A little company called Grayson sent me some shirts a month or so ago, and I wore them so much and so often that I posted on IG about them, and then Grayson offered a discount code GEMMA20 for anyone else who might like to try them.

Backstory: Grayson is a little female-owned-and-run company that only makes one thing: the perfect button-down.

And it really is PERFECT. (And, for the record: they didn’t pay me to write this, they didn’t ask me to write about them. I have zero skin in this game and I’m not an influencer, just a writer who has to delete Instagram Monday to Friday or else she doesn’t get any actual bloody writing done.)

They’re lovely people and lovely shirts and if you’d like to try them then go to Grayson and use the code GEMMA20 and live your best button-down life. The one I’m the most obsessed with is the Hero in Washed Cotton in Colette French Blue and I’m going to wear the plaid one allllll winter.

I flew to LA yesterday for work, and on the plane I watched MOONSTRUCK for the first time in years. It was so utterly perfect and wonderful in every single way.

I just got back from a week in Ireland. My husband had three weeks off, so took both the big boys (age 5 and 7) for a long trip to see his family. I had to stay in NYC and do a little writing (about which, more soon) and so the baby and I went solo to join them for a week.

We flew via London, because it’s the only way to take a day flight from NYC, and we know how excruciating the night flights are with a baby. It all seemed very manageable when we booked it. Getting up at 5am to catch an 8am flight from JFK? Fine. Holding a ten-month-old on my lap for a seven hour flight to London? Fine. Changing terminals at Heathrow, which involves a bus and weird extra intense security and an insane amount of walking? Fine fine. Flying to Cork and landing at midnight, local time? Piece of oh holy shit what have I done.

I would never have done it solo with our first baby. But somehow with the third kid – and this sounds flippant and arrogant, which I am not, or perhaps I am, but not about babies – everything seems so much easier. (I was back writing a pilot for NBC when Arthur was two weeks old. I forgot how to spell my own name for a month after Errol was born.)

Anyway, we survived, because a) it was only a day, and because b) I am a damn genius at practical planning and am probably wasted on writing when I should be, idk, leading troops into battle. So although this is fairly off-brand for me, in case there is any chance that you have to do similar at any point in your life, here are my tips for traveling solo with a baby:

An Ergobaby Original. Make sure it’s this one – the classic Ergobaby Original. This thing is the Sandra Bullock of baby carriers. It turns up looking good and does its job better than anyone else, year after year after year. He took two naps of about an hour each in it on the plane.

(NB: I don’t like the new version of the Ergo, the 360. I just got a secondhand one from my local moms board in NYC, as I thought Arthur might like to face outwards, but it gave me such a sore back, and he seemed totally freaked out to be drifting through space without being able to see me. So back to my old Ergo, which we’ve had for seven years. It’s the absolute best.)

A messenger bag aka fanny pack.

Okay, stop sniggering, Brits and Aussies. (Americans: fanny means VAGINA.) I wear one of these in my day-to-day life lately – I have a tiny red one from Uniqlo and I wear it cross-body, over my shoulder, not around my waist. It’s super lightweight and comfortable and chic. For the flight, I dug out this bigger Herschel one. Mine is white, which is an extremely foolish color for a bag, but I like it. I wore it around my waist, which is def not chic and I didn’t feel like the coolest cat but that’s fine, I am not the coolest cat, I am a grown woman taking a baby 4000 miles around the world.

In the messenger bag:

Passports, tickets, wallet. Obviously.

Extra long phone charger. So at the airport you can charge your phone even if you’re forced to sit ten feet away from the charging station.

A tiny portable remote charger, just in case.

Chocolate, because… chocolate.

Neosporin. Some people put this in their nostrils when they fly to prevent getting a virus. I am not one of those people, perhaps because I have the robust constitution of a convict who survived the perilous journey from Britain to Australia (which two of my ancestors did, different story, wrong forum). But I just like having it around in case of emergencies, particularly when I’m with the jumping-off-everything-more-than-two-feet-high big boys. Ditto bandaids. And by the by, someone once told me the best way to avoid colds and whatnot when traveling is to take your own pen. You can chop Neosporin up and snort it all you like, but once you sign a receipt with a random pen that 40,000 other people have touched that week, you’re still screwed.

These pacifier leads are the absolute best. I’ve had them since Arthur was born. So good when we are outside the house and he might need to nap and therefore have a Paci. I usually have one attached to Arthur (not around his neckline, I realize odds of strangulation are v slim but… you never know)  and one attached to my shirt (because I am also frequently attached to Arthur). And we like these pacifiers but whatever blows your hair back, obvs.

Bioderma Atoderm Lipbalm. I have a long and emotionally involved history with lip balms, but I have only used this one for months and months now, and I’m normally treacherously disloyal when it comes to lip balms. Love it so hard. I have about six of them floating around various bags/pockets/my desk/my makeup drawers.

An emergency diaper change pack – which is a sandwich bag containing two diapers, wrapped around three wipes (ie, the waterproof out side of the diaper on the wipes), so you can grab and go fast without having to go through the rigmarole of unzipping the backpack. (Sometimes I even stash the emergency diaper change pack in my jacket pocket to make it even easier. If I can give you one tip from my entire motherhood experience, this is it: have a tiny emergency diaper pack at all times.)

Perfect Bar. These really are the perfect fuel, I had three or four of them for the trip. Coconut and Peanut Butter is the best imho. Eat one and you won’t be hungry for hours, and you won’t have a sugar crash, either. I hate being hungry on planes and the food is never good, or at least, never good enough, and it’s hard to eat with a lap full of squirmy baby.

A tiny pack of tissues, just in case.

A couple of tiny packs of wet ones, just in case.

And lastly, wireless earphones, so you can half-listen to podcasts, if the mood takes you. (The Daily, Fat Mascara, Conan O’Brien, Mueller She Wrote, How I Built This and Getting Curious with JVN current favorites.) Don’t forget to download the podcasts first. Nothing more annoying than taxiing down the runway and realizing you’ve forgotten to get them, and in-air wifi is expensive wishful thinking.

Okay, so that’s the messenger bag contents.

NOW: a backpack! Yes, you also need a backpack. Don’t fight me on this.

I have this one from Amazon. It is a sturdy workhorse. The reason I love it: the stretchy pockets on the sides. You can put the thermos in one side, and a half-finished bottle in the other. It’s not too big and can take a beating.

In the backpack:

More diapers (I like to err on the side of ‘seriously?’ as in: one diaper per hour of travel, yes, this takes up a lot of space) and wipes. I usually use Water Wipes but for travel, a nice hard seal like the Seventh Generation one is great.

A large muslin (as a peekaboo toy, as a mop, as a picnic blanket, as a nap cover, to dry bottles when you wash them in sinks on the go and the airport is out of hand towels, etc).

A thermos of hot water boiled at home for making formula (they’ll let you on the flight with it, sometimes they make you sip it, sometimes they make you do that weird test with a strip which shows them it’s not, idk, secretly a bomb cleverly disguised as H2O?). The boiling water on planes is… not good. Even the air hostesses are always like ‘yeah, that water is not clean’.

Formula in one of these clever things. I have an old French one that we got when we were living in Zurich when Errol was a baby, and I also have the Dr Browns one – I needed both for such a long trip. Keep in a large ziplock bag in case the top comes off.

Two bottles, stashed in a large ziplock bag. (I’ve been around the baby shit block – you know, the block full of baby shit? right that one – too many times to claim that any single product is THE BEST but Comotomo is very good for babies who refused every other bottle for FIVE MONTHS like Arthur. It’s also exceptionally easy to clean.)

Two toys. I grabbed this thing (it’s called the Hug and Tug… snort), and some Duplo blocks. Arthur would rather crawl or talk to people up and down the aisles of the plane (“GA GA GA?”) but a toy can distract for a good five minutes.

A touch and feel board book. I had this one.

Baby food. Arthur will nibble whatever I’m eating, but still mostly survives on milk, so I took three pouches, a single oatmeal travel thing where you just add water and go, and rusk biscuits. Again in a large ziplock bag. (I love a large ziplock bag, in case you can’t tell.)

My laptop and charger. Which are both annoyingly heavy but I couldn’t leave them in the suitcase. Whenever Arthur napped I would think about the laptop longingly and wish I could get it out to write.

Two spare footed pajama onesies for Arthur. He normally only sleeps in these, so it felt odd keeping him in one all day, which is so stupid because he is a baby Gemma FFS he doesn’t notice these things. And the pajama onesie is warm and easy, and you dont have to worry about socks falling off etc. I changed him into the second onesie one half-way through the flight to London, when he was a bit grubby, and kept the third in case of a pooplosion that, thankfully, didn’t happen. (Until we got back to NYC, but that’s a different story.)

I wore these warm socks, because planes are cold…

… and these Birks, because taking off real shoes to go through the security scanner is just an incredibly annoying hassle one doesn’t need when one is carrying a baby. (Or ever tbqh.)

And last but not least: my sister leant us her travel stroller, the Mountain Buggy Nano. HOLY SHIT. This thing is fantastic. It’s lightweight yet sturdy. It folds up the size of a tiny booster seat, so you can take it right on to the plane and stash it in an overhead bin (which is great as strollers get trashed when they store them underneath the plane, we lost a great one in Errol’s first year, thank you American Airlines). I goddamn love it.

And SCENE.  I hope this is helpful. Normal programming – ie conversations about books and tv, about once a month – will resume soon.

I like perfume. (We’ve discussed this in, oh, so many previous sessions.) I like reading books about it (like this and this). I like smelling old smells and new smells. If I have a morning to myself with no work or small children, I like to go to Barneys or Aedes de Venustus and smell everything. I like buying almost-empty perfume bottles from Etsy for $10 because I can tell from the font or the label size that it dates from before 1981 and contains ingredients now long-outlawed by the good old EU and, hell, I just want to smell them before I die. I like reading perfume blog posts from 17 years ago, you know, the kind written in Comic Sans, because the new perfume blogs are all #influencers and I don’t trust them. I find it all very soothing.

My favorite perfume of all time is Miller Harris L’Air de Rien. The perfumer, Lyn Harris, sold Miller Harris a few years ago and opened a little perfume boutique in London. It’s called Perfumer H. I’m *dying* to go. Read this, about their scent Rain Wood: “notes of galbanum+ elemi with a transparent heart of waterlily pepper, frankincense, myrrh resting on a base of wet + humid woods of juniper + cedar wood to make this an effortless fragrance for hot summer days.” What the hell does that smell like? I have NO IDEA and I WANT TO KNOW.

Fox once called me a Perfume Nerd, but I reject that appellation. I’m not an expert. I just like it. And have you noticed how people who call themselves ‘Nerds’ are actually just passive-aggressively boasting that they know more than you about the subject in question? Whenever I’m at a party and stuck next to someone who calls himself, for example, a Comedy Nerd, I stifle a tiny sigh, and don’t say ‘Wow, you must know everything about comedy and therefore have a truly superior sense of humor! You win.’ Instead, I smile and say ‘how fascinating’ and finish my drink as fast as I can so I can get away.

Anyway, darlings, where were we?

Yes. I like perfume.

For my birthday this year, Fox gave me a custom perfume workshop with Anne Serrano-McClain, at her MCMC Fragrances studio. She’s an incredible perfumer, she trained in Grasse, and is also a charming and interesting and easy person to hang out with. We talked for three hours straight and somewhere in there, made an absolutely gorgeous scent.

Here’s how it works: you turn up at her studio (ideally with a vague idea of the kind of smell you want – something light and floral, something sexy and musky, something fresh and lemony, something dark and spicy, whatever blows your skirt up). You smell dozens and dozens of smells. I wanted to make something that smelled a bit dirty and earthy and musky, but not too sharp or sweet.

Then Anne creates three versions of your perfume, each with slight variations.

You take them home and wear them for a few days to decide which is your favorite.

And then she bottles it up and sends it to you. The final result from my session is all warm skin musk and earthy oak moss and creamy tuberose, with a whisper of black pepper and coriander to rough it up a little. Oh you guys, it smells SO GOOD. I’m obsessed with it. Truly. If you see me on the street, come up and smell me. I won’t mind. Send this post to people who love you so they know that this is what you want for your next birthday. (I’m into subtle hints like that.) Email anne@mcmcfragrances.com.

Mazel! You’re pregnant. Now, what are you going to wear?

One of the worst things about being pregnant – after the throwing up, the insomnia, and for me last time I was pregnant, the crippling fucking anxiety – is the fashion. Someone lovely messaged me recently saying ‘I’m four months pregnant WHAT DO I WEAR’. I was like, oh, I feel you sister.

I detest (detested? Should I use past tense, given my pregnancy days are over? No, let’s use present tense, more fun) 98% of maternity clothes. I hate tight things across my belly. I hate leggings. I hate stretchy wrap dresses that strangle my giant preggers boobs. I hate cheap tops that say ‘BUN IN THE OVEN’ or ‘BABY ON BOARD!’ I hate them all.

But you have to wear something. You can’t just walk around naked the whole time… though actually I do (did?), quite a lot, just around the apartment. Fun fact: being very pregnant and naked looks exactly like the Venus of Willendorf. To prove it, here I am, at about eight and a half months pregnant with my third baby. Not naked, but just about, and wearing an expression that truly shows what it feels like to be THAT pregnant in late summer. What a lovely big bump Arthur was. Lucky old me. I wish I hadn’t been so worried and sick all the time, I would have enjoyed it far more.

Where was I? Yes. You have to wear something. You don’t want to feel bad about how you look – pregnancy is hard enough without that. So, over the years, I slowly figured out a pregnant uniform. A knocked-up capsule wardrobe, if you’re feeling 90s about it. Something that isn’t an investment, that won’t put you in a bad mood, something that might actually make you feel – whisper it – chic.

So here is my totally un-expert guide to getting dressed when you’re knocked up.

First, some broad rules: no lace, no frills, no ruffles, no prints. Don’t wear animal print; you’ll look like the animal itself, or gingham; you’ll look like a picnic blanket, or florals; you’ll look like a sofa from the early 1980s. (At least, I do. Being tall with a big bump means I dominate the landscape quite enough without extra help.) Keep it simple. I try to stick to black, white, grey and blue, with pops of color.

And now, let’s go shopping. I have never been impressed by the pregnancy-specific designers – places like Pea In A Pod are lame. Seraphine and Isabelle Olivier are just too twee. Hatch is absolutely lovely but do I want to spend hundreds on clothes I’ll barely wear? Negatory. So it’s cheap fashion all the way, but different places are good for different things. (I always hand them on to other people when I’m done, to minimize the ‘destroying the planet with disposable fashion’ aspect.)

Let’s start with ASOS Maternity. Like everything from ASOS, the maternity line is 90% garbage, 10% genius. I bought this ASOS DESIGN Maternity Stripe Top in Baby Loop Back, liked it so much I bought another so I’d have one even when the first was in the wash, and loved them both so much that when the baby was out and I lost the baby weight, I bought a fresh one two sizes smaller. (Have I mentioned that I’m a little obsessive about things? Well, I am.) It’s the perfect thickness, the shoulders and arms hang just right. These tanks are pretty good to wear to bed or under jackets and blazers or for that one pregnancy yoga class you might go to like one time. If you’re pregs in cooler weather, stock up on plain long-sleeved t-shirts like this. Oh and how can I forget: Jeans shorts. I wore them everywhere. Goddamn, I still love my ASOS preggers jeans shorts. Sometimes you just need a forgiving tummy band.

Old Navy makes a lot of fairly mediocre preggers basics, but every now and again you’ll find something pretty good, like this t-shirt. The problem with pregs t-shirts is that the neck is often weird. I’m actually not sure I would have loved this one – the arm might be a little short, the combination of a tight shoulder plus giant tits and a belly that just won’t quit is… a LOT. But for wearing around the house or under a blazer, win. I also like wearing pregnancy button-down shirts like this one from the Gap - in fact, I still wear a pale blue one, I just really like the color and shoulders. I don’t hate this one, either.

Zara is your place for blazers. A good blazer (or two, or three, depending on your work/social life) and a good denim jacket will see you through the pregnancy. You might be able to wear your normal blazers or jackets undone – I can’t; I just get too damn big. My arms and back can’t fit in them. I’m not kidding. So I just buy something simple with rolled sleeves, not too boxy in the next size up. I also got a couple of plain long-sleeved Zara cotton midi dresses that I wore to death – something like this is perfect. This is good, too.

Uniqlo also KILLS it with the preggers-friendly dresses. Like a cotton shirt dress, a-line, with pockets for snacks. GENIUS. I’d get the pale blue and the stripe. (Damn, I wish these had been available this time last year.) Uniqlo is also making t-shirt dresses this year, and I have a feeling they might be rather marvelous, assuming they don’t become too short with the bump. (Bumps make dresses four to eight inches shorter, depending on how big your bump is. As you can see from the photo above, my bumps get BIG.) Veh nice for early to mid-pregnancy, anyway.

Also from Uniqlo: I’d buy a couple of these skinny-comfy sweatpants to wear under the bump when you just can’t fucking handle jeans rn. Order two sizes up from your normal size. You can wear them to a restaurant with high-top converses and a preggers tank and a sharp blazer and lipstick and look tres cool. (I think so, anyway. Then again, maybe I’m just the kind of dick who wears sweatpants to restaurants.)

For bras, I like the girls to be holstered front and center. I go from a 34B to a 36E when I’m pregnant – yup I’m totally serious. Nork city. This Chantelle Parisian bra is my favorite. (And Seamless Bravado nursing bra is the only one I’ll ever love, plus these for nighttime. And these are must-haves.)

For shoes, I like Clarks. This brand is famously ergonomic and comfortable and dorky, but once in a while, they’ll come out with a great sandal. I wear mine with socks sometimes because I’m CRAY. And solid boots. You need extra support for your feet when you’re pregs because you’re carrying around all that bump plus the extra weight, so if you still cringe at the idea of Clarks, you might want to slip these into your Converse or flats.

Urgh, jeans. I must have had 30 pairs of pregnancy jeans over the years. I inherited jeans from friends. I bought my own. They mostly suck tbqh. The best posh pregs jeans are Paige. (You can also usually find them on sale, btw. Check out Nordstrom Rack and Gilt.) Hot tip: for the first four months, just wear non-pregs jeans from Zara or whatever (you might be able to wear your normal favorite jeans, I have to buy a size or two up right away because I get knocked up and gain ten pounds before I roll off the bed) and fasten them with a hairband looped between the button thingy and the belt notch thingy. Like so. Oh, and Zara sometimes makes trousers with elastic waists that actually look good under a bump. I inherited a pair of Zara pinstripe flannel pants in XL from a friend and wore them a LOT. These are similar.

If you’re very pregnant in winter, you’ll need a coat. Borrow/steal your husband or brother’s coat if you can, or get a cheap superwarm one from Uniqlo in the biggest size. I also had a Hatch coat that I wore a LOT in my last pregnancy, and I loved it, but it was a hand-me-down. I’m not sure I’d spend $$$ on something I wouldn’t wear longer than a few months… Maybe I would, if I had a normal job and had to go into the office every day, or go to meetings. There is a certain freedom that comes with being a writer at home. I could literally write in the nude, eating chocolate-covered cashew nuts from a small bowl resting on my bare belly, and no one would know. And sometimes I did.

Cardigans are your winter pregs BFF. Get the waterfall-y ones and throw them around yourself dramatically. Bonus: great for a little privacy when nursing in public later on, if you are forced to nurse in a place where idiots are staring at your boobs. These look good, too. This is a great cosy hoodie – and it has lovely breastfeeding zips for after the bebe arrives! (Size UP at least twice. I had to return and get XXL.)

Lastly, lipstick. I wear bright lipstick when I’m pregnant, because it cheers me up every time I put it on, and because once the baby arrives, I can’t wear any lipstick at all for a while because I’m kissing him all the time. (I mean truly. I was basically frenching Arthur.) My favorite red lipstick right now is a delightfully inexpensive one from Milani called Best Red. I also love NARS Starwoman and Laura Mercier Rouge Muse.

Most of all, be kind to yourself. In my first pregnancy with Errol I was so freaked out by my changing body, and so weirdly self-conscious about it, all my pregnancy fashion memories are negative. With Arthur, I just tried to look relatively put-together, keep the food stains to a minimum and tell myself I was strong and clever and that everything would be fine. Time would pass, I would have my baby in my arms, I would be back in my normal clothes. And it came true.

I saw Booksmart this morning and GODDAMN LOVED IT.  So funny and fast and emotionally wise. Just a brilliant fucking movie.

There were three trailers before the movie, and I cried in every single one:

WILD ROSE

Fresh out of prison, a Scottish woman juggles her job and two children while pursuing her dream of becoming a country music star. She soon gets her chance when she travels to Nashville, Tenn., on a life-changing journey to discover her true voice.

MAIDEN (Especially cannot wait to see this one. Have rewatched the trailer six times now, and every time I get goosebumps and burst into tears. Man, I’m an easy mark.)

In 1989 Tracy Edwards leads the first all-female crew in the Whitbread Round the World Race, a grueling yachting competition that covers 33,000 miles and lasts nine months.

THE FAREWELL

A Chinese family discover that their beloved grandmother has only a short time left to live, and instead of telling her, they whip up an impromptu wedding to gather the family together before she passes.

I’m burning the candle at both ends and roasting it in the middle right now, my loves. A baby, two small children, and constant deadlines does not a happy sleeper Gemgem make. (The syntax on that is good, right?)

Particularly because I’m a worrywart.

I lie in bed, my brain hopping through all the things I did that day and all the things I have to do the next day and the cute thing the baby did and what I love about the current outline or script and what I think might need changing and oh that’s a good line I must write that down. All fine, easy thoughts, not even worries, really.

And then out of fucking nowhere I start thinking about scared refugee children in their little foster jails. And refugee babies crying for their mothers (probably right this second, my brain always reminds me). Then I worry about forced birth in the states that hate women (and why does everyone hate women like what the fuck did we do?). And then guns, guns, always guns.

Sometimes I wander over to Brexit, worry about that for a while.

And then to finish off I always worry about whether I will earn any money this year, because I’m in a ridiculous profession (that I absolutely love, of course) and there is no way of knowing. My projects this year are good, I think, and last year I sold everything I pitched and wrote some solid scripts, but nothing was picked up and why is that, is it perhaps because they’re not solid and I’m actually a bit shit, and is wondering if I’m shit the hallmark of someone who is in fact shit or is it a sign that I’m secretly truly balls-out brilliant because the only people who believe they are truly balls-out brilliant are sociopaths?

So. That’s what it’s like to be in my brain at 11pm. It’s like I forget how to sleep.

Sometimes I try a quarter of an Ambien, but it makes my eyes super dry the next day. Melatonin doesn’t work for me either. Valerian stinks. But this is what works:

Firstly, magnesium gummies. I was drinking it in the dissolvable powder form on and off for years, but it’s kind of gross. Now I eat the gummies. I don’t know why magnesium helps sleep, but it really does, just sort of unscrews everything that’s bolted on v tightly in your brain. You don’t have to believe me, believe the New York Times. “Magnesium deficiency has been associated with higher levels of stress, anxiety and difficulty relaxing.” Pop two after dinner. Bonus: they’re yummy.

Second, Lazarus Naturals Relaxation Blend CBD Capsules. You already know about CBD, I don’t have to extol the many virtues here. (Again, the New York Times can tell you more, if you like.) I tried Lord Jones, the one everyone is obsessed with. I liked it fine, no big deal. Then my mother got this magical stuff from our local pharmacy when she was visiting and I HAVE TRULY NEVER SLEPT BETTER. It’s the most delicious easy sleep – it has L-tryphtophan and ashwagandha and chamomile, as well as CBD extract. You wake up feeling calm and clear and rested. I cannot recommend it highly enough. This one is good too. I tried it recently when the Relaxation Blend was out of stock.

PS Come over to Instagram, the water’s lovely.

I first wrote this on my Instagram account, so if you already read it there, forgive me and be my friend anyway.

Last year, I heard about Clarks Botanicals on the divine @fatmascara podcast. I ordered a $10 tester set, like the thrifty little cougar that I am, to see if it would plump and soothe my crone-like post-baby visage. LO and behold, it did. I fell head over heels for the Deep Moisture Mask and Smoothing Marine Cream, promptly purchased the full size of each. I wrote about them in a post a few months ago.

Then quite out of the blue recently, Clarks contacted me asking if I’d like to host a giveaway. I said YES OF COURSE I WOULD ARE YOU INSANE WHY WOULD YOU EVER DOUBT THAT. I think their social media people saw the post. Anyway. To enter the competition, head on over to my IG account. If it’s too late – I think the comp ends May 3 – then don’t fret! You can use the code GemmaBurgess25 and get 25% off your purchase on the Clarks Botanicals website.