Head: 49 cm (95%)
Height(!): 32 1/2 inches (90%)– I’m so excited we’re finally measuring height and not length!
Weight: 26 pounds 13 ounces (75%)

Ari has taken to making out with me. As in a million kisses on the mouth over and over. Aside from my husband and Ari, and my very deep appreciation for their existence, it may be the best thing thats ever happened to me.

I haven’t always been that good at picking good girlfriends, or at being thankful for the really good ones. I’m not sure when exactly, but both of these things have definitely changed.

At our wedding, I inadvertently caused a small scandal by inviting a few of my friends to help me get ready. We didn’t have a wedding party other than my sister and Roy’s brother, so it was my way of including those friends privately. Then, I remember thinking a lot about those women that were essential to who I’d become at that moment, those that had brought me there, if you will, and those were the ones I invited.

Life is different now.

I’m still thankful for those women, and many more, but now I’m thankful in that I recognize there are people I can really depend on for all my (and our) daily trials and tribulations. That the standard needn’t be serious or formal. There is a lightness that has come with this shift, a joy and a profound thankfulness.

Roy said something to me recently after an evening with one of my mommy friends and her family– that he loved our banter in that it was totally fun and smart and exciting and not competitive.

Another mommy friend had a friends-only Thanksgiving party Saturday (their 9th annual), and watching her around her friends, recognizing I’d been welcomed into a family of people she’s known her whole life (“should I have warned you that once you’re in I don’t let go?”) made me feel immensely fortunate for all that they add to ours.

One of my oldest and dearest friends came over with her and her husbands entire immediate family on Friday, many of whom I’ve known for almost 20 years. At the end of Thanksgiving itself, Jos and I had a drunken lovefest (I mean, she is practically my sister-wife and she did delivery my son).

I could go on and on…the point being that I guess you have to be pretty whole yourself to really appreciate and promulgate the same in the people around you. A couple of weeks ago, I felt a little Mean Girls’d by a subset of women in our local moms group, who omitted to invite me (and others) for a moms night out. In thinking about why I was bothered, I realized I wasn’t really bothered. I mean, my ego was (I’ve never not been a cool kid, and it hurt my feelings a little to think that I wasn’t perceived that way any more), but I find most of that group in particular to be competitive and judgmental and kind of nasty, and I realized– I have better friends than this– why do I care?

I have two points to make here. First (and I say this as a girl who was a guy-friends-only-girl for a long time), women friends- the really really good ones- are special. We get through things together. Second (and excuse me for laying on the cheese), when we are at our best, we really do make the world go round. I’m serious! I don’t know what we or the men in our lives would do without our collective wisdom (cause you know they aren’t really talking about it with each other like we are).

I love you guys.

It’s been a packed weekend. We had a bunch of people over Friday for leftovers (which of course required more cooking), and went to a Thanksgiving remix on Saturday at Sara’s friend Katie’s house. Ari got sugar high on pumpkin pie. Shula and Moti have been here all week, and it reminded me how much I miss having them around. Today we took Ari to Sausalito and went to Heath Ceramics (wonderful, but pricey) and had lunch at Fish, an outdoor shack. Ari ate us all under the table.

I’m sure Moti will link to his Flickr photos in the comments.

Good times. I fell asleep for an hour during dinner. Sara dropped the brine bag (with turkey inside) on the floor. Moti held his drinks. Ari loved it all.

I just woke up from a dream. Writing it down quick.

I was at an Internet conference. This company that we might do a deal with was there — the CEO asked me to come work for him. Then he had me deliver a presentation of his to the entire conference, PowerPoint-karaoke style.
There was a Bonsai tree at the conference.

… now looking at this a couple of days later. Wow this is a strange post. Not sure why I felt the need to write this down. Especially the Bonsai tree part.

Lunchtime visitors!

I had a friend visit my office today, and he asked where I live. So I went to Google Maps to show him the neighborhood, and the street view. And then – whoa!

(The Google mapsmobile drove past our house a few months ago, but it never occurred to me…)

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what I want in life. With Ari, with Sara, with work, with family and friends. What kinds of things do I want to bring into the world? Which successes matter?

In college, a lot of people had a hard time adjusting to some new realities: in high school, they’d been kings. Valedictorian, captain of the football team, star of the musical, student body president… (and more than a few people were *all* of those things). In college, with a couple thousand other kings, they discovered that reality didn’t match their self-image. They couldn’t be best at everything, and maybe not even at anything.

I’d never really been best: never the smartest kid (even at the eight-student Heschel School, there was someone smarter, and in high school I wasn’t even close to being tops), never best at an activity (my debate partner Amol kind of carried our two-man team, and definitely did 95% of the work), etc. So college wasn’t much of an adjustment. Same same. No big blow to the ego.

Today I saw an excerpt from the new Omar bin Laden (Osama’s fourth son) book, about his dad.

“My father was accustomed to being No. 1 in everything he did. He was the most skilled horseman, the fastest runner, the best driver, the top marksman. Many people found my father to be a genius, particularly when it came to mathematical skills. He was so well known for the skill that men would come to our home and ask him to match wits against a calculator. He never failed…. I believed [my father] to be not only the most brilliant but also the tallest man in the world. In truth, I would have to go to Afghanistan as a teenager to meet a man taller than my father.”

My conclusions:
1. I am not Osama bin Laden.
2. Maybe part of his psychosis has to do with a need to prove he’s the best. Maybe he’s just not done proving it.
3. Maybe the Buddhists are right and desire is really the root of all trouble.
4. Sons really, really love their fathers. (Ari, if I ever go on a terrorist killing spree I give you permission not to idolize me.)

Where should a person leave his or her mark? What should a person want to want? Not to prove they are #1 in all things, for sure. To know they are one of many, and looking for that thing that they and they alone can bring to the world. That’s one reason family matters so much: only you can be the father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, cousin, uncle, grandfather, grandmother, stepson, father-in-law, etc. in your family, and nobody else can be best at that. As for other things to want… need to think about that some more. There are definitely some things beyond family that matter, that only you can bring into the world.

Shula, please no comments on this post.

P.S. The future is here. I wrote this post (and posted it) while on a plane. And then I video chatted from my seat (11D). My quality of life just went up 15%.