I turn 40 today and I think I'm supposed to be depressed about it. After all, the card at the drug store says, "Lordy lordy, look who's forty" in depressingly large black font in case the recipient doesn't have her bifocals on hand. (Note to the drugstore marketing team: You should really put the card next to the anti-aging cream.)

I can admit that I'm getting old and, in fact, I've noticed signs that I'm aging. If I bend down, my back aches for a few minutes before I can straighten up. I carry a sweater  with me just in case the air conditioning is on too strong. I've walked out of restaurants because the music was too loud crowing, "Who can have a conversation with such loud music?!" I've already failed the high-frequency hearing tests I'm supposed to pass until I'm 40, so it's clear that any day now, I'm going to start asking the waiter to repeat the early-bird specials.

I don't know exactly when it started, but a few months ago, I started to notice that little Munchkin would help her big brother with something and say to him, "I got you."  Or Munchkin would hesitate with something and Monkey would come to her side and say, "I got you." While Monkey has always been the helpful big brother, Munchkin has started to return the favor as the ingenious little sister. She helps Monkey find toys and sneakily get snacks from the pantry. The two often run off to giggle under the cover of cardboard box tunnels and breathe secrets into cupped hands pressed to little ears. There has has been a gradual transformation from two little individuals to one devious hysterical unit. 

It's been about a month since my family and I moved from city life to a suburban existence. We're only 17 miles away from our old home, but life is quite different in a house with a yard than in a highrise. Here are a few signs that I'm not living in a city anymore. 

1) I see more rabbits than taxis. We see everything from ants and spiders to bunnies and chipmunks in our yard and in our neighborhood. I had to teach my bug-squashing kids that when we're outside, we're in the bugs' home and thus shouldn't kill every unidentified crawler that comes our way. Inside the house, all bets are off. 

An estimated six million people watched Germany's soccer team trounce Brazil 7-1 in the World Cup semi-final, including Monkey, Munchkin and I. After Germany--whom I was supporting--made five goals in rapid succession, I started cringing whenever they approached the net. Monkey (who cheered until Brazil's bitter end, pleading for Germany to make eight goals) asked me why I didn't want Germany to score anymore. I briefly explained how the Brazilians might be feeling embarrassed to be so badly beaten in their own country and that it seemed cruel to cheer on Germany, even from thousands of miles away. Monkey seemed to understand and I thought, "Thank you World Cup for another parenting lesson."

I've heard of a land far far away where children can roam free in their own back yards. Places where jogging strollers and scooters don't live in bedrooms, but garages. A land where the living room, play room, dining room and TV room are not one and the same. In this unknown terrain, car seats are kept in cars, not in closets because people not only own cars, but can park them in their own garage for free! In this land, washers and dryers are not run by coins, storage units are not rented and playgrounds can be reached without an elevator ride. This land is called The Suburbs and, after 22 years of a mortgage-free, car-less urban existence, I will be moving to a suburb of my own in just a few weeks.

Some days, I'm happily laughing and having fun with the kids, and boom! something happens and I snap at them. Last week, there were a lot of those days and a high percentage of the "somethings" that happened were initiated by my devious little Munchkin. I can't begin to tally how many times I found myself hoping, wishing and praying that the terrible twos end sooner than the calendar predicts. In order to help my tiny tower of terror keep her behavior in check, I've listed a few things she could do to keep mama a little happier. 

During my first few years living in New York, I maintained a ritual established back in college: gather my girlfriends either on worn sofas or dimly lit bars and discuss one another's current crushes or boyfriends.  "How are things going? How was your date?" I'd ask. We'd dissect certain behavior and whether certain actions were pardonable or not. We'd provide encouragement if things were going well and support if they weren't. 

Through the years, many friends have gotten married and I've noticed that most people no longer ask the married women about their relationship with their significant other. Yes, women complain about their husbands inability to load the dishwasher or some perceived slight but often, no one leans in and says, "How are things going?" in that grave tone once used to discuss errant boyfriends. 

This morning Munchkin tore out of her room waving a "Thomas the Tank Engine" shirt she wanted to wear.  I said, "That's your brother's! It's too big for you." "No it's not." Monkey chimed in, "That shirt is size 2T. She can wear it!" I hesitated for a minute. The shirt was not one of my favorites. It also had short sleeves and it's chilly outside. But for some reason, I--who consider myself to be tomboyish and casual--didn't like the shirt as much because it was distinctly boyish. There wasn't a hint of femininity to it and I preferred she wear something else. However, she liked the shirt and since it was clean, there really was no objection I felt comfortable giving to the kids. Munchkin then pulled out a pair of tights so I ended up looking for a dress or skirt to wear over them. As I tugged a denim dress over her shirt, the sleeves peeked out, but Thomas and his fellow Really Useful Engines were hidden behind colorful buttons and cute cap sleeves. There, I thought, a perfect mix of femininity and boyishness. Then I thought, Here I go again. Again I was thinking that it's not okay for my little girl to just be feminine, nor just masculine, but a mix of both. 

Like many soon-to-be-five-year-olds, Monkey has long had a fascination with Spider-Man. When Monkey isn't making up stories about him, he pretends to be Spider-Man, saving the world one play session at a time. On the way home from school one day, Monkey asked me if people could really climb walls like Spider-Man does. As a former rock climber, I've seen a number of people scaling walls to incredible heights so I told him that there are rock climbers who can do some of what Spider-Man does. When I got home, I logged onto youtube and found a video of an incredible eleven-year-old girl, Brooke Raboutou, rock climbing. Together, with Munchkin, we watched the short documentary that followed Brooke into the rock climbing gym and her home, where she strengthened every part of her body, down to her fingers. The video presented Monkey the opportunity not just to see a kid climbing a wall like Spider-Man, but to see how hard she worked and the effort she put into becoming a pint-sized expert in her sport.