Once upon a time I had style, but that was before the child. If I had a chart that measured my style, the lowest point would be from around the time of my daughter’s first birthday until she was 4. My first year of being a mom I did all right by coasting on my pre-pregnancy-style-wave. But the second year, I got beached on No-Style Island, a magical place bursting with shapeless T-shirts and sweats with weird stains, a place awash in wishy-washy pastels where you could hear the hum of the hum-drum.

I would have to say that this was also the low point for our home décor. As the baby began to explore her new world, our contemporary glass-topped, iron-legged coffee and sofa tables took on a hint of menace. Thus, they were banished to our storage unit and replaced by a soft, kindly storage ottoman upholstered in a floral print so sweet that I have to attribute its purchase to postpartum hormones. There’s just no other logical explanation.

It was at this time that my husband and I decided, for the sake of accuracy, that our living room would henceforth be known as “the toy-pit.” We dangled bouncy things from our doorways and spinny things from our ceilings in a misguided attempt to amuse our little one (who, surprise, turned out to prefer car keys, sticky tape and hot water bottles).

If three or four years before this plunge on my style chart I could have peered down my life’s path, through my future window, into my future home and seen my future self in a stained T-shirt and baggy sweat pants, standing in a toy-pit surrounded by tiny effigies of Teletubbies, well, I don’t think I could have seen through all that (especially the ottoman) to the joy that being a mommy had brought to my life. Now that I think of it I guess I do have style — family-style. (It’s cooler than it looks.)