By Nancy Colasurdo
At the last minute, Rebecca Lazaroff winds up doing our recent telephone interview from her car, sitting in the parking lot where her daughter is at swim practice.
It’s perfect.
This self-described mompreneur is relaxed and talkative, a parent and CEO who is used to snagging moments where she can, not only making the best of them but luxuriating in them.
That idea is so appealing to Lazaroff, the making the most of moments, that it is part of the philosophy behind her company, Belle and Beanzer. She designs baby clothes that somehow manage to nurture intimate connection, but also are “fast, easy, convenient.”
Huh?
Maybe it’s best summed up by the epiphany Lazaroff had when her daughter, Ava, was a toddler and her son, Jonah, an infant.
“So, OK, when it’s easier, less stressful, faster, everyone feels better,” Lazaroff says. “When you have simplicity, you have ease. With clarity you create space in your life.”
Now there’s a goal. The way Lazaroff sees it, that’s more time to play with, kiss, and cuddle your baby.
“And more time to watch them,” she says. “Watch them. Take in your life more.”
This all came about after realizing one harried day that parenting had become “largely transactional” when she was changing her son. With so much vying for her attention, she became grounded in the moment.
“‘Look at this little guy just literally putting himself into my hands,’” she writes on her website. “In that moment, I understood that this should be a time of connection: I was teaching care, nurturing and gentle touch.”
So what would make it easier? That question persisted.
“My designer brain turned on,” Lazaroff says. “My dad’s engineer brain. My mom’s love of gadgets.”
And, well, years of cultivating ideas working at places like Osh Kosh, The Children’s Place and Sears/Kmart in computer-aided design (CAD). Not to mention corporate work prior to that and a BFA in Surface Pattern Design from Syracuse.
Plus, between the births of her two children, Lazaroff’s father died and it affected her in ways she couldn’t have imagined.
“I watched that transition, the end of being held in life physically,” she says. “That memory of my dad being held on his way out, I thought about what he’s learning about touch, the handling of a person’s body, a living, breathing, conscious being.”
Lazaroff began to wonder. If connection with other human beings is integral to our lives, if we’re in fact hardwired for connection, then isn’t it taught through small gestures as well as big ones? Should we be dressing babies by yanking them around, shoving arms and legs here and there?
“It should be easy,” she recalls concluding. “The objects should work with you.”
So, again, what would make it easier?
“I can’t say this has ever happened to me before,” Lazaroff says. “I started drawing, re-drawing, erasing. I turned to a friend who sews. She sewed it. I put it on Jonah. From the first time, it was everything I thought it would be.”
Whether Jonah was squirming, rolling away from her, or simply in his car seat, the design worked. That design is Lazaroff’s clever “elastic peek-a-boo back entry” that eliminates snaps, Velcro and zippers. And while that can sound a little sales-pitchy, Lazaroff is anything but the slick seller. She has no qualms about getting real when talking about what it’s been like to be a parent. The woman whose life philosophy is “follow what brings you joy” got a bit of a jolt when her love of children didn’t automatically translate to mommy bliss 24/7.
“Should, should, should,” Lazaroff says. “For most of us, it’s not always this beautiful nest of joy. You’re sleep deprived. You’re figuring a person out. The baby is crying. You have crashing hormones and extra weight. It’s a weird transition time for a woman.
“Nothing can prepare you. I did experience postpartum [depression] with Ava. I was very surprised by that. Here come the gray clouds. It challenged my notions about myself and my capabilities. It’s the opposite of what you’re told you should be feeling. [Having Ava] demanded that I be a better person, better than I felt I could be at that time.”
In retrospect, with Ava now an 8-year-old, Lazaroff sees brilliance in that emotionally fraught period.
“It’s part of the bonding process,” she says. “There’s something about going through the fight together that brings about the connection with the baby. Everything is temporary. Everything is a phase. Those moments pass quickly.”
Once Lazaroff had her designer brain whirling, she applied it to something else that was nagging at her – a better blanket design for nursing, swaddling and bath time. She’d had several of each, but thought it could be better, easier.
“I put a baby doll on the floor, started cutting fabric out,” she says.
When she was done cutting, what should appear?
“I realized, it’s a great big heart!” she says. “The Big Love blanket was born.”
Taking it another step, imagine having invented things that can bring more tender moments to other parents in those same transitional periods Lazaroff had gone through.
“To know that I could create something that could bring real value to their day, make their interaction different, is fantastic,” Lazaroff says. “Messages from people seem to come through when I really need them. It’s really helping people. I think of it as paying it forward.”
And you know what else?
“I’m comfortable with the fact that you may not be psyched about your baby today,” she says.
There is an ease about Lazaroff when she discusses parenting. You sense the experience is lush and soul-nourishing for her. No need to sugar coat what is naturally sweet, even on the crazy days. It’s the best of challenges and she lives riveted to bringing her best self to them. She describes on her blog a hike with her husband and children, one where she let go of expectations.
“I followed the kids’ rhythm,” she writes. “This meant, LOTS of stopping to draw and document beautiful things … This meant, abandoning our shoes, and the trail, frequently … This meant, time stood still at the waterfalls as we explored the river and our bravery … This meant, experimenting with lots of objects to see just what would flow downstream … This meant, losing ourselves in the moment with sunshine on our faces and the river in our ears.”
Follow what brings you joy.
Lazaroff has got it down.
