toys because “when they are bigger, I’ll be in college.” My daughter is now surrounded by three brothers (poor girl will probably never be able to date). She likes to show them her princess dresses. “Look, baby, look,” she’ll say, spinning. She thinks of them as her own personal dolls, pointing to one baby and saying, “Mommy, I want to hold that.” And she thinks they are both named Gideon.

Going out of the house with twins is hilarious. We’re like some sort of novelty act. You would think people would be used to twins (they’re not that rare), but no matter where we go—the supermarket, the mall, the park—they flock to our stretch-limo sized stroller. And so many questions. Are they twins? (Umm, yes.) Fraternal or identical? (Most definitely fraternal.) And are they from fertility treatments? (Not that it’s your business, but no.)

People keep calling me a super mom. But truthfully, I’m not sure what the alternative would be. To fall apart? Never leave the house? This is our new normal. It helps that I already had kids. I already knew how to feed a baby, change a diaper—it’s just learning to do it two at a time. Now it’s about the small victories—showering, surviving a night by myself with all four kids, making the house look like a minor bomb hasn’t gone off.

The babies now have little personalities. Zeke is the loudest baby I’ve ever encountered. He sleeps loud, eats loud, breathes loud. It’s like he has a microphone attached to his onesie. He has the most beautiful smile—already flashing it liberally at Mommy and Daddy—and his Great Grandma Stella’s gorgeous lips. Gideon is our well-mannered runt. Slightly smaller than his brother, he only cries when hungry or wet. He likes to mimic some of the noises his brother makes and has a beautiful face including fat little cheeks.

The other night, everyone was asleep. Milo and Willa in their room, Gideon in our room, Zeke and my husband on the couch. I should have crawled into bed to get some sleep before their 1 a.m. feeding, but instead I watched TV and ate a bowl of ice cream, relishing the quiet. It’ll be years before I have more than a few minutes of peace—so I may have to schedule some. Along with my husband’s springtime vasectomy.

The first time I was mistaken for my husband’s mother, it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard. I was 43, Mike was 42, and we were stranded at the Atlanta airport trying to make a connection to Savannah on a stormy night. Flights had been cancelled, passengers bumped, and hotel rooms all booked up when a U.S. Air pilot offered to help us secure a room for the night at an airport hotel. We gladly accepted.

“I need a room for a mother and her son,” she told her contact.

“That’s husband and wife,” I corrected as I smiled at Mike. Of course, there was a reasonable explanation for the mix-up—having just flown in from Turkey, the pilot was bleary-eyed. It was midnight in Atlanta, and 7 a.m. in Istanbul. No big deal. No offense taken.

Several months later, it happened again, with someone whose circadian rhythms did not seem so off kilter. At the time, we were attending a friend’s luncheon when an acquaintance, after pointing to Mike and my boys (Zach, then 14, and Alex, then 13) said, “These must be your three sons.” Though I felt worse for her than I did for myself, I was no longer laughing. I was older than Mike by 10 months and 21 days, hardly enough to account for the quarter century or so that she—and many others since—seemed to suspect was between us.

Throughout my 40s (I’m now 46; he’s 45), being mistaken for Mike’s mother has happened with growing frequency—at the Towson Town Center, a friend’s backyard, the emergency room of St. Joseph Medical Center, and on numerous college campuses. (Most recently someone helpfully offered to show Mike to his dorm at Rhode Island School of Design—we were there to drop off Zachary for a summer program.)

As I continue to age, Mike seems to move in retrograde motion, and despite this happy marriage of 22 years, I am left feeling like we have, quite literally, grown apart. It goes without saying that when The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was released, I thought it was the story of our life together.

Most men in midlife have nasal folds, a few gray hairs, a thickening middle, and a wardrobe of outdated khakis. Through the years, my husband, with his long, lustrous brown hair, smooth skin, and serious sense of style has been mistaken for Keanu Reeves, Noah Wyle, Ron Reagan Jr.—even the fictional gay Austrian fashion designer Brüno. When people learn that he is an orthopedic surgeon, it only adds to the mystique. (And just to be clear: If I hear one more Doogie Howser, M.D., crack, I’m going to hurl.)

Not everything can be chalked up to genetics (though I hear there’s some eternally youthful Uncle Maury who is partly to blame). Mike knows he looks young—and he cultivates it. He started aging in reverse earnestly in 2003 during the first season of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which he watched with complete rapture. There was a subtle shift in the way he dressed until one day, after a quick inventory of his closet, I realized I was married to a full-blown metrosexual with two pairs of Pliners, Diesel jeans, Lululemon yoga pants, and Me & Ro jewelry (not to mention the phone numbers of our stylish gay South Beach friends John and Joel on speed dial). It was clear: Mike had no intention of growing old gracefully.

Mike and I fell in love our freshman year at The University of Pennsylvania. I was a cute redhead, so petite I was able to wear a white pillowcase as a dress for my Halloween Cupid costume. On my way home from a party, I tripped over a campus statue of Benjamin Franklin and inadvertently flashed my diaphanous heart underwear in Mike’s direction. He and I looked at each other and laughed, as Cupid took aim with his arrow. Twenty-eight years and three children later (including 12-year-old daughter, Sophia), the arrow still sticks. On our wedding anniversary this year, Mike wrote, “I couldn’t love you more.” The feeling is mutual—though now some of my public displays of affection can be calculated. While out on the town, I hold his hand and whisper sweet nothings in his ear just to make it perfectly clear to all that we don’t just love each other, we are in love. My friends reassure me. “It’s not about how you look, it’s about how he looks.”

“Still,” I say, “from now on, I’m telling everyone, I have no sons, only daughters.”

Even with my new plan in place, I make an appointment with Dean Krapf of Towson’s Lluminaire Salon, who is known to be the best in the business. I ask him for foolproof tips on how to look younger while wielding Mike’s photo. (“He does have a baby face,” admits Krapf.) Krapf’s recommendations seem surprisingly simple. “Create vibrancy by darkening the brow, deepening the color of your hair, and adding a second coat of mascara on the top lash,” Krapf says. In addition, he says, “You need a good trim. When you bring the hair up, you create a lift, and call attention to your eyes, where there’s more life than on the rest of the face.” Within 24 hours, I am in his chair getting shorn and investing in a new tube of Maybelline Great Lash mascara.

That night, in a celebratory mood after my makeover, Mike and I are in Cape May, NJ, sitting in a bar and ready to order martinis when the bartender asks for ID. Feeling newly confident, I say, “You’re talking to me, right?”

“No,” she says, pointing to Mike, “I was talking to him.”

There was a time when Mike might have lovingly made a joke or called me “Mama,” but he knows better now. He brushes it off, shows his ID, and placates me with a kiss.

The next week, I decide to explore more invasive options with plastic surgeon Adam Basner who is known in the community for his way with a blade. As a fan of FX’s Nip/Tuck, I assume that Dr. Basner will suggest something draconian—maybe a full-face transplant like Nicolas Cage endured in Face/Off. (Kate Beckinsale’s face will do fine, thank you very much, good doctor.) While sitting in the waiting room, I page through a Glamour magazine. By chance, I flip to a feature entitled, “I’m Older, You’re Younger, Who Cares?” Examples of May-September romances such as Demi Moore, 46, and Ashton Kutcher, 31; Mira Sorvino, 42, and Christopher Backus, 28; Madonna, 51, and Jesus Luz, 22; Mariah Carey, 39, and Nick Cannon, 28, are splashed across the pages. The photo feature irritates me. These female celebrities can toss off age as just a number because, thanks to a serious beauty routine that probably includes every available elixir and a plastic surgeon on constant call, they have never been confused for their mate’s mother.

While sitting in the waiting room, it occurs to me that there is a name for women who marry older men (trophy wives) and a name for women who date or marry younger men (cougars), but where is the word in the English language for women who are repeatedly mistaken for their husband’s mother? Here’s one: vulnerable (not to mention insecure, aggravated, and dejected).

“Tell me what bothers you,” Dr. Basner says sympathetically as he hands me a mirror. I point to my serious set of crow’s-feet, the furrows across my forehead, the deep crevice between my brows. Unexpectedly, I am on the verge of tears. While I am ostensibly here because I am writing this story, that’s not the whole story.

Even without Mike or this essay, I am in search of a younger self, the self that I am on the inside but don’t see when I look in the mirror.

“What is the most common age for people to get plastic surgery?” I ask him.

“The time to do it is when you look in the mirror and see something that bothers you,” he says. “For some people, that’s never, others will look in the mirror and say, ‘The person I see in the mirror is not who I feel inside.'”

“That’s me,” I tell him. Dr. Basner examines my face.

“Botox would make the single biggest difference in you,” he says. “I can give you a free sample.”

“Right now?” I ask.

“Right now,” he responds.

Next thing I know, I am lying down on a gray exam table getting injected with Dysport—a newly FDA-approved injectable that is faster acting and less costly than Botox. After Dr. Basner sticks a series of tiny, practically painless needles into my problem areas, he tells me that I should see results in four days. With gauze, he dabs small specks of blood caused by the injection, and sends me on my way.

In the ensuing days, I study my own reflection obsessively. On day one, I have a bit of a black eye where the skin is thinnest as well as a small bruise at the top of my forehead. By day two, my skin draws tightly across the top of my face and moving my forehead becomes more difficult, but there is no discernable difference. By day three, the lines in my forehead begin to become less pronounced, and by day four, as the crow’s-feet fade, I believe in miracles. To others, the differences might seem imperceptible. To me, I look like a better version of myself. By day five, the epiphany comes. Instead of being ashamed of my vanity, I decide to embrace it. After all, isn’t wanting to look my best an urge so primal that it’s downright Darwinian? (Survival of the fittest face?)

Now that I’ve done all I can externally, I make a pact with myself to internalize what I have always told my daughter Sophia: “Time to tend to the inside. The outside is only temporary.” These aren’t just platitudes. I believe them to be true, and it’s time to start practicing what I preach. It’s time to stop worrying about fighting free radicals and the aging effects of pillow pressure on the face. Time to stop dimming the lights and to look at these lines (there are still plenty to work with) like the bands of an old tree—as things that carry gravitas.

Though Mike has always told me I’m beautiful, he has also told me I need to accept what I can’t change (while secretly coaching the kids not to tell me when, in my absence, he is mistaken for their older brother). “I don’t think you know how much it hurts me when it happens,” I told him recently. But after my visit to Dr. Basner, even Mike is forced to admit that the Dysport has made a difference. “It really does look better,” he says. “The lines have softened.”

To say that I have found self-acceptance with a middle-aged me would be a laughable lie. But lately, I have made a little headway. That young woman with the lithe body that once fit inside a pillow case has left the building, but a new wiser woman stands in her place—one who, thanks to her hair stylist, a plastic surgeon, and a little self reflection about her own reflection, is imbued with new spring in her step, more light, more life. I’m older. You look younger. Who cares?