Misjudged

It's the day of our weekly parent-baby class at one of the local hospitals, and I am running late as usual. Not that it matters -- it's a casual group for new moms and dads with babes-in-arms (or strollers or carriers or whatever works for your particular infant), and people trickle into the meet-up as they're able to. But I'm late, and before O., I was rarely ever, and I haven't yet reached the point of not caring.

Despite numerous car trips with O. since his birth, I'm apparently also still not used to using the rear passenger doors to get him in and out of his car seat in tight parking spaces. The clunk the door makes when I open it, hitting the SUV next to us, startles me. What the hell? I think. How did I so badly misjudge --

"You have got to be kidding me," a voice says. The driver's door to the SUV has opened, and a woman with a deep tan, enormous sunglasses, and a suit that hugs her buxom figure leans out. "Did you scratch my car?" she asks in a tone that implies that she's sure I have.

I gape and look because it's reflexive. With relief, I note that the black finish is clean, save for some pollen on the surface from the flowering trees that are everywhere, but the woman doesn't pause after her question. "Look what you did," she says, running a manicured finger over the metal. I look again automatically and see nothing but the track she's left in the dust as she continues to berate me for my carelessness, shaking the honey-colored highlights in her perfectly layered coppery brown hair. Do I touch the door to see what she's talking about? Or will she get angrier if she thinks I'm calling her assessment into question? I can't get a word in as her scolding rolls on, disdain dripping off every syllable.

I can feel myself shrinking into the folds of my sweater and yoga pants, suddenly hyperaware of my barely kempt appearance -- bare-faced, hair badly in need of a trim, ragged cuticles from constant bottle washing and treating all manner of stains in O.'s laundry. That I could even fit into my pre-baby clothes at this point after O.'s arrival felt like an accomplishment before I left the house, but now this woman is leveling a kind of contempt at me that I've never encountered before. And this, I realize, is what she wants me to hear. She's used to looking down on people, I suspect, as she wears her attitude like a favorite, broken-in pair of designer jeans.

Make it stop, a desperate voice whispers in my ear, the voice that's felt powerless in the face of motherhood with each day of struggle to get O. fed. I don't have the wherewithal to process anything else, least of all being talked down to. Do whatever you have to so she'll just go away, the voice begs.

"I'm so sorry," I say -- and it's true, I am. But I'm not above playing the pity card to shut down the harangue that's gone on for way too long. I gesture into my back seat. "I have a ten-week-old baby and I'm completely sleep-deprived."

"Oh, like that's any excuse," the woman spits, the acid in her venom so sharp that my eyes sting. But, as if she knows it's pointless to dig her stilettos any further into my dignity, she gets back into her car and slams the door. Sits there as she was when I first pulled in. I hope against hope that she'll start her engine and go, but she remains. I'm half tempted to knock on her window and unload a few choice words instead of letting her have the last ones in this way, but I'm too stunned by what she's implied: Motherhood? Counts for nothing.

Not that the attitude is one I've never encountered before, but I was never on the receiving end of the insult until now.

Reeling from the near-physical force of her words, I gingerly slip into my own car, unbuckle O., wrangle him into the floppy cloth carrier I've wrapped around my torso and then ease us both out again. I open the front passenger door with even greater care, trying not to imagine the woman's scornful gaze boring through her sunglasses into my back as I squeeze the bulky diaper bag out. And then I walk away, praying that my tires won't be slashed and my windshield broken when we return.

I don't start crying until I get into the classroom. I try to hide it, looking intently downward at O. as I wrangle him back out of the carrier into my arms. I press him to my shoulder and bury my face in his little neck, kiss his downy-soft hair, tears dripping all the while. He bobs his head, looking around, and coos. It's a relief to hold him, to feel his solid body nestling against mine in complete trust, to know that nothing else has to matter to either of us in that moment.

As the initial flood of emotion finally begins to ebb, the voice in my ear returns. She can't possibly be a mother, it whispers, trying to comfort me. Otherwise, she would have been more understanding. But even as this thought bubbles up, I bat it away. You shouldn't judge her on that basis, I counter. Doing so makes you no better than she is.

Because that is what I was doing when I made my bid for mercy, wasn't it? Because I sized her up too, assumed she wasn't going to understand, and in a way, let her know I had more important things to worry about than her damn paint job. I'm suddenly ashamed. I'm not sure which to feel worse about: being denigrated by this woman or discovering that I'm guilty after a fashion of dismissing her too.

O. wriggles, trying to pull his fists to his mouth. I take him off my shoulder and settle him on my lap, soaking up the baby-sweet innocence in his gaze. It's too late to go back and change my half-assed apology. But I'm aware now of how easy it is to be drawn into taking the measure of someone else -- how parenthood has suddenly put so many more of these traps before me.

Mother versus mother, mother versus not. There just isn't enough space to maneuver between such narrow terms without risk of a slam, intended or otherwise.

*
I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

Tongue-tied

Friday, March 29th, 10:55 a.m.

Today is D.'s first day back at work after his month of paternity leave, and it's just the two of us, O. and me, in the bunker of our bedroom. A pile of clean laundry sits on the unmade bed and random receipts and invoices from the last few weeks, most of them for medical care, are stacked on the floor and the ottoman to the nursing chair I don't use for nursing. Instead, I sit there solely to pump these days, every two hours. O., asleep in his rocking seat just within arm's reach, is snoring to the rhythm of the pump motor as I type.

Saturday, March 30th, 8:20 a.m.

I could write this as if it were one continuous post, but the reality is that I can only put down words every so many hours, when O. doesn't happen to need feeding while I'm pumping. I've rigged a hands-free flange holder from a strapless bra that always threatened to slip down whenever I wore it -- there was little for it to grip. It's serving its new purpose with much better success. Even when I'm holding O. in my lap, his powerful little legs kicking in protest when I take the bottle away to burp him, the bra does not yield when his foot swipes the collection containers dangling by his toes. Brings new meaning to the mother of invention indeed.

10:20 a.m.

We determined, after seeing a lactation consultant and an occupational therapist who specializes in infant feeding problems, that O. was born with a tongue tie. The ligament under his tongue was too tight and couldn't allow him to nurse properly, even though he made a remarkable effort for the first three weeks of his life. I had no idea he was struggling -- I just knew he was chewing me to pieces, but I thought it was normal. Breastfeeding is supposed to be painful at first, the on-call pediatrician who saw O. for jaundice said when he was three days old. I accepted that -- I'd planned to breastfeed unless there were extraordinary circumstances preventing it in hopes that O. would be better protected against developing the kinds of food allergies I have. I assumed the blistering would eventually toughen me up. As it was, O. was gaining weight at twice the average rate once we got through the initial postpartum weight loss every baby experiences.

4:15 p.m.

But then O. hit his first growth spurt and couldn't get the milk he needed, despite all the clamping and gnawing he'd been doing to compensate. Once we discovered the tongue tie, it was clear we had to get it clipped -- he was making himself gag too often when he tried to pull his tongue back and he couldn't stick it out far enough to form a proper latch. So we took him to yet another person who could do the procedure. It's a quick one, but I could not watch. The last I saw of O., drunk on the sugar water he'd been given before the frenotomy, was his tiny body swaddled in a hospital-issue blanket, his large, dark eyes gazing up at the nurse who would hold him down. And then the nurse practitioner who performed the clip was pressing gauze into his mouth and dancing from foot to foot with him in her arms while his face turned pink with his silent scream.

6:20 p.m.

We are 10 days from that afternoon and O.'s attempts to nurse are no better, at least from a nutritive standpoint. He no longer leaves me bloody, but he can't get a satisfactory latch, even though we both try so hard. We are now being sent to a group of occupational/physical therapists at Seattle Children's Hospital -- it seems there are more issues with O.'s mouth that we won't be able to address until he has an oral motor evaluation. The residual sensitivity he appears to have -- namely, that hyperactive gag -- is preventing him from being able to suck effectively.

Sunday, March 31st, 5:30 a.m.

It is hard not to be consumed by the quest for answers and assistance. It feels as if for as long as I've been stuck in this seat to pump -- the entire month, as of today -- I've been making appointments for O. and looking for recommendations on the most effective ways to increase milk supply. As he began to have more trouble nursing, I stopped producing as much milk because he wasn't extracting it well. Now we're playing catch-up. D. has a spreadsheet going for the data -- volumes, time elapsed between pumping sessions, time of day. Yes, we're geeks. But if charting will tell us whether we're actually gaining anything, then I can decide whether the hours I'm investing are worth what I'm losing in sleep and, more importantly, time with O.

8:30 a.m.

Of course, O. doesn't understand this when all he wants is to snuggle on my chest, flanges be damned. It's my heartbeat he wants against his cheek, to lull him to sleep when he's tired and to be comforted in his alert moments. Try as I have, I can't find a way to hold him in that position, so we are stuck at best at arms' length, which for both of us is an enormous disappointment. O. knits his little brows, throwing fists in all directions in search of something, anything, to pacify himself.

10:30 a.m.

"Talk to him," D. suggests. But I'm a mediocre conversationalist with the non-verbal set. I feel ridiculous narrating what I'm doing -- really, I'm not doing anything, just waiting passively for the pump to finish its business -- so that's out. And I sense O. is smart enough to know I can do better. D., an extrovert through and through, just has to stick his ever expressive face in front of O. to fascinate him; chit-chat is a bonus.

12:30 p.m.

So I practice my Cantonese on him. Very basic things, as my own retained vocabulary from childhood is scant: the words for parts of his body or a narration of what he's looking at. I follow with the English equivalent. Nothing like doubling the time from one sentence to another when you don't know what to say to replace the language of touch.

Monday, April 1st, 3:55 a.m.

Does he really recognize my voice from his time in utero? I wonder. For D.'s month off, I've had to spend so much time tied to the pump that D. has been O.'s primary caregiver. Bottle-feeding, changing, playing, walking him around the living room in the middle of the night -- it's no wonder I've had trouble finding a connection to this intense little soul now that I'm all he has during the weekday. For the last two weeks, when my face has been in front of his, he's stared past me into my hair. I tell myself it's because he's attracted to high-contrast things, but I worry he's forgotten who I am.

9:10 p.m.

It's also amazing the difference a day makes. Today was our second on our own with this pumping schedule, and for most of it, O. made eye contact with me. And he smiled.

Tuesday, April 2nd, 8:05 p.m.

We've been given exercises to do with O. to help loosen the muscles of his mouth and increase the range of motion of his tongue. He hated having our fingers in and around his mouth right after the frenotomy -- no surprise -- but I've figured out how to make that more, shall we say, palatable. I wait until he's looking at me and then do one of the lip stretches with my fingers on myself while making an interesting noise, such as clicking my tongue, in rhythm with the left-right motions -- we have to push and pull the upper and lower lips sideways. Then I do the same on him. He thinks it's a great game as long as I stay on the outside of his mouth -- he opens it almost as if to laugh and makes cooing sounds. He still doesn't like my touching his gums or tongue, though. He used to welcome having a finger to suck on for comfort, but now he grabs our hands and forcibly pulls them away when we go for the exercise where we have to press on his tongue to encourage him to form it into a trough (it'll help him maintain suction at the breast). I did manage to get him to take my finger briefly when he was sleepy today, just for pacification. It's as if regaining his trust is part of his therapy too.

Thursday, April 4th, 4:15 a.m.

Tomorrow we'll have made it through a work week. I've measured the hours until D. returns each day by pumping intervals -- five, on average, before I can have his help again with O. I consider it a victory if I can feed myself and accomplish one other task in between sessions if O. is asleep: folding laundry, paying bills, anything that can be done not seated in front of my laptop, which is where the pump is set up. I baked bread yesterday. Two beautiful, springy-centered, golden-crusted, gluten-free loaves. I'd mixed the dry ingredients Monday afternoon and was never able to get enough time until 48 hours later to add the wet and then put it all in the oven. But I anticipated that. And I even mixed two extra rations of dry ingredients and bagged them for next time.

9:15 a.m.

I've realized after these simultaneously long and short days -- long when you can never get more than three hours' sleep because of pumping demands, short because there is never enough time in between to finish tasks that you used to count on being able to complete in one attempt -- that a to-do list is laughably moot. So I've renamed it the Wish List. I jot down what I'd like to get done on it and impose no time limits. It gives me the sense that those things still matter, that it is okay to prioritize the time for them, even if it means an entire day's scattered free minutes have to be used to get one wish fulfilled. The bread was worth it. It also keeps me from forgetting the little things that would otherwise nag at me every time I'm reminded of them while I'm attached to the pump or have my hands full with O. (sometimes both). Move ottoman was one of today's wishes, the one that came with the nursing chair. I've wanted to get it out of our bedroom for the entire month as it's not usable at the moment. (Never lean back while pumping unless you really do want to cry about spilled milk.)

7:25 p.m.

I won't say I've accepted all this as the new normal yet. But we're surviving it until the next turn in the road. We'll see the occupational/physical therapy group in just under a week, and then, who knows. At least we've proved to ourselves that some form of life as we once knew it can continue -- only in discrete chunks. O. is worth it. I just can't wait until the pump is no longer between him and me.

*

This post happened to coincide with a prompt from Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below.

At four weeks

... you are feisty and fierce in your demands, little owl. You've kept us on our toes since mere days after you were born, with jaundice that required in-home nursing care. You finally learned how to latch to the breast but then refused to nurse two weeks later for reasons we can't explain. That mild fever you had the same day? A change in the musculature of your mouth? We're at a loss. Thankfully you've gained weight on our alternative measures -- round-the-clock pumping for the bottle feedings we swore we'd only rely on until we got your nipple strike figured out. You'll latch now, but only briefly, and you draw blood sometimes before milk.

You're learning at last how to bring your fists to your mouth to comfort yourself when we are not enough, which feels like it has been every day since March arrived. Your cries break my heart even as my own impatience to find answers takes away any confidence in my ability to choose what to do next for you. Keep you alive, yes. But there are so many avenues we've gone down, trusting the guides -- pediatricians, lactation consultants -- who were supposed to help but only compounded our problems.

I've jotted down parts of the story of your arrival -- also complicated and fraught with decisions I wish we hadn't had to make, but there we were and here you are. I remind myself that you are still safe and whole. Even as we continue to find ourselves against these hurdles no one ever talked about or prepared us for. (And why would they have, given how unusual your circumstances seem to be? No sense scaring expectant parents further.) Every time I go to write about you, thinking we've finally cleared the latest obstacle -- now, now we can report with some distance and relief that all is well, I tell myself -- something else catches at our heels and threatens to throw you from our grasp.

But now you're bundled skin-to-skin with me inside the fleece jacket I've zipped around us both. We huddle against each other, tear-stained but not at odds for once. And while you sleep, I can hold off on deciding what we should be doing next for you, for me, for all of us on this wild course that seems to have no end. What I would give just to remain this way, in this quiet hour holding you, and not have you wake again just yet, hungry.

He's here

Our little Troubadour sneaked into this life on the last morning in the year of the dragon. He was a wee bit ahead of schedule for those among our friends and family who were guessing he'd be a lunar new year baby, but we're delighted he decided to show up when he did.

We are still getting acquainted after his first week, which has been full of adventures -- some good and some medically unnerving -- so a proper account of his arrival will come later. For now, though, we're pleased to introduce this tiny night owl to you.

O., meet the world.

Scenes from around the table, part 4: prodding

This is the fourth and final post in a series 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.

Dr. Sis is already in bed with her iPhone docked and its music playing when I come out of her bathroom the night before the baby shower. Rolls of teal tissue, turquoise wrapping paper, and silver ribbon lean against one another in the corner amidst shipping boxes I have been instructed not to poke around in -- quarters in Dr. Sis's Boston condo are cozy, leaving few options for hiding gifts except covering them in plain sight. I climb under the comforter, trying not to disturb a second pile of boxes on my side of the bed.

The clutter, some hardly shower-related, spills into the living room in the form of shoes, books, cleaning supplies, grocery bags. In my own home, the mess would drive me crazy, but I respect that this is my sister's space and that she's a junior resident. That she can find time to feed herself is already a feat on her demanding schedule. Preparing to host a party? Unimaginable. And yet, that's exactly what she's been doing all evening, to my amazement. She and Marketing Sis have already wrapped a large pile of packages now nestled on an arm chair in the dining nook, waiting to be opened the following afternoon.

Through my homebody's eye, I see more than just gifts buried in the corners of this condo. It's a part of Dr. Sis's life, which I've lost the ability to inquire about without feeling like I'm intruding. She is, and has always been, someone who gets her joy from being around other people, usually in spaces not her own -- or maybe it's that she immerses herself in that which is outside her home because the world behind her own door is something she'd rather not steep in alone for too long. So things pile up and get left behind as she comes and goes, stopping to sleep but not, I imagine, to be still here. Whenever she is home, she runs Pandora or tracks from her iTunes account, the music, it seems, a buffer against too much rumination.

I want to be wrong about all of that. Except, perhaps, the part about joy -- if she really does find her happiness outside, out loud, out and about, more power to her. Just because I'm a homebody doesn't mean I think she ought to be.

On this night, I'm not sure what kind of mood she's in, but heart-to-hearts have been rare between us, so I don't expect to plunge into any heavy conversation. We have so little time and we both need sleep; it would be unwise to tread too far into those questions I'm dying to ask anyway. What is it to be where you are now, doing what you're doing? Who's in your life these days? What makes you tick? Basic things I thought I used to know about her.

I admit I haven't been forthcoming with the same information myself. When I have offered up those pieces of my life to her, though, I've never felt satisfied with them. The true answers to most of those questions are that I don't know, it's complicated, things are still a work in progress, I need more time to think. And Dr. Sis, an analyst by nature and in her line of work, delves deeper, harder, faster than I can regroup to get more detailed answers out. She has to be direct, efficient in diagnosing her patients. I don't like feeling like a patient when we start talking. Tell her this, and she'll likely respond, "Really. Well, say more about that."

It's like falling into a trap. A heart-to-heart shouldn't feel like a catch-22 -- and yet. And yet. I wonder if having a mind as sharp as hers is partly why she keeps her music running. I imagine a brain like that needs a regulator, to quiet its inclinations to examine, evaluate, spin. I know reflection has been a big part of Dr. Sis's medical training, but too much introspection can be more harmful than helpful. Writing has its similarities.

Dr. Sis is poking around on her laptop, so I scoot down under the comforter away from the light from the screen, even though I'm not quite sleepy. I expect her to drop off soon -- she's just come off studying for and taking a two-day certification exam on top of taking call over part of Thanksgiving weekend and hosting a Turkey Day dinner -- but Dr. Sis turns toward me, a thoughtful expression on her face, and begins prodding at my belly.

After Marketing Sis's unabashed interactions with her unborn nephew, this doesn't surprise me. I'm amused at the difference in each sister's approach, though. While Marketing Sis has talked to, laid an ear against, and even kissed the belly, Dr. Sis methodically examines it for landmarks. She palpates low, just as my OB has in recent weeks, looking for identifiers I can't name. "He's supposedly rotated downward," I say. Dr. Sis nods and continues to press and poke, her other hand now at the top of my abdomen as if to take the measure of her nephew's body.

"There's an appendage," she says as he squirms a little.

"How can you tell?" I ask. Even though my sister's focus is not in obstetrics, she has done a rotation in the field and delivered her share of babies. I'm awed that she can find a fetal heartbeat with just her stethoscope, fascinated that the random movements I feel under my skin make a difference between heel and head to her. The baby, not so much -- he suddenly kicks vigorously beneath my sister's fingers, as if perturbed. We look at each other, both a little startled, and laugh.

"I'm sorry," she says to the nephew. To me: "When those parts are next to each other but you can feel them moving independently, that's how you know." Dr. Sis makes a flippery motion with her two hands as our middle school swim team coach used to show us when we were learning how to execute an efficient flutter kick.

Then she lets the belly be, respecting its resident's protests. Too much, those kicks seem to say. For once, though, I don't mind the prodding.

For more from this series, please click here.

It's not nesting if it involves fleas

At nearly 11 p.m. on Saturday, when 30-somethings without kids are likely out and 30-somethings with kids are likely out cold, I'm holding a one-quart Pyrex measuring cup full of borax powder, swinging it like a censer over the living room carpet. The cat is upstairs in the laundry room, crying to be let out, but as long as the floors are coated in this fine, white dust that I'm counting on for salvation, my will isn't bending on that score.

It has been six days since the discovery of flea "dirt" -- the blood meal that fleas excrete like little pepper grains -- in our cat's coat, and seven since our vacuum happened to break down. Impeccable timing. While we're fortunate to have caught the problem very early -- our indoor-only cat almost certainly picked up the fleas from an indoor-outdoor cat whose house she shared while we were traveling over Christmas -- I'm still kicking myself for not having the vet treat her on a preventive level, knowing the risks of boarding her with D's friend, the owner. Never mind that said owner failed to mention that he suspected his cat's flea treatments hadn't been working. I try not to think about what we could have done differently and concentrate on getting the borax distributed evenly over the carpet. And here I was a week ago, just hoping to get the vacuum repaired in time to do a once-over on the house before this baby's arrival.

Would I call that pre-flea impulse nesting? Not really. That instinct everybody keeps asking me about is there, but only so far as the preservation of future sanity goes. Of course I want to get the baby room furniture assembled; the baby laundry washed and folded; the extra meals cooked, labeled, and frozen -- so I won't have to do it once the baby is here. But no, I'm not scrambling to organize my sock drawer by brand and color or alphabetize the spice cabinet.

In the name of making more space, I would love to purge our closets of clothes we haven't worn in several years, books from long-finished college classes that we haven't been able to resell, electronics that are obsolete enough to be laughed off Craigslist. While we've gone as minimal and practical as possible in deciding what we truly need or wish to have for this tiny person, who promises to outgrow it all quickly enough, the sheer volume of what other well-meaning friends have been sending us in the last few weeks is beginning to threaten our storage capacity. Or at least the limits I currently believe in maintaining -- yes, there is always a way to make room, but is that really a practice I want to embrace without reservations when this child will be accumulating things wherever we are for the next 18 years?

These thoughts scroll through my mind as I swing the glass back and forth, back and forth, over the room D has helped me clear of all furniture except the couches. The next morning, I will vacuum with our freshly serviced vacuum, hoping that the borax will have desiccated any eggs or fleas overnight. It's not the kind of purge I envisioned, but the irony of it is almost funny. Not funny enough, though, to keep me from asking why this now, of all things?

I finish dusting the carpet, set the heavy glass on the stairs, and massage my aching hand. It's advisable to work the borax into the deeper fibers, so I make a slow circuit of the room in blue running shoes turned gray from their coating of powder. The cat mumbles to herself upstairs, giving up on me for the night, and it's finally quiet. I've been lucky not to have the raging insomnia so many women have told me is part and parcel of the third trimester, but I am on this evening a little too overcharged to want sleep -- I'd just welcome the chance to sit. Still, the room goes on, suddenly much larger as I make myself side-step, ankle to ankle, around the perimeter, working my way back toward the stairs.

Just let this be done, I think, tempted to turn my methodical pacing into a mad grapevine. There are too many other things I'd rather be doing to prepare not just our home but my state of mind for this baby. But to give in to that desire -- to give up my controlled march so I can get some control back elsewhere -- is the paradoxical opposite of surrender. Maintaining this slow dance is the very act of yielding that I know I'm terrible at. And I'm about to bring into the world a little being who will need me to do just that -- ignore the closets, the old books and electronics, and the mental space they occupy.

So I traverse the room, step by step, carrying us both across the powdery landscape I've committed to tamping down. And I tell myself that nesting for me may be clearing out the detritus of old lives. But only so that I can take on this new one.

*
I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below!

Scenes from around the table, part 3: needles and threads

This is the third 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.

As the sun fades from the kitchen mid-afternoon, my mother furrows her brow at the knitting draped over her knees. The two pieces of a cowl she's trying to put together with three needles are a jumble of burgundy loops at the row where they should join, some strangely tight, others oddly loose, in a stockinette pattern that should be completely even. She mumbles to herself as she peers at the instructions, counts by twos in Cantonese along the width of the cowl and then utters with dismay, "I'm missing a stitch!"

Across the table, I set my own knitting on my lap and wait to see if she wants help. For the last hour, my mother has been going back and forth over the same few rows, taking out mistakes only to add other ones, and it is all I can do to let her continue without intervention -- getting more involved risks disrupting the balance we've managed to achieve on this visit so far. No fights or gross misunderstandings, as we are prone to have at least once per trip.

We've been talking, certainly -- just light conversation about nothing of great importance. Unfortunately, I suspect the more she speaks, the more errors she makes in her work. Neither of us would win contests for being able to walk and chew gum. But my gradual retreat for her sake from the chit-chat in our knitting circle of two hasn't seemed to prevent her from gabbing on, interrupting herself only to exclaim over new tangles.

This time still, she returns to counting, trying to determine where her stitch has fallen, so I go back to the little blue sweater on my own needles. The piece I'm working on has been growing at a creep, not because the pattern is hard but because the numerous cables are slow-going. I think of the intricately textured baby vests and cardigans Nga Po, my mother's mother, used to turn out so quickly for all of her grandchildren and have to marvel at her skill. No patterns, no guidelines, just intuition. "Nga Po could look at someone else's work and duplicate it, even resize it," my mother tells me whenever we talk about her mother's talents.

"Nga Po taught you to knit, right?" I ask.

"The basics," my mother says. "She was so patient. Whenever I messed up, I'd take my work to her and she'd help me fix it. Every time, no matter how tangled up. She was so good too -- I don't know how she could figure out where I'd made my mistakes, it was so bad sometimes!"

I, too, can only wonder how my grandmother could see the often deceptive logic of stitches meant to twist, cross, double, or join in their over-under fashion to produce the leaves, diamonds, and other figures she'd create in an evening -- frequently while playing mahjong -- for the tiny garments she'd send us. I try to picture her, the same two lines between her eyebrows that are now between my mother's, as she peers at my mother's needles. She holds the mass of yarn in both hands, her long fingers gently stretching the web of loops and holes that spell out their secrets in a script only she can read, and suddenly the point of one needle flicks into action. It noses into the heart of a row, fishes up some length of yarn, the other needle grabs it and begins to work in tandem, and like magic, the tangle is transformed. It has happened too quickly for me to see what she's done, but there's the panel of knits and purls, whole again.

This isn't the only moment in which I've tried to draw my grandmother's quiet presence near during these months of preparation for motherhood. Because the beginning of this pregnancy was shaky -- there were questions about the baby's viability around 7-8 weeks -- we waited as long as possible before telling our families our good news. So in the first trimester, while we watched anxiously for signs that we could breathe more easily, I placed my grandmother's photo on my nightstand. Please protect this baby, I asked her, a mother of six, before turning off the light at the end of the day. While I've never practiced ancestor worship as her generation did, the idea that she was always a guardian to the integrity of her family -- the thread that drew it close even in her old age -- made her seem a natural confidante for my worries. And, of course, all the questions and hopes and bizarre hormone-induced dreams I'd wake up to the next morning, unable to share them yet with anyone else.

Now in the darkening kitchen, there is only the whish of one needle against another -- my mother has stopped talking; her error must be serious. I glance at the clock. The following day, we are both slated to head to Boston, where my sisters are throwing a baby shower for me, and neither of us is packed. But I resist the urge to go fold my clean laundry for the trip while my mother's concentration deepens.

There is much I wish I could talk about with my mother while we still have this time alone together -- all that I kept between me and my grandmother's picture, to start with, and the roller coaster of anticipation I've been on as this final trimester has begun. In Boston, we'll be busy with shower preparations -- more cooking, at the very least -- and my sisters will be there, of course. Not that I'm not looking forward to seeing them, but my mother is an even more scattered person when all of us are gathered. Like this woman who can't help putting more tangles in her knitting just because we're talking, my mother is practically impossible to have a real conversation with in the presence of all three daughters. She'll ask one person a question and in the same breath turn to another to comment about something else before the first can answer. I find myself stepping away from her attempts to divide her attention in this fashion because it feels petty -- and futile -- to want her to focus for once on each of us, one at a time.

All the more reason to talk now, though from the harried look on my mother's face, this isn't the time either. But just as I start to tuck my work back in its bag, my mother lifts her knitting from her lap, turns it left and right, and shakes her head. "This is a disaster," she says. She leans across the table, holding out her needles. "C, can you be Nga Po for me?"

I'm momentarily thrown by her almost plaintive tone. In an instant, that image of my grandmother holding my mother's tangled yarn comes back to me, and it is at once endearing and painful. It's idealized in my imagination, I know, but it's the quintessential picture of a mother-daughter moment, the little girl at her mother's elbow, trusting that she will make everything right. I've missed having that trust in my own mother, especially throughout this pregnancy. Not that she would have had any way to influence the outcome of this baby's life in his first tenuous weeks, but on an emotional level, I needed to know she would be an ear that would truly listen. Which she hasn't been for so long partly because I've been too skittish to try confiding in her, afraid of being hurt by her response, distracted or otherwise. Again, it's the risk of misunderstandings I shy away from.

After a second, I take the mess of stitches from my mother's hands and lay the work on the table, stretching it apart in search of an answer for her. I don't have my grandmother's knitting intuition, but I do have the pattern my mother's been working from. I lift it from the seat next to her and scan the instructions for clues.

"So you put one piece on top of the other and knit across the rows simultaneously to join them?" I ask, looking at the half-completed graft.

"Yes, but then I realized I had dropped the stitch and needed to undo the row again," my mother says.

This has to be where the problem lies. Sure enough, I can see that my mother has started to unravel the row properly on one needle's piece of her cowl but not on the other. In fact, she's dropping or twisting her stitches each time she tries to separate the pieces further, hence the wild variations in her tension. But how to fix this? I can't even begin to trace where the errors originate. Reluctantly, I explain what I've figured out. "I'm sorry I can't tell you what to do next, though," I say.

But my mother's hands now spring into action. "I know what to do," she reassures me. And with the point of a needle, she works column by column, sometimes fishing up a length of yarn, sometimes untwisting a loop and returning it to her other needle, and suddenly, like magic, the tangles are transformed. There are her two panels of knits and purls, whole once more.

"Finally!" my mother says. "I would never have understood what to do if you hadn't explained the problem to me."

I laugh in amazement. "I thought you needed Nga Po to do the repairs!" I say.

"No," my mother says. "I can fix it once I know what I've done wrong." She pats the soft wool and then puts her needles down.

We are neither of us experts like Nga Po. But maybe that is what I need to remember more often about my mother and motherhood -- to trust that she may surprise me with what she does understand when I'm least expecting it.

All the same, I don't pursue any deeper conversation for now. As we both roll up our knitting for the day, it's enough for me that we've solved this practical problem together. That we are a mother and daughter still at peace.

For more from this series, please click here.

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This post happened to coincide with a prompt from Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below!

We interrupt this series

... for a small update. One that looks to weigh about 4 pounds and seems to think an early arrival might be in his future, per yesterday's ultrasound and non-stress test (both unscheduled, but I woke up with signs that indicated a call to the OB was warranted).

Holy hydration and couch-boundedness, we are so not ready for this baby yet!

Everything to do with the baby himself looked good at the perinatologist's office -- he happily performed his little breathing exercises for us to see, wiggled and squirmed with abandon, and kept his heart rate at a thoroughly reassuring level through contractions I was apparently having fairly regularly but could not yet feel. Today -- well, I can feel them, but some of that is surely from heightened awareness.

I'm home for now with strict instructions to be a lazy slob -- the perinatologist's words, not mine! -- all weekend. Since we'll be at 35 weeks on Monday, my regular OB won't stop labor if it starts in earnest at this stage of the game as the research indicates infants of this age do better out rather than being forced to stay in. So D is running loads of laundry and helping me cook some extra meals (I season, he does the heavy pan lifting). Both tasks were in the plan for the weekend already, but now it feels extra important to make progress on each just in case ...

Time to refill my water glass and go focus on something else. We'll be back to our previously scheduled program shortly (I hope!) with part 3.

Oh and um, Dr. Sis? Marketing Sis? That shipment of baby stuff from the lovely shower you threw me in Boston -- I'd send that sooner rather than later if you can swing it. Please and thank you ...

Scenes from around the table, part 2: the job

This is the second 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.

Dinner is over and Marketing Sis and I have sent our mother up to the game room for once to play mahjong with Troubadour Dad and the boys. Usually, two of us girls must play with Dad and D while she cleans up, but this year, with N at the table, we have enough leverage to convince Mom to take the night off and leave the mess for us. "I'm not comfortable with this!" she calls over her shoulder as we all but push her toward the stairs. "This is Mom's job!"

"We're going to have sister time!" we tell her. She exhales forcefully but can't budge our united front.

We tackle the pile of dirty dishes, voices low so we can try to monitor the conversation from the other room. It's the first time we've ever left our men alone with our parents, and we can't help eavesdropping a little. Nothing much drifts down at first, but soon Dad's customary heckling and a few good-natured retorts begin to carry over the clack of the mahjong tiles. Marketing Sis and I exchange grins. They're doing fine.

"It's nice that N offers to help in the kitchen," I say -- he's been in and out during the day-long preparations, which, I've noticed, has kept Mom a little calmer than her usual self during major holiday meal assembly. Not that the extra hands have reduced the burden that much -- Mom's not the best at multitasking and delegating -- but the presence of this new person has tamped down some of her testiness that ordinarily emerges, particularly when she's dealing with the challenges my food allergies present for her. The presence of D, no longer a novelty, doesn't force her to be on better behavior anymore. I wish in some ways that it did, but I suppose it's also a sign of acceptance into the family that my mother doesn't keep her company face on around him as much. I also wish my mother were just less high-strung, but I've learned over many holidays that that's just not who she is.

"N's good about that, making himself useful," Marketing Sis says. "He knows it's easier on me." She doesn't say it directly, but I know she's referring to the family dynamics, not the cooking. When our parents are happy, the rest of us can be happy. If that means preventing Mom from getting overwhelmed in the kitchen, so be it. I'm certainly relieved that the day's culinary feats are over. While my mother has insisted on making as much allergen-free food for me as possible, the extra stress it causes her puts me on edge the entire time she's at it. There have to be clean zones and cross-contamination prevention measures and recipe alterations, all of which make her ill at ease. If she makes a few mistakes, she suddenly gets defensive and begins tossing off comments about how difficult or inconvenient my food limitations make her process -- even though I've insisted that she doesn't have to include me in the meal plan since I'm perfectly able to cook for myself.

But again, it's Mom's job, my mother insists as she assembles the next day's menu.

The control freak in me understands, though just barely. She needs to feel she's taking care of me, but her taking on the task creates more risk, which runs counter to her intent. If only she could understand that, I think to myself as the dish pile slowly dwindles.

The boys have helped haul out the Christmas tree, so we also plunge into decorating while Mom is occupied. Normally, we're not home to help until practically December 25th, if not after, and the tree remains bare or Mom has to trim it entirely on her own if she doesn't want to hear our cries of mock distress when we see the naked plastic branches upon our arrival. I reach into the first of many boxes and come up with a tray of tinsel puffballs that could almost pass for cat toys. Their strings for hanging have long since fallen off -- the ornaments are older than my sister -- but we aren't deterred. Each armed with a handful of the soft, nearly weightless sparklers, we launch them overhand at the tree, where they happily lodge in the branches.

Marketing Sis flings a puffball with particularly mischievous gusto, and I am reminded of how we are still, despite our taking over for Mom, the kids in the house for a little longer, with our own variations for doing what Mom would. Next year, we'll be trying to decorate the tree with a ten-month-old underfoot -- a little boy who will be old enough to crawl and possibly even stand, hands reaching and grabbing for everything. What kind of mom will I be then? I wonder. Not one like my own, I imagine, but not totally unlike her either. I won't be throwing ornaments for sure, lest the baby get his hands on the more fragile baubles and try to follow our example. I can just hear my mother scolding us for giving him the idea -- or is it my own voice in my head, warning me off before she can? I can't tell. But for now, I shrug the question off and enjoy the game. My best shot hits its target from a distance of six feet.

A shout comes from upstairs followed by groans -- someone has won a particularly good hand -- and then my father calls down for one of us to bring him a peeled orange, his usual evening snack. When my mother asks for one too a moment later, I know we've done good work -- she's let go enough of her Mom mindset to let us do what she ordinarily would, instead of abandoning the game table to take care of the request.

I assemble a tray for the players, leaving our own entertainment to step into my mother's role once more. I'm glad to do it -- and glad for this in-between space, where I can still shift from Mom to daughter to mother-to-be.

For more from this series, please click here.

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.

A night at the Lo-Fi

On Saturday, it rains for the first time in 80 days, bringing an end to the Indian summer Seattle has held on to for weeks. In spite of the chill, though, I've put on a light cotton dress and the peep-toe slingbacks I've been wearing to swing dancing lessons with D. Tonight's adventure: Soul Night at the Lo-Fi, a self-advertised "performance gallery" whose reputation everywhere else on the web suggests a live-music dive club.

Zoe, a woman nearly my age whom I do volunteer editing and photography for each Friday at the Humane Society, has invited us to come out with her for this event. I have no idea what we're in for, but I figure it's a good opportunity to practice our new dance skills and get to know Zoe outside of work.

We arrive at a building whose front entrance is more board and graffiti than door, at least from what I can make out through a light drizzle and the smoke from the next-door bar patrons leaning against damp brick. Zoe is nowhere in sight, but a girl sporting a cherry-red dye job fading to pink catches the lost look on my face. "Lo-Fi's in there," she says with a grin, jerking her head toward the gaping entryway to her left. I text Zoe, hoping she's already inside.

"Getting liquid courage down the street if you want to join, be there in 10!" is the reply. Alcohol's out for me, so rather than waste time, D and I head straight in. It's only 10 p.m., but these days, I'm usually in bed before 12. Better to take advantage of our chance to dance while I've still got energy.

We know none of the music that the deejay is playing from real vinyl in the dim front room -- barely 25' by 25', 12' by 12' if you count only the space walled off for dancing. But the beat is familiar and I signal to D that it's good for triple swing, even if it's not swing music. Though it takes a moment for us to find our footing, we're soon rocking and twirling around the floor, the smell of baby powder rising from under our heels. "Zoe told me they sprinkle it on the boards!" I shout above the thumping bass.

The room's not nearly full yet, so we get in several good spins under the magenta lights as the details of the rest of the space slowly come to my attention. A dive it is: no seating except a single banquette at one end of the floor and a bar wedged into a corner near the entrance. It's loud and dark and hard not to trip on the ruts in the floor, but I'm happy on D's arm -- as long as we're dancing, I don't worry that I look totally out of place here, even if I feel that way. Even before we became parents-to-be, I was never a late-night club-goer.

Zoe, of course, doesn't know I'm a hopeless homebody, but I wonder if she'll figure that out this evening. I almost didn't want to come, but hers is the first invitation I've received from someone I've met on my own -- not through D -- to do something social since my move to Seattle three years ago. How did it take you so long to start making friends? I think, though I know the many answers. Thesis. Health problems. Working from home. And now, with this baby on the way, I'm facing yet another easy reason not to get out there. Is this what I'm going to give up for good in a few months, I wonder, the chance to hang out with people who still do things like this?

Suddenly Zoe's grabbing my arm, pulling me into a hug. I'm surprised and pleased -- we've never even shaken hands before, but obviously, the vibe at the animal shelter is far removed from the one here tonight. Zoe's also slightly tipsy, but only enough to get her loosened up. She takes me by the hand and all but hauls me toward a long, narrow hall at the back of the room that D and I have initially missed.

"Photo booth," Zoe says, pointing out the curtained machine at the end of the corridor, and then we're in a second room, larger than the first, but not by much. Two more deejays spin records on a raised platform while the crowd, three times as dense, bounces in close, sweaty approval. Zoe's husband of three months and two other women from the shelter emerge from the chaos -- Shona, who also works with Zoe, and Lane, who runs the volunteer program that got me involved at the Humane Society to begin with. We shout introductions all around as a couple wearing rubber horse-head masks squeezes by. They are the only people in costume, but no one finds it odd. Apparently, anything goes here.

Zoe gets down to the business of dancing right away, skinny arms flying in bold-print spandex sleeves. After a while, we take turns partnering up -- Zoe prefers to lead, so I gamely grab her shoulder -- and wiggle around as much as we can among the rest of the knees and elbows. D and I attempt a few moves and end up doing them in half-time for the safety of others, which cracks us both up. In the crush of bodies, we can do no more than step in place -- so much for practicing.

After an hour, I can feel myself beginning to wilt from the heat, but I don't want to leave yet. The group's completely at the mercy of the music and hasn't yet taken a break where we can -- what, chat? Where in this hole-in-the-wall could we do that? I'm starting to rethink my expectations of getting to know anyone on this night when I realize Zoe's waving me toward the photo booth. "Everybody in!" she insists, and suddenly I'm backed against her husband while chest to chest with Shona. I have no idea who is sitting behind us on the narrow bench and Zoe, wedged at the very front of this sardine can, is hollering for singles to feed the machine, which D hands through the curtain. He tries to poke his head in too but can't even get his nose past the burlap. At the first flash, we pose, if attempting to get somebody's -- anybody's -- face in frame can be called posing.

It's funny, but I'm not sure it's fun, the homebody in my head says. Shut up and just go with it, I tell her. We tumble out into the hall and wander back to the dance floor. Lane, purse over one shoulder, grabs my hand and I lead her for half a song before we break into a new configuration under the push and pull of the rest of the bodies around us.

Within twenty minutes, I know I'm fading for good -- I'm bouncing without actually picking up my feet and D can tell. He takes my hand and nods toward the exit. "Let me say goodbye to Zoe," I say. I try not to feel a little defeated. By what, I'm not totally sure: my body, my introverted tendencies, both? Whatever's keeping me from the joy of the moment.

Zoe sees me inching toward her and points at the door. "I'm too hot!" she says. "Let's go get some air!"

Perfect timing, I think. Now I can at least thank her at normal volume for inviting us to come. Shona and Lane follow us outside, where the cold drizzle is suddenly welcome and pleasant.

Zoe shows us the strip of photos she's rescued from the booth. Shona laughs as she peers at one of the shots. "Is that my drink?" she asks, pointing at a tumbler that takes up a good portion of the frame.

"Is that my nose?" Zoe asks in return, indicating a smudged shape right next to it. Then she points at my face, just visible toward the top. "You should keep these," she says, grinning. "Of all of us, you actually look cute in this one!"

I peek at the image and snort -- I'm bug-eyed, mouth open, mugging into the camera with hair sticking out in five directions. But it is spontaneous. I take the photo strip.

Shona checks her phone for the time. "I gotta go get the kids from the in-laws' soon," she says. "My husband's working the night shift on a barge."

"Seriously?" I say. "Crazy hours." We start talking about working night jobs, including my stint as a copy editor in Texas, which leads us to how D and I finally ended up together there after commuting to see each other during college and my first job teaching in New York. Zoe, a native of Queens, asks where I'd lived in Manhattan and we bemoan the rent increases from year to year. And suddenly, we are chatting, the stories running like water from the Lo-Fi rain pipe.

We gab our way through a quick half-hour, gradually getting chillier, but I don't mind shivering -- this is what I'd wanted all along. But couldn't you have gotten here without all that came before? the homebody in my head asks. I let the question go. Then D taps me on the shoulder. It's late for both of us.

"Glad you made it," Zoe says, and I can tell she's not just being polite.

"Me too," I say, thinking of the photos and grinning for once at captured chaos. "See you again soon."

*
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Making room

"My mom wants pictures of us," D says, phone in hand, as he strolls into the living room where I'm curled up on the couch next to a dwindling ball of rusty orange wool. He's just finished telling his parents our latest news: their grandchild is going to be a boy.

I cock an eyebrow at him and break the rhythm of the knitting needles in my fingers. The baby sweater I'm working on is growing by inches, like the belly I've been getting used to having in the last few weeks. The latter's fairly compact and rides low and in front, round enough for our cat to rest her chin on it when she cuddles up on my knees but not so big yet that she can't get comfortable. For me, though, all the stretching my body's doing to accommodate this baby's second-trimester growth spurt actually hurts. I drop my palm to the curve under my navel to massage a sore spot and receive a tiny kick in return.

"From the neck up, right?" I say, offering what I hope D will take to be a half-smile, though I'm really trying to hide my irritation at his mother's request.

"You know she wants to see what you look like," he says gently.

"Mm," I say, but without commitment.

I don't mind my new shape, which is something, given how self-conscious I've always been about my body since high school. It's taken a decade and a half to make peace with my non-pregnant figure -- right at the median ideal weight for my five feet and four inches but short in the neck and torso, slightly thick in the waist, and uneven in the hips thanks to moderate scoliosis. But this recent shift in appearances is different. I'm happy to look like a mother-to-be -- at least, while all the rounding is localized to my midsection. Arms, face, and butt appear to be keeping their proportions for now.

A belly shot for her though? The hair on my neck bristles.

Because of personality differences, I've never wanted to be close with my mother-in-law, as much as she wishes we were -- she's never had a daughter and has always desperately wanted one. So much, she confided in me a few months ago, that she ended up having more children than she'd expected to want just because of that hope, which never came to be after four boys.

I wish I could say I felt somewhat guilty, listening to her admission. But her repeated attempts to foster a closeness I don't desire have felt, over six years, anywhere from pushy to downright suffocating. Most recently, even before we told her I was pregnant, she made a trip to Seattle to look at real estate. "I've got to convince D's dad to move us out here when he retires in a year or two," she said. "I want to be no more than twenty minutes away from you guys, so we can see each other all the time."

Fortunately, D's dad, who'd rather keep the house they have in their small Midwestern town and travel the world nine months out of the year, isn't sold on the idea yet.

Of course, since she learned she was going to be a grandparent, D's mother has been calling and e-mailing more than ever -- going on about the baby clothes she's already made in bright patterns (i.e., garish ones, knowing her taste), offering us the 20-year-old car seat she's saved since her last son was born (hello, new safety standards?), giving advice on managing nausea and fatigue (how about just not calling while I'm taking a nap, which could happen at any time of day?). And it takes everything in my power not to tell her to leave me alone. To let me share this time of planning and preparing because I want to, not because she's forced her involvement upon me.

"I know you'd like her to back off, but I think she just wants to feel included," a friend commented not long before we learned the baby's gender. I'd reached the bounds of my patience that day -- D's mother had told me that she'd knitted a pretty newborn hat for the granddaughter she was hoping we'd provide.

"Having to include her is exactly what's putting me off," I said. Never mind her renewed girl-hunger, the root of her overeager attempts to get closer to me.

"I'd find a way to let her think she's part of the action," my friend suggested, "but within limits you can be okay with. Give her a project whose outcome you don't care so much about or tell her exactly what you'd like to have. Otherwise, she'll just keep doing what she's doing."

I know it's good advice -- D's mother has never been one to give up, so giving her concrete requests on what to make or purchase to focus her runaway nesting instincts will help occupy her in less irritating ways. But letting her ogle my pregnant belly? Completely out of the question.

*

This post was inspired by a prompt from Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below!

Calling all savvy shoppers

I know, I know. I said I'd be more active now that I'm feeling better. It wasn't a total lie, but yes, much of the activity has been more elsewhere than here. I suppose if you could have seen the state of the Troubadour house at the end of 17 weeks, you too would have wanted me to deal with that mess first. So that's what I've been doing in the last month (when not also planning four major trips for weddings and holidays that all have to happen before we get to 36 weeks, but that's for another post).

Fortunately, I had some help with the cleanup. Our laundry room has a new resident -- a much-needed washer to replace the cantankerous 15-year-old one that came with the house, one that refused to drain every third use and would only take loads half its capacity because it was so badly unbalanced (broken ball bearings may have been the culprit). In one day, I did five rounds of serious laundry that would in the past have amounted to thirteen -- ten initial loads plus about three rewashes for the ones that didn't empty during the rinse cycle. And we wonder now why we didn't make the replacement sooner ... ! Forgive me for going on about this, but I'm in love.

The baby gear industry, I suspect, would like me to fall equally head over heels for about 10,000 other products it's been informing me of daily. (You don't want to see my inbox.) When the influx of ads and offers began, we'd already started the process of researching the items we'd need to have ready for February -- a place for baby to sleep and a car seat are the only large-scale absolute necessities -- but the lists of other stuff the industry would have us believe we can't live without are a bit overwhelming. I'm doing my best to ignore the propaganda, but I do take recommendations from anyone who's actually a parent. What did you find was really worth having around in those first months? What, in the fog of sleep-deprivation joys of new parenthood, did you love/swear by/thank yourself for buying?

Feel free to go into as much detail as you'd like. Of course, the name of the product with a simple thumbs-up like the one we got from our baby at Tuesday's doctor visit will also suffice.

Knitting therapy

The scene: the living room, hour unknown. Balls of yarn populate a plastic bin and wicker basket within arm's reach of the sofa while an assortment of knitting needles -- some metal, some bamboo, and even some plastic -- poke out of the bin at various angles. Scattered over a nearby coffee table are empty Jolly Rancher wrappers, the only sign that a human has been in the vicinity. The only other sign of life is a white cat with black patches who sleeps at one end of the couch on top of a pair of scissors, a two-pack of large tapestry needles, and a tape measure that bears her tooth marks.

A small pile of knitted garments in soft unisex pastels lies at the other end of the sofa, camouflaging a larger heap under a blanket. Slowly, the pile and blanket shift, disturbing two infant-sized sweaters, a hat, and six tiny pairs of socks. As they tumble aside, one Troubadour peers out from beneath it all, the beginnings of another sweater clutched in her fingers.

Is it safe to come out yet?

Okay, it hasn't actually been this bad, but it's been close. One cannot eat pie all day to counteract 24/7 nausea. (Or you can, but I suspect it would be only so effective.) So for most of the last 16 weeks, I've been -- you guessed it -- knitting like a woman with a yarn obsession.

I didn't expect it to be as helpful as it's actually been. But, with the occasional Jolly Rancher to help stave off the worst of the morning sickness (less calorie-laden than the aforementioned alternative), knitting, which I can even do lying down, has worked. At least it's kept me from thinking about throwing up while feeling like throwing up. Anything for relief, right? The psychology of nausea is half the battle, I say.

I'm happy to say the green haze I've been seeing and smelling through has lifted significantly in the last week. Life before pregnancy hormones -- or something like it -- is there, just over the horizon! I can't wait. And, I suspect, neither can D, who has been trying extremely hard to get me off the sofa for my own good. "I'm supposed to encourage you to exercise," he reminds me every so often. I think I laughed at the idea the first time -- and then gagged.

Now that I'm on the mend, I am actually of a mind to get more active -- here and elsewhere -- so stay tuned! I've missed this space. For now, though, I'll leave you with a picture of our kitty, who has been taking full advantage of my company. She also seems to like my knitting -- I promise this shot wasn't posed.

It's not dessert if I eat it for breakfast

They say the first trimester feels the longest because you're dogged day and night by morning sickness.

They weren't wrong.

But they also say it's a good sign of your baby's health. So here I am, just past the 10-week mark, still feeling quite green but happy to say it officially: we're going to be parents.

We still have a few weeks to go until trimester No. 2 begins (and hopefully with it, some relief from all the nausea and a stronger sense of security about the baby's well-being), but after Monday's ultrasound, my OB reassured us that all is well. So Monday night, we told our parents and siblings our good news, which means I can now share it here. And apologize for being completely absent for all of June.

The living-room couch has been my best friend for the last month; the kitchen stove, not so much. Poor D has been resorting to microwaved hot dogs as a primary source of protein for work and occasionally dinner. Until just last week, every time he'd light a burner to do more, the cooking smells would overwhelm me. Fortunately, some odors are slightly more tolerable now, so we're creeping back toward more nutritious fare. This is all relative, of course. You're reading the words of someone whose staple foods have been gluten-free shortbread, sunflower-seed butter, and brown-rice pasta since the beginning of summer. Maybe some strawberries too.

Our wedding anniversary fell during a week when I was still fairly averse to much kitchen activity, but I was determined to make something to mark the day. What, given the generally beige trend in the acceptable menu, does one prepare as an appropriate offering for such an occasion?

Peach pie.

All of the women in my family adore this dessert, whose original recipe comes from a friend of my mother's who served it to her early in her pregnancy with my youngest sister. It was, as my mother puts it, one of the first things she can remember being able to eat in spite of her morning sickness.

Pie crust is like shortbread, right? I thought, running the flavors through my mind. And strawberries, peaches -- both had that sweet-tart ambrosia thing going on. This could work.

Of course, the original recipe for my mother's beloved pie was not gluten- and dairy-free, so I had to come up with an approximation of it. The one below is more like a tart (i.e., a pie with no top crust), adapted from Flying Apron's Gluten-Free and Vegan Baking Book by Jennifer Katzinger.

Open-faced peach pie

Crust:
1 1/2 c brown rice flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 c plus 3 tbsp palm oil shortening
3 tbsp agave nectar
1 to 2 tbsp cold water

Filling:
4-5 peaches, peeled, pitted, sliced into thin wedges
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tbsp tapioca powder
1/3 c agave nectar (can be cut in half to reduce sugar if desired)
1 tbsp lemon juice

To make crust, stir together flour and salt in large bowl. In another bowl, stir shortening with large spoon until softened (should not take long as palm oil does not need refrigeration and will already be at room temperature). Add flour mixture slowly, stirring until incorporated. Add agave and water, mixing until soft dough comes together. If dough is dry, add additional water 1 tbsp at a time until dough is smooth. There is no danger of overmixing since this dough is gluten-free and will not become gummy.

Dust portable work surface, such as a large cutting board, and hands with brown rice flour. Turn out dough onto board and dust with more flour. Roll dough into 11-inch circle (or larger if your pie dish is of greater diameter).

Turn pie plate upside-down on top of dough. Invert board so that pie plate is now beneath the board and crust drops into pie plate. Press dough down, shaping accordingly to fill completely. Fix tears by gently pressing or pinching dough together. Par-bake crust 15 min. at 375 F.

To make filling, combine peaches, cinnamon, and tapioca, tossing gently until peaches are well coated. Add agave and lemon juice and toss a few times more. Place peach slices in very tight concentric rings over crust. Pour any remaining liquid over fruit.

Bake on bottom rack of oven at 375 F until filling is set and peaches completely cooked, about 45 min. Check pie at 25 min. for browning and tent with foil as needed to prevent burning. Cool slightly before slicing.

Makes enough for a week of breakfasts (now my go-to choice for starting a queasy day off right better), plus a slice or two in there for an excited father-to-be.

Slow-growing roots

We're about to kick off three months of intermittent visitors -- one set, if not two, every few weeks until September -- so a heavier-than-average round of house reorganization is in progress chez Troubadour to make it easier for guests to navigate our de facto B&B, where everyone's on a different waking and eating schedule. The combination dining table and mail sorting station? Strictly for meals now. I have my eye on some hanging baskets that will become the new magazine/catalog/grocery-circular file. Catch-all kitchen cabinets? They're getting cleaned out and repurposed for specific uses. My favorite is the coffee cabinet that holds various types of beans and everybody's preferred sweeteners -- no more hunting for the raw sugar (my mom's choice) in one place vs. the white sugar (D's mom's choice) vs. the Equal (my choice) in another.

It's finding just the right home for the little things. Even though we've been in this house for three years, it only feels like we're really settling into it now that we've had some time to make it our own in these small ways (or bigger ones). I guess we're slower than average.

Speaking of which, I think our irises that we bought four years ago -- the bulbs we started in planters on our apartment balcony when we had no permanent place for them -- have finally decided that they like their new residence in our front flower bed. All four of them, which you might remember we named, have bloomed this spring. It's the first time we've had every plant blossom.

Say hello to ...

Ralph

Tessa (whom you've met before)

Carmen

and Lolita.

In his count last week, D found a total of 80 buds from all of the plants combined. He'd estimated we'd see no more than half that! I'll take it as a sign that settling in slowly is just fine.

All the time in the world

The little red barn we're looking for is tucked within an industrial park just outside Portland.

"Huh," I say, peering at the GPS to make sure it hasn't led us astray. For two midwesterners, the idea of a barn brings up images of rolling fields and long gravel drives under great expanses of sky with hardly another structure in sight. Instead, this building sits on a tidy asphalt parking lot -- a small one at that -- minutes off a local highway lined with warehouses and strip malls. But this is the place: Bob's Red Mill, an intermediate destination on our way to Oregon wine country. We're at the beginning of a much anticipated getaway weekend that happens almost to coincide with our dating anniversary -- 13 years.

Our first date isn't exactly at the front of my mind as D pulls into the parking lot. That night, three weeks before our high school graduation, we caught an early movie and dinner at a diner in the same plaza. Then, arms around each other, we stood on the sidewalk -- rather, I balanced on the curb, D on the blacktop one step down -- for 45 minutes while other restaurant patrons came and went. We'd hugged, but neither of us quite wanted to let go afterward. So there we were, arms loosely draped over shoulders and waist, as if we'd been doing this forever and could keep right on going until time ceased to exist.

Time is on my radar so many years later on our way into Bob's. We've gotten a late start from Seattle, and the wineries we're hoping to visit, still some 40 minutes away, will close soon. I don't want D to miss out for what is really just a grocery trip, but it is our only chance to stop here this weekend before we continue on to the B&B we've booked.

"There's no hurry," D says, reading the worry in my eyes as I check my watch. "Let's go find you some goodies, okay?"

The cherry-bright storefront trimmed in white and the honey-colored timber bracing the roof from within gives the entry a quaint feel. I expect checkered tablecloths and butter churns, ladies in big aprons, hay bales. But instead, there are aisles of shelves lined with dry goods packaged in colorfully labeled cellophane or brown paper. All of the store's grains are ground and packed in the company mill down the street -- hence the industrial park. I scan the hanging signs. Gluten free, one of them reads in clean-lined capitals. This is why we've come here.

I've been experimenting for months with alternative baking since the end of the elimination diet, sifting through allergy-friendly cookbooks from the library for recipes I can adapt to my new normal. Our new normal. D's gone almost completely gluten-free at home to help keep our kitchen a clean zone. Among other replacements for conventional flour, ground garbanzo beans have been an excellent discovery, but the bags at our local grocery store are tiny, enough for two or three little loaves of bread at best. Enter Bob's, which sells in bulk. Normally, we'd order from the company by mail, but since we're passing within such a short distance this weekend, we can't argue with the savings in shipping by picking the goods up ourselves.

We find the bean flour. And the brown rice flour and gluten-free rolled oats, items that have become staples in our pantry. D pulls the largest sacks from the shelves and hefts them into a cart with ease; each lands with a satisfying thump. Our cargo may be on the order of cents per ounce, but I feel suddenly rich. In this space, I'm a baker with options again rather than somebody who has little reason to walk down the flour aisle at our local grocery. We peruse the other nearby novelties: amaranth, teff, sorghum, tapioca. Corresponding recipes from my recent research dance through my head, better than any sugar-plum visions.

I catch D watching me, a tender happiness in his brown-eyed gaze. I know he knows this stop is a treat for me, but to see how much it pleases him to give me time here makes my heart flutter. The look in his eyes is the same he wore so many years ago, standing on the sidewalk as the sun began to sink and we pulled a little closer to each other to ward off the dusky chill. "Seventy-five pounds," I whisper, my eyes on the flour but my mind suddenly taken over by the memory. "Pretty amazing."

And, as if on cue, D slips his arms around me, perfectly content that we are hugging in the middle of a grocery store while other customers come and go. "I know, sweetie," he says. "I know."

All according to plan

I can't believe it, but the paint job on our would-be nursery is done.

We had a few interruptions in March -- birthdays to celebrate in the first week, out-of-town guests in the second, and a visit to D's parents to prepare for -- and the trip itself took out the first week of April. But the new face on the room is finished: primed, painted, molded, caulked. Now all that's left is to clean up.

For many reasons, finishing this room was much more satisfactory than completing the previous one. We were so burned out the first time that I think all we could manage when we'd finally hammered the lids back on our paint cans was to close the door behind us, mumbling obscenities as we trudged away. I don't think I even bothered to take the "after" shot to post next to the "before." Don't get me wrong -- we were happy that the room was no longer an eyesore, but it was a guest bedroom that we weren't going to use on a daily basis. It was a lot of effort for not a lot of immediate return.

This room, though -- we're hoping it'll have plenty of use in a year or so, if we're lucky.

The thought has been on both of our minds as we've slowly erased the evidence of previous tenants in that once cave-like space. The dark, dreary blue that covered the walls when we moved in was also swiped on the ceiling, smeared on the door frames and baseboards, even spattered on the window -- a careless job that made for pain-in-the-ass repairs, which we'd already had to do in the other room with much trial and error. We didn't have the skills to remove the baseboards for recoating, so D resorted to using a painter's taping spatula to shove old sheets under the baseboard edges followed by pieces of corrugated cardboard, all to shield the carpet while I painted over the damage. It was maddeningly slow. But with every drop of blue we obliterated, the room felt cleaner. Lighter. More and more the nest we've wanted it to become.

Transforming the room has also been unexpectedly meditative. Because we haven't taken extended breaks (on the order of months) in between phases of painting, there's been a rhythm to the process as we've worked our way around the room for each step, like the repetitive circling of wanderers in a labyrinth. And with each turn, we've talked about what we remembered from childhood, what made home feel right. The colors in a favorite blanket, the books we particularly liked to have on our shelves. We'll never know what these things might be for our own children, of course, until they discover all this themselves, but the walls are ready. Down to the seams around every door.

On our final afternoon of work, as D circled the room for the last time with brush in hand, I had to laugh. He'd pulled out a fine-tipped model from his days of taking watercolors on vacation with his parents to capture landscapes, birds, and bugs on paper. Now, he was dipping the brush in a tray of pale green latex paint, dabbing with painstaking strokes at imperfections along his caulk line. The tiny featherings of white paint that had bled through our taping job when we'd applied the last coat on the molding were in no way visible to me, but he wanted everything to be flawless.

"No baby will ever notice," I teased.

But D just grinned. You wouldn't want him to, his eyes said to me as he reached to place his last stroke.