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.

Some days...

Some days just start off crummy. I walked outside, into heat that already felt oppressive at 8 a.m. Then I tripped and fell in the driveway. Phone went flying. Little flower hair clip flung out of my hair. Hands skinned and burning. Knee bloodied and bruised through my pants. It's a miracle of textile construction - for which I am perpetually grateful - that allows me to rip my skin but not my pants.

I sprawled on the ground, near tears like a kid on the playground, feeling a little childishly miffed that neither the landlady nor the two workmen on the property noticed the downed pregnant girl.

Then I got up, got in my car and drove to work. A few productive work calls went a long way to making me feel better and feel more grown up.

There's no question, by the way, that at this point my body has been taken over by something else. Places that usually feel...well, softer than I'd like...feel oddly firm, like an over-filled water balloon. And the boobs are just completely out of control.

Truth In Wedding Vows

Lydia said to me, before I was engaged, that if Jeff and I wrote our own vows, they would be the most eloquent vows ever. I laughed and said that's why I can't write them. I'd never be able to live up to that.

Now, I guess I'm trying. What is the best way to frame, in terms of a series of promises, some explanation for how I love this man?

The comical stuff comes easily. I've been thinking of it as "Truth In Wedding Vows." I don't think they'd work in a real wedding, but they're the truth. I can do better, but when I think of all the things that make a life, it's the little things that pile up most.

1. I promise to become only marginally crazier than I already am.

2. While I know my body image issues will never go away, I promise I will get naked with you every chance I get.

3. We're both kind of hopeless when it comes to housework, but I'll always volunteer to clean the toilets if you promise to stop making that face when I parallel park.

4. I miss you every second we're apart, but I will never make you feel guilty because you have to work late. You're working to support our family, and bosses tend to be less understanding than women who love you.

5. I promise to tell you when I'm upset and why. It's not a pleasant thing, and it's hard. But I'd rather suffer those small moments of discomfort than allow them to grow into something that could threaten the best thing that's ever happened in my life.

6. We will have vacations and adventures. We will continue to discover new things together.

7. If I am home before you, I will spring up off the couch when you get home, because I want you to know everyday that no matter how many times you walk through that door, it's still one of the most exciting parts of my day.

8. I will strive to keep my own life and my own interests, so that you will always have a partner who has something to talk about with you, who is interesting for all the years we have together. Likewise, I will give you space and time to pursue your art and your dreams, and support those endeavors in every way I can.

9. I will never smear cake on your face. Not today. Not any day.

10. I will love you. No matter what happens, I will love you fiercely and will for the rest of my life.

It's the first time I've ever truly had a partner in every way. I knew for the first time when we'd only been dating a few months. My car died in Rancho Cucamonga just a few blocks from my apartment. I called a colleague to help me out, and Jeff got upset I didn't ask him. "You're not letting me keep up my side of the bargain," he said.

It would be more than a year from that time when he'd finally get the guts to tell me he loved me, but I already knew. I really, really wanted and needed to hear the words, but I had to know. Because there was already a promise between us, unspoken or not, that if one of us was in any kind of trouble, the other would be the one to take care of it. Even late at night. Even 50 miles away.

My first lesson in parenting

Jeff and I had just learned we were parents. It was a Tuesday night, and we'd just finished working out with our trainer. I took a pregnancy test as a formality before starting my pills again. It was positive.

I traded my RX for birth control for an RX for prenatal vitamins. I picked an OB-GYN and made an appointment. Jeff hadn't formally proposed, but he'd asked my dad's permission, and we knew we were getting married. Jumping the gun, I went shopping with Anna and Lydia at David's Bridal. I tried on one dress, and it was the one.

It was the perfect moment. At last, I had my magic bridal moment. I was having a baby with the love of my life. I was surrounded by close friends. Everything was coming together the way I always hoped it would. After giving up hope when I turned 34 that I'd ever have a baby or be married, I was certain to have both before I turned 35.

After the dress shopping, we were at an Indian restaurant for a late celebratory dinner. Jeff was out with Greg, drinking beers and talking about fatherhood, being a husband, growing up and whatever else men talk about over cold beers.

That's when the bleeding happened. The toilet tissue was bright crimson, like my period had just started.

Or my new beginning had just ended.

I shouted for Anna, and on-lookers must have thought I was crazy -- tearful, with a wad of toilet paper summoning my friend to the bathroom. She came, and I showed her, already crying. In that moment, I was so scared that the miracle that had been the catalyst for all this other good was gone. She and Lydia said all the right things. We could leave. We could go to a hospital. We could do whatever I wanted. I paged my new doctor, who had never even met me. I was just a name on her appointment book. It was past 10 p.m. on a Friday night. She called me within 10 minutes.

The good and bad news was that there was nothing I could do. If the pregnancy ended, at that phase, there was nothing that could be done. Sometimes, though, bleeding was perfectly normal. It could be nothing. She wanted to see me first thing Monday morning, and advised me to lay low for the weekend.

I went home. I told Jeff as calmly as possible. We promised to go forward with our plans to marry, no matter what. We worried. I spent much of the weekend napping, and spotting. "Stay with me, baby," I kept saying to myself, and to the little life I hoped was still there.

Monday finally came. We saw the doctor, and as is her custom, first we had a consultation. We sat in an office - a regular office with a big desk, and family pictures and flowers. She gave me lots of information, and asked me if I had any questions. I only had one, and I was afraid to ask it: Am I still pregnant?

We'd find out by ultrasound. Holding on to Jeff's hand, we watched the screen, and there was our baby. At that point, a bundle of cells - a little gray smudge stuck to the side of my uterus. But in the middle of the little ball was a distinct heartbeat. Only six and a half weeks old. Just about the first thing we do in life is grow a heart. Everything else comes after. (I will try to remember this in the moments my heart fights with my head - one of them is older and wiser than the other.)

There was our baby. Real. Listening to the heartbeat, we were relieved and elated and sure that nothing would be the same - in the best possible way.

All weekend long, I fretted and worried. I was scared to death. It was the first time that my child kept me awake at night with fear and worry and anxiety. It was the first time I was overwhelmed by wanting nothing more than the health and safety of my child.

It will not be the last. It will not be the last time I'm scared to death over what turns out to be absolutely nothing. This is what I will count as my first weekend as a parent. I don't feel like a parent every single day of my pregnancy, at least not so sharply as this first lesson. But the first big scare is out of the way.

I have experience now.

Getting everything I want. All at the same time.

A few months ago, I was busting at the seams to write about this. But, the necessity for secrecy made that impossible. Now that all my secrets are just great news that I've shared with everyone - friends, relatives, unsuspecting waiters, strangers in elevators, checkout guys at Trader Joes - I find myself too busy and exhausted to get all of the thoughts down.

There's a baby. And already, barely one ounce heavy, barely a few inches long, still so much a mystery, this baby is changing my life in immeasurable ways. It's a cliche to write about it. I feel like every woman whose ever been pregnant feels at once like it's the first time it's ever happened, while at the same time joining this legion of womanhood, this sorority that she couldn't ever rush before. I'm no different. But like so many things in life, it's partly a self-discovery process. I'm learning so much about who I am, and what I have to give.

We don't know if we're having a boy or a girl. We didn't plan this. It is a wonderful surprise. We thought there would be a long road, a long fight to the chance at parenthood. Instead, it was just a little blunder. Just a few weeks without the usual precautions (things get lost, and there's insurance to fight with, and a million tiny things that get in the way of a trip to the pharmacy). But our baby managed to slip through this tiny window.

So far, so good.

There's a wedding that will happen sooner than I could be ready for it. Everything that I always wanted is coming, is almost here. This little bit of anticipation beforehand, when all of it is still becoming, will go so fast. I wish that I could slow it down, savor it more. But there are a thousand details and questions and decisions, all of them demanding to be addressed immediately.

In the quiet moments, all I can do is give myself a little shake. This is it. This is my life now. When I slip through a yellow light and kiss the ceiling, for weeks I realized that there was nothing left to wish for. Though, now those wishes have become "healthy baby, happy marriage."

I have every reason to be confident those wishes are coming true, too.

Fear and Self-Loathing in Nik Vegas

I'm hooked on Top Chef. I've been devouring the All Stars season, spending much time rehashing it and analyzing it with the similarly-afflicted fans.

I have a new favorite. I love Richard Blais. I love him for all the wrong reasons. I love him because in him I see a larger-than-life version of my own problems. The guy is amazing. He clearly has an exceptional talent. Everyone around him points this out. But he hates everything he does. He came right out and said it.

So, while somewhere big beautiful brains are winning at a convergence of warlocks and Charlie Sheen, there's surely an opposite place. A place for the Richard Blaises of the world. It's that meeting where I would probably feel right at home. While the warlocks are on a drug called Charlie Sheen, we would be trying to withdraw from self-loathing.

It's a particularly nasty little demon. On more than one occasion, I was certain that I'd tamed it. It lost its grip over me. I'd extinguished - if we can forgive one last Charlie Sheenism, as this is supposed to be about my kinship with Blais - its fire-breathing fists. Then - quite literally for me - on some idle Tuesday it was back. Pinning me to the couch. Sapping my energy. Making me lethargic and sad and scared.

I hate this shit. There's really no way to wax eloquent about this problem. I've picked myself apart, and tried to explain to every person I love, and who loves me back. And none of them get it. They just say I'm being hard on myself. Then, I explain to my therapist, who concedes that it is frustrating for me to feel misunderstood, but really - I need to start focusing on the full side of the glass. Then, I went to my M.D. and in almost the very words of the shrink, she said the same thing. Stop being so hard on yourself.

There is perhaps one person in the entire world who would sit down with me over some ridiculous plate of food, and say that he got it. But, even if I did eat with Richard Blais, it would probably be his food. And he would say he hated it.

And I would look at him like he was insane, and tell him he was being too hard on himself.

I guess the task now is to just ease up.

Questions

Some questions don't have any answers.

Many others don't have any good answers. Or easy answers. Certainly, not the answers we want to hear.

Others, I'm just baffled that they are even asked in the first place.

Today, I feel like there's nothing to be done but shake my fists at the sky. And curse. A lot.

Weights and measures

Many days, I can look at myself with a degree of objectivity. I am a human being. I have feelings and desires. I act on them, or choose not to. I am the sum of my choices and experience. I have successes and failures. I do the very best I can. I care, often more than I should. I am a mess, and a solution, and I'm complicated. We all are.

Then, on other days, I'm nothing more than a single number. There is nothing more to my identity than one number that I cannot be proud of. No matter how I fight to take the power from that number, I cannot seem to separate it from me. It is me. I am it.

On those days, it doesn't feel good.

This is one of those days. Excuse me while I count and curse myself.

Little everyday adventures

I don't do a good job of watching the weather report, so Saturday surprised me with so much sunshine and 80-degree weather. Jeff and I decided to celebrate it on Sunday, thinking this lovely weather is a sign it's time to take our bikes out to the beach.

We headed out and arrived at Manhattan Beach at around 11 a.m. We parked, stuffed the meter full of quarters, and we were on our way. I love my bike, because it's one of those things that feels the same at 34 as it did at age 8. There's this wonderful freedom, with the wind in my face and the sense that me and my bike can go anywhere. (As long as I'm home before the streetlights come on.) The sun sparkled on the waves, and though it was cold enough for a sweatshirt, bikini-clad girls were already playing beach volleyball, toddlers in nothing but sand and wet bathing suits splashed into the water. In our minds, it is already summertime.

Jeff and I hopped off our bikes to stroll up the Manhattan Beach pier. This was our view. The fog rolled in for a bit, but the sun was shining by the time we hit Hermosa beach for fish and wine and long talks. We stopped by the Lighthouse Cafe, one of the places Jeff grew up, stealing red and green maraschino cherries from behind the bar when he was just a tiny boy.

We pedaled down to Redondo beach, more strolling on the boardwalk and more holding hands and laughing and talking. I sipped cool, sweet cider, wedged against Jeff in two stools at the end of a crowded bar while a band covered hair band tunes. We were inspired to try the pedal boats, and so we raced our bikes back to where we left the car, a little under five miles away. I pushed myself as hard as I could, and we finished our trek in no time, a little flushed. Our pedal boat adventure didn't go quite as planned.

Just as in the grocery store there's always that one cart with the wonky wheel that doesn't want to go straight, so too, did we get the wonky pedal boat. To make matters worse, seaweed got tangled up in the paddles underneath the boat, and we were stuck for a bit. And then, one of the seats broke. It was a hard, rigorous but terribly short trip back to the dock, where we were greeted with our money back. But we laughed the whole way.

We finished the night with more fish and more drinks and more talk. We had a moment to watch the sunset, and it was long after dark when we returned home. A long day of memories, all of it prompted by a simple, "hey, let's ride bikes on Sunday."

Control. (I can't get enough.)

I've had the blues for a bit, and mostly about things that I have no control over (but that exert some degree of control over me). It's not a good feeling, and it took me until this morning to pin down that it's the control issue that's bugging me.

So, I've taken a few steps to get control back over a few things that are within my power. Sometimes the list and the plan are all it takes to feel a little bit better.

I actually got a crazy little rush scheduling a payment on my credit card.

Weird.