It is technically not winter yet, as it’s officially winter on December 21st here in the northern hemisphere, but it certainly feels like it’s winter given the drop in temperatures. I always know that winter has arrived when my head feels naked without a hat on and my hands either need gloves or to be pushed into my pockets. But another reminder of winter is the tiny little snow flurries that tend to happen in late November and early December. When I am in the comfort of a warm office or home, and I look out the window and see tiny snowflakes fluttering around outside, I know it’s really winter. And that feeling that accompanies those snowflakes is usually a mixed one: a little bit of excitement because I think snow is really beautiful, and quite a bit of dread because I absolutely hate cold weather, and I especially cannot stand navigating the snow, ice, and dangerous black ice on the streets and sidewalks of New York. I will also add that snow is especially beautiful when you are nice and warm inside a cozy, heated apartment, with a nice hot drink in hand. And there, you can admire it from the inside out, and the world feels like your own snow globe.

I started noticing the tiny flurries this past weekend. And this afternoon, I noticed them, as well, a bit more furious than this weekend with more intention, almost as if to say, “yep, autumn is gone, and winter is here. deal with the snow!” It’s a different feeling this year, though, with Pookie Bear in my womb, nice and cozy, squirming around in her limited space in the uterus, just waiting to come out into the world. My baby will be a winter baby in the northern hemisphere and a summer baby in the southern hemisphere. No amount of snow or snow flurries could take away the nice warm feeling I get thinking about her pending arrival.

In a lot of cities and towns across the world, when you have friends and family who live just a few blocks from each other, it tends to mean you see each other quite often, whether that’s intentionally planned or by chance. Somehow, when you live in such a densely populated city like New York where people live in these huge high rise buildings with endless units, it’s easy to literally never see familiar people… ever, unless it’s actually planned and scheduled. That’s what it’s like with seeing Chris’s mom’s cousin and his wife and family, who literally live just four blocks from our apartment, but in the last several years of us living in this building, we’ve seen only twice.

Chris’s mom sent an email to her cousin letting him know that I was pregnant, and so he and his wife invited us over for dinner this evening. While I didn’t expect to stay for nearly six hours and until midnight, that’s exactly what happened. We talked about a lot of things, including, of course, the pandemic, the pregnancy, and family. His mom’s cousin and wife are always very warm and welcoming, and his wife has the most infectious, bellowing laugh. From the way they have their house arranged and various items like serving trays and endless ice cream scoops, it’s obvious that pre-pandemic, they are used to hosting and entertaining friends and family often. In fact, a lot of Chris’s family and extended family are like this. I always wonder why my parents are always so standoff-ish and cold at the idea of hosting people over even for something as simple and easy as tea when I am around Chris’s relatives.

I was thinking into the future when we are tentatively planning to bring Pookie Bear to San Francisco to see family and friends, and I was wondering about what the dynamic would be like, if we have friends and family coming in and out of the house to see the baby and how awkward and frustrated that would make my parents. I can already imagine my mom getting stressed out for nothing, thinking about food that needs to be in the house, tea that needs to get served, cups and plates that need to get washed. I’ve always enjoyed hosting people over at my own places I’ve lived, and I clearly do not get that from either parent.

Although I’m about 37.5 weeks pregnant, I still wanted to have a Thanksgiving gathering, so I invited two of my friends and two neighbors over for our meal this evening. Despite being this far along and close to labor, I still feel pretty good. I’ve been lucky in that as of late, the only thing I’m really dealing with is some pain in my butt around my piriformis muscle, which makes me a bit slower, but other than that, my energy level is decent, and I am still happy to be mobile, to exercise, and to move around, even if it is slower. For dinner this evening, I made a slow roasted lamb leg with homemade harissa and garlicky yogurt sauce, roasted orange and pomegranate salmon for my pescatarian friend, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, mushroom, leek, and gruyere bread pudding, brussel sprouts, kale, cabbage salad with pomegranate, apple, almonds, sweet potatoes, and sunflower seeds tossed in a homemade vinaigrette, and sticky date/toffee pudding. My friend brought her spinach broccoli casserole. My other friend had a delivery from Breads Bakery that was supposed to be pumpkin pie and chocolate babka/harvest babka, but the delivery was incorrect, so they ended up sending us these in the end, along with a babka pie and pecan pie. Needless to say, we had way more food than we really needed, and everyone took a doggy bag home.

Everyone usually says they spend Thanksgiving with their families, for better or for worse. That’s usually the time of year people either get really excited to see their families… or they end up having stupid fights about family tensions or politics. My parents don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving anymore and consider it just another day of the year, so I have zero reason to go home. So my new family is Chris and my long time middle school friend, and soon to be out of the uterus Pookie Bear. Everyone else who is at our table is chosen family, a makeshift “urban tribe” of people I care about and want to make feel welcome in our home… and feed. Feeding people always makes me happy. Togetherness with people I care about and food that is delicious is all we really need for Thanksgiving.

One of the more unique things about living in New York City, especially Manhattan, is that most expectant parents will not own a car. That is a very different story than for most Americans in this country, who rely on their car just to travel one block since they probably aren’t used to walking even that little. What that also tends to mean for expectant Manhattan dwelling parents is that they will not have a car to have an infant car seat permanently installed inside of it, which means… well, you either have to get everywhere by foot or train/bus, or you have to get a car seat that doesn’t require a base and get used to installing it quickly just with a seat belt in cabs and Uber/Lyfts/ride shares.

So today, after renting a car to take a trip to Costco for our last major haul before Pookie Bear arrives, we spent the last hour of our Zipcar time figuring out how to install the car seat with the seat belt in multiple ways. It’s definitely not as intuitive or straightforward as I’d like, and we had to try it a few times before (I think?) we got it right. Installing it with a base would be trickier and likely take more time, but given that we don’t own a car and would likely, at most, only use that in Australia when we have access for weeks at a time to a single car, we didn’t really bother with going over the instructions for that.

It likely will be a bit nerve racking doing it for the first trip home from the hospital, but hopefully it will go smoothly and the Uber driver won’t dock our star rating for taking too long. I mean, this WILL be our very first time doing it in real time…