Scenes from around the table, part 1: boys in the house

This is the first in a series of posts chronicling our last holiday season before baby arrives -- as they say, life is never the same afterward, so in the interest of capturing a few snapshots to remember this time, here are some jottings from moments that have lingered with me over a multi-destination Thanksgiving week.

For the first time in three decades, I will not be with my parents and sisters for Christmas. D and I made the decision last year to begin alternating the winter holidays with our families to make travel less hectic and the time we spend with each side more enjoyable. This year, Christmas falls to his kin, so Turkey Week is for mine.

Even if it's our last Thanksgiving before parenthood, it promises to be quite different from previous gatherings, if only for a few changes already anticipated around the table. Marketing Sis, the youngest of us, is bringing her fiancé to our parents' home for the first time, and Dr. Sis, the one between us, is slated to work the holiday in Boston while we congregate in the Texas panhandle. Then there's me, a week into this baby's final trimester. I'm guessing the familial anticipation for this much-wanted grandson/nephew will be hard to miss during our stay.

Dr. Sis's unavoidable absence aside, I'm looking forward to having a different sort of holiday as D and I wait in Denver on a layover Thanksgiving morning. Not counting the grandson/nephew, we will be three couples instead of three daughters, my parents, and my husband. Somehow, that balance feels better to me than that of holidays past, where as much as D has been part of the family, he's still also been that solitary in-law and we as a couple have had trouble reminding my parents that we are a couple.

I suspect too that my father will appreciate having the fiancé, whom I'll just call N, to even out the gender ratio while the women in the house are extra focused on all things baby-related. Don't get me wrong -- my father was so excited about becoming a grandfather that he told practically everyone in his town within days of receiving our news, including the random woman cutting his hair. But baby shower plans are understandably less interesting to him, especially since my mother and sisters are keeping them traditional -- female guests only.

N and Marketing Sis will be on our second flight, so D and I watch for them, taking guesses at what my sister, who has a passion for fashion, will be wearing. "Fuchsia scarf for sure," I say. "And either jeggings or a bold-print skirt."

"Don't forget the knee-high boots," D adds, smiling at my own sneaker-clad feet.

As much as I wish I were wearing my favorite boots to dress up my jeans and cardigan, Seattle's heavy November rains and the panhandle's occasional freak snowstorms are not suede-friendly, so I've left them at home. And the bright red and purple scarf I've chosen to add color to my otherwise neutral-toned top is folded into a pocket -- it is in the mid 60s outside, and the terminal, heated against more wintry temperatures, is oppressively warm, threatening to dissolve even the most smudge-proof eyeliner into a streaky mess. Only I didn't put any on this morning, figuring it would smear anyway while I was trying to sleep on our 5 a.m. flight. I know I'm going to feel plain next to my sister. But comfort, especially while traveling, is harder to come by these days, so I remind myself that I can always change when we get to Texas. Though most of what I've brought is still hardly designer label and the thought of putting on makeup when I'm already melting has little appeal.

It doesn't matter, I tell myself. In a few months, when you'll just want to be able to shower in between baby feedings, you'll laugh at yourself for even thinking about any of this.

It's true, but the thought intimidates me. I may be the least feminine of all the women in my family because of my stubbornly practical streak (and my tendency to balk at fashion's price tag), but it doesn't mean I like the threat of getting plainer with motherhood.

I'm jolted out of my thoughts momentarily as N, a tall, blond analogue of D, arrives, scanning the rows of low-slung vinyl for us through sleepy-looking eyes. We wave. My sister is nowhere in sight -- must have had a line at the restroom, N says -- so we begin the customary exchange of flight-related chit-chat while we wait for her: did you get out on time? run into any weather? sleep at all? Both D and N are Midwesterners from the same hometown, so I'm not worried they'll run out of conversation, but I do observe N surreptitiously to see how at ease he is. With the two of us, pretty relaxed. The stutter he's always had, which I imagine gets worse with nerves, is minimally apparent. I wonder how he'll do around my parents, though. For his sake, I am glad that D has already gotten them used to having a son-in-law around. Not that my parents were uptight, exactly, on D's first holiday with us, but a boy? Under their roof? (Never mind that we were married already.) How much do we feed him? What do we offer him for entertainment? What do we talk to him about? Will he understand and respect our customs even though he isn't Chinese? All questions that my parents asked me in some fashion before our arrival that Christmas six years ago. I'm not sure if D picked up on their anxiety then, but I knew it was there and felt somewhat responsible for keeping him from treading into any territory that might turn their worries into disapproval. I wonder if my sister has given N some pointers, as I once gave D, for navigating the family landscape. After our own experience, I find myself feeling a little protective of their well-being as a couple, even though I know they will have to find their own way with my parents.

When Marketing Sis finally appears, D and I are right on all counts -- scarf, boots, and skirt -- but I hardly have a moment to laugh about this before she is homed in on her nephew, a hand on each side of my abdomen. "Hi, baby," she croons, as if she's been talking to him like this for an age, even though this is the first time she has seen me since I got pregnant. "Oh my god, your boobs look fabulous!" she says to me.

"Thanks ... ?" I say. I'm not at all surprised that Marketing Sis has no qualms about announcing this at full volume, but I leave a mild note of did-you-really-just-say-that-in-public in my response for the benefit of N, who, to my amusement, seems intent on pretending he hasn't heard a thing. He may be comfortable with us, but girl talk at its most physical is still an untouchable arena. ("He'd like to hang on to the delusion that we shit gold and rainbows," Marketing Sis once told me.) I, on the other hand, am more thrown by the ease with which my sister lays her cheek against my belly while telling the baby that she is his aunt -- I'm not used to having people touch me this way, as if the so-called bump is there expressly to be rubbed -- but I'm over it in a second. She is my sister. We've slept in the same bed half-naked before, so this is actually less intimate. And it's totally endearing to listen to her falling in love with a baby she can't even see yet.

Our flight is announced. Marketing Sis gives the baby one last pat and then we're headed down the jet bridge, into the promise of a Thanksgiving that will be like no other.

For more from this series, please click here.