Parents aren't always wrong.

During my kindergarten year, my mother threw a large birthday party for me. She really went all out. The party favor bags were fabulous, each one with a "Dazzle Doll" by Mattel - little fashion dolls, that were all the rage and I was obsessed with.

There were lots of games. Lots of cake. Lots of decorations. Lots of girls.

I, of course, had been to many other kids' birthday parties, watched them get fawned over, fussed over, and generally be the center of attention for the whole day. The rule of the day was that the Birthday Girl always went first. First in every game. First to get a piece of cake. First, first, first.

My mother, on the other hand, hadn't been to nearly as many children's parties in the early 1980s. Her concept of these things was a bit old fashioned. So, imagine my shock when my mother is putting numbers into a bag to determine the order of who would go first, and she set one of the numbers aside jsut for me - and the number wasn't one. Or even two. It was 25. Dead. Last. What was wrong with her? Hadn't she been to Virgina's party? Or Catherine's? Kristin's? Diane's? ANYONE'S?? This was my party! MINE! AND I WAS SUPPOSED TO GO FIRST.

I tried to reason with her - and by reason, I meant a full volume temper tantrum. She took me by the arm, and said in her quiet but angry voice that these were my guests. And so they should go before me. At this point, I would have been a decent stand-in for the donkey, given what a complete ass I was making of myself. But I still insisted.

Nicole, she said, if you want to have a temper tantrum, fine. But you'll have it alone, in your room.

FINE! I stomped up the stairs. I'd show them. Let them be without the glorious presence of the birthday girl. Let them try to enjoy themselves without my sparkling personality. I waited upstairs in my room smugly, for the apology that was sure to come. The second big shocker of the hour: No one was coming up to my room. They actually meant for me to be up there, and have my little fit. I could hear them laughing. And I was upstairs. Pouting. This hardly seemed right. I may have cried a little more, or thrown myself on the floor a couple more times for good measure. Soon enough, I was back downstairs and rejoining the party, reportedly saying to my mother, regarding my temper tantrum, "I'm done now."

I don't remember what presents I got. Or what I wore. I do remember that last or not, I was not even close to pinning the tail anywhere near the donkey's ass. But, in retrospect, I'm proud of my mom. I'm glad that it was more important to her that I learned to be a gracious host, than it was to please a five-year-old tyrant on her birthday. That lesson stayed with me. When it's time for me to make a similarly tough choice - risk my son throwing a fit in front of all his friends, and maybe appearing like the mean mom in the hope of teaching him something valuable - that I will do half as well.

List Break

I find lists comforting. I make them. I don't always use them to their full potential, but sometimes, just seeing everything there is to do helps me feel a little more relaxed.

But, right now, the list of things I have to do is just overwhelming. So, instead, let's list the stuff I've gotten done this year.

1. Epic birthday party, complete with rock star karaoke moment in which complete strangers acted as my impromptu back-up dancers.

2. Paid off the most expensive piece of art I've ever purchased, a piece that I looked at for more than a year before finally making it my own.

3. Paid down credit card significantly. Charged back up. Paid back down again. And charged back up. And now am paying down again.

4. Epic trip to Las Vegas that included seeing TWO Cirque de Soleil shows (O and KA), an amazing chef's tasting menu dinner, trip to the spa at Ceasars, and getting a complete outfit from the Betsey Johnson store.

5. Epic trip to Las Vegas that also included conceiving a child.

6. Got engaged!

7. Worked Renaissance Faire in fabulous new costume, managed not to kill anyone.

8. Learned new meaning of pregnancy scare: when one is pregnant and has bleeding. Survived it. Handled it with aplomb, even.

9. Planned a wedding. IN JUST THREE MONTHS. While working. While being pregnant.

10. Got married.

11. Went to Cabo for honeymoon.

12. Found a new place to live.

13. Started packing up boxes.

14. Figured out most of the things I will need for the baby.

15. Learned how to cook risotto. Kinda pales in comparison to the other things, but -- it was cooking risotto using stock I made myself from a chicken that I roasted myself that got Jeff into feeling this whole family thing more. Plus, a list of 15 just FEELS better than a list of 14.

So, there you have it. Stuff I've done this year so far.

So, it hit me after looking at strollers yesterday, I don't know how I'll accomplish anything by myself ever again. The idea that, at some point, I am going to have to get my infant son and his stroller into the car is overwhelming. I don't have enough arms.

And, my wonderful husband keeps assuring me I'm not doing this alone. I'm not. But, at some point, there will be tasks that I have to complete while he is at work. Or in the bathroom. Or out doing something else that needs to be done for us.

And it scares me.

Who is this person?

I'm becoming someone else. A mother, obviously. And that's a good evolution. And yet, I'm afraid that I'm going to completely lose me as I knew me before. I'm not sure when it happened, but I guess I kind of started to like that girl.

Bad at blogging. Good at life, though

Somehow, I was remiss in writing about my actual wedding.

My thoughts are many, but mostly they boil down to it being everything I hoped it would be. It's a little snow globe of happiness I return to again and again now that I'm back in the real world.

I've never felt happier, or more in love, or more loved. Not just by my husband, but by all the people who came, and who helped, and who celebrated. I am overwhelmed by the generosity.

I came up with some vows. They are not identical to the ones I toyed with previously, but they were close. These are them:

Message bodyIn writing my vows to you, I realized it is not enough for me to make a list of promises. It is not enough to say that I will honor you, be faithful to you and love you. I have to first understand what it means to keep these promises.


In honoring you, and our marriage, I will appreciate the moments that make a life together. I will make sure you know that, no matter how many times you come home from work - however late or early - it is one of the best moments of my day. I will devote myself to our family, but also to my aspirations and dreams, so that you will always have a partner who has something to share with you for all the years we are together. Likewise, I will support you in your dreams and your aspirations in every way that I can.


Being faithful is not merely keeping to a set of rules and expectations. Faithfulness is pushing all the gifts of my mind, heart and body to not only maintain the joy and happiness we feel today, but to constantly seek new ways to build upon it, filling our lives with kindness and affection, with security and adventure.


In loving you, I will always remember that love is an action. It is a choice we make every day, and the best choice I've ever made. It is a risk that demands fearlessness, to deliver your heart and your happiness into the hands of another, and no one has ever made me more brave. It is an act of creation, and I could not wish for a better collaborator and partner than you to make a home, a family and a life.


I recently learned the nearly the very first thing we do in life -- when we are little more than a clump of cells in our mothers' womb -- is we grow a heart. For me, that makes it the wisest organ of the body, and I am grateful that mine was wise enough and fortunate enough to find you. I love you, and I will for the rest of my life.

To my son

Hi there little guy -

We've been through a lot together this year. The few months before you, well -- I shouldn't lay all that on you. Let's just say, I was so scared there wouldn't ever be a you. Then, when I was least expecting it, you came along. You're like your dad in that regard.

I think about you all the time. And, if I stop thinking about you, you're good at reminding me with a little kick, which usually tickles. I keep looking for some pattern. Consistently, you seem to make yourself known when I'm hungry - which probably means you're hungry, too. I make guesses the rest of the time. For a few months, I called you dinobean. Because, unfortunately, that's what we all look like in the beginning - little bean-sized dinosaurs. I'll do my best to not call you that once you're born. But, it's been a long time since I called you that. Most of the time, I call you by the name that we will probably give you.

I want to know you so badly. I am guilty of assigning little personality traits to you, but you will show me in time who you are.

We're trying to find a new home for us. It's different looking at places now, because more than trying to see if I can imagine myself in them, I try to imagine you. I worry about you having enough space to play, enough room to grow. I want to bring you into a place that is happy and good. This first home won't be everything that I want it to be, but it will be a step toward that.

Your grandmother asks about you almost every day. We talk about the things we want to do for you, and what I was like as a baby, and what maybe you'll be like as a baby. We talk about the places we will take you when you're a little older, and how your pap-pap is going to be afraid to hold you until you're a little bigger. So many people have so many dreams for you. You don't have to do all of them. When you come up with your own, we'll work on those together.

I love you, little guy. I hope everything is going well for you in there. Just 14 more weeks or so, and it will be time for your life to really begin. Love you so much already, and I just know when I get to hold you, it's going to blow me away.

Until then, keep kicking away. Listen to the stories your dad tells you -- that's a voice that will stick with you. And rest up while you can!

Love,
Your mommy

A strange observation.

People who once loomed large in my life, but have passed out of it, have a habit of visiting while I sleep. Relationships that were at one point important in defining who I am, or at least who I was, but are now just memories crop up again and again in dreams.

They're less the people themselves, but these dreamtime archetypes. The dreams don't generally replay old events. They're not the kind of dreams made up of bits and pieces of the day, the brain taking all of the week's leftovers and making them into some kind of hash. Occasionally, there are dreams when I try to fix what was broken, and the repairs are generally poor and fall apart well before I wake up. Those are easy enough to understand.

But more often, the dreams are not even really about the specific people. Just whatever it is they've come to represent in my psyche. Which, in a way, is sad. These people who meant so much are now just heiroglyphics in my mind. Mental and emotional cuneiform. If I took the time to decipher them, I might be able to reduce them down to a definition. A word. A feeling. I try not to wonder for too long about their real-time counterparts, or if some heiroglyphic version of me enters their dreams, and what that me stands for, and if I would be sorry about that symbolism.

Be where you are.

Years ago, I had an unfortunate flirtation with a social butterfly. This is putting it mildly. It was more like a social butterfly with ADD, no manners and a crack habit.

Anyway, I walked away from that with an appreciation for the idea of being where you are. Wherever that is. Be there. At least, do your best to be. Soak it in. Embrace that moment and the people you're with. Otherwise, you're never really anywhere. You're just on your way to somewhere else. There are no moments or destinations, just a series of bathroom breaks on a never-ending roadtrip.

I don't want to be your bathroom break.

I think that I am still sometimes guilty of over-scheduling myself. But I make every effort to make choices. Sometimes that means that there are three parties in a weekend, and I only go to one, because I would rather really enjoy where I am, I would rather really give the best of myself to people, than to be exhausted and preoccupied by the next stop on the schedule.

I am realizing as I get older this practice of flitting from place to place isn't just hazardous to the flitter. It's also just plain rude. If you've accepted an invitation, someone is planning on you. A brief drop-in doesn't really cut it. You are, essentially, asking your host to go to all the expense and trouble of having you there for the evening, without in turn offering your actual company.

Make decisions. Choose somewhere to be and be there. Trying to be everywhere is impossible, annoying and fucking rude.