Preparing to Meet Our Little Boy

The countdown has begun. Somewhere in the middle of an ordinary spring we realised the year had a deadline in it, and everything since has been quietly measured against that date.

Getting ready has been less about shopping and more about making room — in the flat, in the calendar, in our heads. We cleared the small room that used to collect everything nobody knew where to put. It is now a corner with a cot, a low shelf, a lamp that gives a warm light, and a chair that is already the most-used chair in the house.

The list of essentials turned out to be shorter than the internet insists. Somewhere to sleep, something to be carried in, far too many tiny socks, and a drawer of soft things washed twice because it felt like the right thing to do. Everything else, we've decided, can be figured out when he arrives and tells us what he actually needs.

The rest is waiting, and waiting is stranger than we expected. Some days there is so much to do that the day disappears. Other days we just sit on the floor of the little room, holding a tiny knitted hat, and it all feels quiet and enough.

We already talk about him as if we know him. We don't, not yet. But we love him already, which seems to be how this works.