About Nicki

South African by chance and Californian by choice, I live in the California Bay Area with my husband, four kids and Pretzel, the aging dachshund. As a reluctant yet full-time, barely-at-home mom, writer, avid reader, country music lover and wannabe surf diva, I write it like I see it - with tears, humor, skepticism, and truth. Keeping it real, for me. And hopefully for you too. I wear my red cowboy boots whenever I can - they make me feel like I can do anything, and when I do it, I'll rock it (that may or may not happen, depending on the day and also if it's raining - cowboy boots do not do well in the rain). They have come to represent the part of me that does not love being a stay-at-home mom, the part that wants to wander, explore and discover, and that sometimes does get to do all of that - both in real life, and on the page.

Teen Trouble, 2014 Style

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Nicki

I love a party. Really any party at any time of day, but especially a nighttime dance party.

Bar mitzvah parties are my favorite. Balloon bouquets, party dresses, disco lights and sparkly shoes. Colorful candy and bright eyes and giddy laughter and the promise of “Footloose” on the dance floor. The boys are appealingly cool in their awkwardness, and the girls are squeally and sweet, and all the parents think this is actually their party and we’ll show you kids that yes, it is all about that bass! Good times.

We celebrated my son’s bar mitzvah just like this a few weeks ago (the DJ forgot to play “Footloose”, but he brought his own trumpet to accompany Macklemore, so he’s forgiven). There were cake pops and jars of jelly bellies and glow sticks, and a screen to live-stream all those fun Instagram pics the kids (and adults) were posting. Yep fun, 2014-style!

And a guaranteed invitation for trouble, 2014-style.

New Kid in the Neighborhood

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Nicki

It sucks to be the new kid. Lonely and intimidating. It feels like everyone is noticing you, snap-judging you and the dorky whiter-than-white shorts you chose to wear, but really nobody is… and you’re not sure which you’d prefer.

I was 13 when my family left South Africa. I departed the cozy womb of my small 8^th grade class at the only Jewish high school in Pretoria, and entered the loud, frenetic, unfiltered school of new everything in Hod Hasharon, Israel. The faces I knew even better than my own, the voices I had heard every day since Kindergarten, the secrets and jump-rope games (24 Robbers Came Knocking at My Door!), netball practices and Liquifruit juice boxes, blue blazer with the school badge and sensible black shoes… all were replaced with unfamiliar, uncomfortable, daunting and overwhelming.

I stood in the doorway of my new class, in my ridiculous white shorts, my almost-grown-out perm caught up in a scrunchie (omg I know, but it was 1987) and tried to smile as every strange face turned toward me. Gulp. Then turned away. Double gulp. Would I ever feel familiar here? Would I ever learn all their names? Recognize these voices? Would anyone ever greet me, never mind tell me a secret? Who wears white shorts when she wants to blend in and be cool? We called the teachers Shmulik, Malka, Naomi… Mrs West, Mrs Burger and Mr Coetzee were unimaginably far away.

Within weeks, I had ditched the white shorts. Learnt how to play Five Stones and basketball. Fell in mini-love with a cute, shorter-than-me boy named Dani. And shared laughs, secrets, dance moves and sleepovers with my new friends. Lonely, scary and intimidating made way for happy and comfortable. Hebrew colored my dreams. Unfamiliar became home, and I never did miss wearing that blue school blazer.

Twenty three years and a drastic hairstyle change later, I was once again the intimidated, lonely new kid. This time with a baby in my arms, a clingy child wrapped around one shin, and a flailing, angry seven-year-old. Who inappropriately and very loudly declared to all those gathered on the blacktop in excited anticipation of the first day of school: “I’m not going to school with these freaks!” He didn’t declare it loudly, I correct myself. He yelled it. And by all those on the blacktop, I mean the entire student, teacher and parent population. He too was a new kid.

Heads turned. The baby cried. My little girl tightened her koala-grip on my leg, and I tried to dash after my indignant, scared boy who didn’t know what to do with these new feelings of bewildered and uncomfortable loneliness. I felt them too, and I wished for any length of badly-permed hair to hide behind, instead of the short spikes that were surely standing every which attention-grabbing way on top of my head.

New year. New school. New teacher. New friends. I hoped. For both of us.

It had been decades since I had been the new kid. Since I had felt out of my element. Lonely and alone. And there I was, wishing I were anyone, anywhere else, the 36-year-new kid, feeling 500 hundred shades of glaring invisible on the blacktop.

My newly minted first-grader was mad. He hadn’t wanted to leave his old school. The friends he had known, played with, shared meals, toys, germs with since he was two-years-old. That was my decision. And his dad’s. And as my heart shattered on the blacktop into so many sad and lonely pieces that first day of new school, when he floundered and raged against a decision that wasn’t his, I wondered if we had done the right thing. For him or for me.

“It’ll be okay. Here, give me the baby,” a kind, firm voice said in my ear. She had a baby and a clingy kid of her own to deal with, but she whisked mine away so that I could help my distressed son. And myself. Her blue eyes looked straight into mine, “First days are hard. It’ll be okay.” I passed the baby into her waiting arms. And I believed her.

Four years later, there is not a new kid my son doesn’t notice. Befriend. Invite over. He shows them the pass-through in the fence between our house and the neighbors’, and all the kids fill water balloons and throw them at each other. They leave flip flops, hair ties and other bits of themselves in their wake.

“It’ll be okay,” the blue-eyed-stranger-now-friend said, when she drew me out of my lonely, bewildered new-kid moment on the blacktop. It’s not okay. It’s wonderful. Because of her. And all the moms and dads and kids and teachers and grandparents and people like her. It’s a small-ish town, with a big, big heart. Where everyone is a neighbor, a friend, someone to help, to care about. And hopefully the new kids don’t feel new for very long. Especially if they do not wear white shorts!

This post was inspired by the Finish the Sentence Friday prompt, “When it comes to my neighbors…”
Hosted by Kristi from Finding Ninee and guest host Allison from Go Dansker Mom.

Reflections on Fall and Rosh Hashana

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Nicki

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. For me. Possibly my favorite time. Sweet wishes and loud kisses. Crisp sweet apples, sticky honey and rosy pomegranates full of hope and promise.

I grew up in a place where the sweet anticipation of the Jewish new year – Rosh Hashana – made sense in nature. September is spring in the southern hemisphere, where the earlier-rising sun, fragrant jasmine, fresh-cut grass and tentatively tweeting birds color the day’s gentle breezes with renewal, rebirth and hope.

We dipped round apples into amber honey, prayed and wished for a sweet year, tasted the first bright yellow peaches, and the soft smells and colors and sounds of spring were warm and obvious reminders of life and creation. Rosh Hashana (literally translated as Head of the Year): the birthday of the world.

But here above the equator, the days are imperceptibly shorter. The birds have flown, the grass is too long and the light is low. Vibrant pink and green give way to gentle gold and brown. It’s fall.

Summer is fading, winter is coming… and still, it’s my most favorite time of the year. The promise of creation is everywhere. It’s Rosh Hashana.

The moon, the first of this new Jewish year, is a thinly curved sliver hanging low in an inky sky. Breathtakingly simple. Quiet and bright. Trees are fiercely ablaze in orange, deep red and yellow. There’s been little to no rain all year, no drop in California’s sunny temperature for hundreds of days, but the green leaves still yield to the changing light, the traveling sun and, as the earth turns, those beautiful fiery branches ignite hope.

My love of the fall has surprised and delighted me. I am a sun-loving girl raised way down south, where my favorite time of year was always Rosh Hashana in the scented, hopeful spring.

But, as summer slowly fades into fall here, I feel compelled to reflect on a year both euphoric and difficult, a year of war and of celebration, a year of illness and loss and also one of life and encouragement. I feel inspired now, when I am eating orange persimmons instead of peaches, to celebrate creation even as nature is preparing to hibernate, to wish for a sweet new year of bright light and promise as the night falls earlier and quicker.

It’s the birthday of the world. And birthdays are for celebrating. For wishing. For hoping. For reflecting, and re-evaluating. Spring in the south and fall up north, birthdays carry the promise of life. Possibly of love and smiles and thoughtfully good intention.

My favorite time of year. Time for pumpkins and pomegranates and apples dipped in honey.

And also, fall is definitely time for red boots.

This post was inspired by my friend Michelle T’s beautiful insight on Creation. Thank you Michelle for your wisdom (and for encouraging me to think and not just eat my way through the holiday!).

Life is Too Short for “Bad” Music

Posted on September 20, 2014 by Nicki

I can channel-surf like nobody’s business. A song comes on the car radio that I don’t like, and it’s gone before anybody even realizes it was a song.

Could be because it reminds me of things I’d rather not remember right then – old relationship gone wrong, bad break-up, an argument with a friend when I was 15 – or because it’s been played on the radio and on my kid’s iPod and the Disney channel too many times to still be enjoyable (anything by Maroon 5 immediately comes to mind), or because it’s simply not a very good song, in my opinion.

I listen to music mostly in my minivan. I spend a lot of time in that goddamn thing, usually schlepping someone to somewhere. Kids to karate, ballet, soccer, orthodontist. And also myself, to meetings, appointments, never-ending errands, lunch with a friend or drinks with the girls.

And honestly, I hate it. The schlepping, and the minivan. I hate that it’s so big. That it’s a minivan. That it has sliding doors, and seats that tuck away, and a trunk that opens and closes with the press of a button. It’s too convenient. It makes Costco runs and carting kids and two-bikes-two-scooters-and-room-for-more too easy. There’s no excuse not to do any of that. “We won’t fit” is never a reason not to schlep. So we’re always schlepping. Nothing screams Stay-at-Home-Mom like that mofo minivan – clearly I am struggling with both!

But I do love the sound system. The source of the music. It’s not state-of-the-art or fancy in any way. It came standard with the car, and is a typical 2012 Honda Odyssey system. CD player. Radio. AM, FM and XM. (Yes a DVD player too, but that is used only on long road trips and no, driving to Costco is not a long road trip).

I love that sound system because it makes the drive, any drive, feel worth it. Most days, most times, I need a soundtrack. Music speaks to me or speaks for me or just lets me be me, as I traverse the roads and freeways, U-turns and one ways. The lyrics, the beat, the melody… they elevate the moment, the mood, the task at hand (namely, schlepping) to something less permanent, less obligatory and more enjoyable. And life is too short to be mired in the mundane, the tedious, the boring. Schlepping, let’s face it, is exactly that.

I channel-surf so quickly because it’s all digital, and pre-programmed, and brightly displayed in pretty blue lights on the dash. The song, the artist, the genre and sometimes even the year. I know where my preferred channels are stored, and if my favorite alternative rock isn’t doing it for me on Alt Nation, there’s always Dierks Bentley crooning country magic over on The Highway or even a random chart topper on Hits 1 to get me through the five o’clock drive (love that new Taylor Swift!). This week I discovered that the hidden value of Rick Astley lies in helping me survive Highway 13 not once, not twice, but five times in less than two hours. Never gonna give you up, 80s on 8!

But the real reason I channel-surf at lightening speed like some amateur DJ is because life is just too damn short to listen to music I don’t want to listen to. Music that doesn’t enhance the moment I’m in some way, some how. Daily driving can be mind-numbing, exhausting even while I’m doing nothing more than sitting on my butt, stopping, starting, accelerating and opening a sliding door with the press of a button to let a kid in or out. When we suddenly, spontaneously all join Garth Brooks on the final verse of “Friends in Low Places” even the endless gray of Highway 13 looks a little brighter.

Yesterday my head-bopping, finger-snapping boy reached out to change the channel. (He channel-surfs faster than I do when motivated). “Don’t touch it,” I said, as the opening chords of Spandau Ballet’s “Gold” filled the car. “This is music from my childhood.”

“But Mom, I like to listen to music from my childhood too,” he replied with a smile. He’s only ten.

I nodded slowly, appreciating that for him too, life is too short for music he doesn’t like.

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post.
Hosts: Kristi from Finding Ninee and Stephanie from Mommy, For Real
Guest hosts: Kelly from Just Typikal and Katia from IAMTHEMILK

This week’s sentence was: “Life is too short for…”

Shitty Mom Rebranded

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Nicki

I call myself a “Shitty Mom” at least once a day. Okay, more than that. A few times a day, minimum. That’s vague enough. Definitely every day those nine letters float breezily across my busy brain like a lazy sky-writer sending a message from up high. And then they slowly fade leaving the faintest outline in their place. Or they brand themselves hot, fierce and quick across my forehead, momentarily leaving an angry red scar.

I’m not sure any part of that phrase Shitty Mom even deserves capital letters. It’s more like shitty mom. Or shittymom. Whatever.

I feel like a shitty mom when I don’t walk my kindergartner to his classroom. I need to make my 8.30am exercise class and he knows the way on his own. When I don’t buy my 8^th grader the protractor he needs for tomorrow because I can’t face dealing with the Walgreen’s parking lot at rush hour for one protractor, and I thought I’d go later but one thing became ten and I didn’t. When I don’t make dinner every night, or even ensure there is something, anything to eat some time between 6-8pm. When my kids hear me curse, when I yell at them again, when I don’t volunteer for the class party. When I forget to remind my son to wash his face and put on deodorant (seriously?!), or when I tell my daughter her hair looks terrible. I’m like Karen from “Will & Grace”: “Honey, what’s up with that hair?”

Shittymom shittymom shittymom.

It’s okay though. I know I can’t be everywhere all the time. I have four children, each with their own needs, schedules, demands, requirements, tastes in food and personal hygiene preferences. And even if I had one less child, or one child, or one child more (never going to happen) I still wouldn’t be able to be everywhere, be everything, all the time. Plus I have needs and schedules and food requirements of my own – and you know, a lot of the time mine and theirs are not at all compatible. Fish sticks? No thanks. I’d rather have chocolate and a glass of wine.

The truth is, I’m not a shitty mom. I may be preoccupied, always late, mostly impatient, too busy to listen right now, or enjoying my book too much to swim or play with them. But it’s okay, because they are more than okay. They’re happy and healthy and some kind of independent. They get enough sleep every night, their clothes fit, they fight with their siblings and help each other out, laugh, whine, tell stories, and don’t stop eating. They shoot baskets, play soccer, say they’re bored, play Minecraft for hours, and also read and joke around and hang out with their friends.

And some of that happens because of who they are, but a lot of it happens because of who I am. Their not shitty mom.

So I’m rebranding myself. What I am is an Honest Mom. Uppercase Worthy!

As an Honest Mom I know:

A sip of mojito or wine won’t kill you, nor will it turn you into a premature alcoholic. I was having a conversation of my own when you asked if it was water, and I distractedly handed you the glass full of ice, mint leaves and a little too much vodka. Even though you’re ten (or five – it’s happened more than once and to more than one) it’s okay.

I do not have to bring snacks for you wherever we go. It’s perfectly acceptable for your tummy to be rumbly while you play on the slide or climb the big tree at the park. It’s only been an hour since lunch, and you can have a string cheese when we get home. And maybe your tummy is rumbling because it’s digesting.

Speaking of trees, I don’t have to watch your every move as you climb on that one. Or scale those rocks. Yes, it may be a little dangerous. You might fall. Scrape your toe. Even hurt your head, or worse. But you are strong and thoughtful and you can do it. Risky situations teach us to be brave, to know our limits.

It’s not serious if you hear me curse – not all the time, of course, but occasionally. Words are how we express ourselves, and sometimes the evocative F-word is how I express. Your ears are not going to burn off, and usually the words that are accessible are the ones you’re less likely to want to say in a moment of rebellion.

Similarly, it’s not a federal offense in my book if you use “stupid, idiot, shut up.” I’m not advocating mean language, and there are other words you could use instead, but these are words you hear in the world around you, in movies, even read in books, so why shouldn’t you use them?

I do not have to give you a reason for why I say No. Ever. I am your parent and you are the child, and No is No. Don’t ask why. I don’t feel like explaining for the hundredth time why you may not watch your fourth hour of TV. I don’t actually have a reason why you can’t have a sleepover, it just doesn’t feel right tonight so No. I am not going to tell you again about the value of money, and need versus want, and why it’s not necessary to buy that Lego Mixel, those high-top Converse sneakers, that ice-cream cone. Just No. “Because I said so” is a perfectly reasonable reason. Get on with it.

Shitty mom shrugs it off. Sighs in resignation or laughs in exasperation. Is fine with the way it is, but wonders if it could be, should be better.

Honest Mom knows it’s not going to get better. This is the way it is. And for her, and her kids, this is the best way.

Honest Mom owns it.

**With deep gratitude to my Honest Friend Lawrence, who insisted we reframe the conversation. Life-changing.**