A couple weeks later, Christmas fell upon us with all its nauseating good cheer. My two major gifts were baby-related; Mom got me a stroller, Mormor got me a high chair.

“You didn’t have to do that, Mormor,” I said, eyeballing the antique wooden seat with the removable tray and stenciled duckies. “You got me the crib already.”

“But I did have to. This will be in my kitchen. It has to match my decor.” She glanced at my mother. “I didn’t trust her not to get something hideous.”

“Your confidence overwhelms, Mother,” Mom said, her hands running over her new robe-and-slipper set, her lips quirked in a wry smile. “It fills me with such love.”

“Oh, stop. I love you but you have bad taste, Astrid. In men and furnishings. We know this,” Mormor insisted.

Well, okay then. We weren’t getting involved in that discussion because we liked our limbs attached to our body.

Leaf’s sister came up with his niece from Florida during holiday break so I didn’t get to see him as much as I’d hoped. I was, however, invited to come over New Year’s Eve to meet Miri and Elana. Miri had what I’d come to recognize as the Leon sense of humor, with the crinkly lines by her eyes and the bold big-bellied laugh. She wore a scarf over her hair, and when I asked about it, she explained it was to show she was a married woman, in her family’s tradition. Elana was a riot of big dark eyes and black curls, her toddler fingers getting into everything. My future flashed before my eyes as she ran from room to room, playing with not the toy her grandfather had given her, but the empty box it had come in.

She wore it on her head and ran into walls.

“Is this how kids really are?” I asked, watching Elana pick herself up off the floor, don the box again and go right back to bouncing herself off of stuff.

“Oh, yes!” Leaf smiled. “Good luck!”

“Jerk.”

“I’ll help. I have experience.”

To demonstrate, the next time Elana ran past, he swooped her up and kissed her on the belly, birthing a thousand baby giggles that made me think maybe the kid thing wouldn’t be such a train wreck after all. Not with people like Leaf and Devi and my mom and grandma around.

I was super lucky.