Every year, around the time of major holidays, my paternal side of the family exchanges the kind of newsy emails that you get in Christmas cards, just to keep everybody in the loop. These are usually initiated by my Aunt Judy, who is the youngest and most sentimental of my dad's siblings. She likes to keep us all talking together, because without her, we would probably not tend to keep in touch. Well, this year, in our post-Thanksgiving email, Judy had some very interesting news for us: she and Uncle Jon are moving. To Belize!

Here's how it happened, I gather from what she told us: Aunt Judy has been afraid for a while that she will lose her librarian job. She and Uncle Jon recently started their own screen-printing business. And Judy and Jon recently visited Belize and fell in love with it. I guess with all of this combined, and with their children, my cousins Dane and Brynn, getting older, they decided to just go for it and pursue this dream.

And I am so proud of them.

It probably sounds crazy to a lot of people, to pick up and move to your favorite vacation destination, to leave your teenaged, adult kids on their own in the States, as they have no interest in going with their parents. But every single one of us has a dream like this. Mine is to pick up and move somewhere not chosen by proximity to family but by a kinship with the place: Massachusetts, Olympia, New Orleans, Vancouver. James's is to tour the world with his band. The only difference is that most people think it's crazy to pursue this kind of dream, but Judy and Jon don't. I love them for that. They've given me hope that one day I might throw all my chips in and pursue my own dreams despite great odds.

My aunt Judy has long been an inspiration to me but has become even more of one since I found out I was going to be a mother. My own mother had a very rigid, very cold style of parenting. I was to do exactly as she said, to get her permission for everything I wore, ate, thought, or else risk her wrath. I have this vivid memory of dyeing my hair in 9th grade at my friend Alana's house, dyeing it literally one subtle, reddish shade from my natural hair color. My mother didn't even notice until days later, after I had confessed what I'd done in a fit of guilt. Then she mocked me, said my hair was purple, that I looked ridiculous. And she hadn't even noticed.

My relationship with my mother has always been one long struggle: my mother struggling to make me into the daughter she had always imagined having, me struggling to just be myself. My mother sees herself as having failed in her job as a parent because I never did turn into that girl she wanted me to be. It doesn't matter that I think I'm pretty damn awesome, that I am charitable and successful in what I do, that I try to be kind and caring, that I have friends and a husband that love me. She has failed, because I am not her. She resents me for being the person I actually am, and even 30 years into this experiment, hasn't quite given up hope that if she just squeezes hard enough, one day I'll start being the daughter she actually wanted. She really believes that I will be happier and a genuinely better person if, like her, I'd start wearing low-heeled Aigner pumps with every outfit and counting the Weight Watchers points in everything. No more punk rock! No more gumbo! No more fun!

No thanks. I'll pass.

Aunt Judy's relationship with her own daughter is so relaxed, easy, and affectionate, by comparison. My 17-year-old cousin Brynn dyes her hair another crazy color every week, and that's OK, because it doesn't actually hurt anybody and because Brynn wants to. Right now it's shaved on the sides, with dreadlocks in between. It might not be her best look, in my or even her mother's opinion, but it suits her, allows her to express herself, and makes her happy. Brynn also has a nose piercing that she gave herself a year or two ago. Aunt Judy was upset when she found out about it...because she was afraid Brynn could have injured herself not having it done by a professional. She didn't care that Brynn had chosen a way to express herself that she might not have chosen for her.

Aunt Judy has always listened to Brynn, treated her as a person, allowed her to choose her own path, supported the person she is rather than some idealized person Judy might want her daughter to be. And I hope to do the same thing with my daughter. I hope to nurture the person she is rather than steer her to become the person I want her to be. I hope to have the fortitude to guide her, without pushing. To let her raise herself, to a certain extent--at least to decide the course of her own life. I'll be there to help her find out what that is, and to support her in it. But I want her to be free to be herself, and if I didn't have Aunt Judy's shining example in my life, I might have never learned how to do that.

I don't talk to my aunt nearly enough, but next time I do, this is what I think I'll say: I love you. Thank you for being you. Thank you for letting Brynn be Brynn. And thank you for showing me how to be a mother, so that I don't have to be MY mother.

Another update.

Slowly but surely, I feel as though I am getting back in the swing of things.

My bedrest edict was lifted officially about a week ago. Unofficially, I am supposed to get horizontal whenever I feel winded, crampy, tired, or just plain not good. So I'm spending a lot of time on my back. Morning sickness continues--I can't seem to eat enough food to keep the nausea at bay. I've actually lost weight in this pregnancy, which marks the very first time ever that I was not fat enough. The only thing that is getting me through this is books and prayers, both of which I have gotten from kind friends. I am extremely grateful for all three.

I actually had to turn down a work project that I felt would be a good opportunity because overall, I thought it would put too much strain on me. It worried me to give up such a great opportunity; I have to keep reminding myself that an opportunity isn't actually that great if it comes at the wrong time, and this one did, for me. There will be other projects.

But I am starting to stop worrying and start to really love my baby. James and I found out there is an 85% chance she's a girl, and so we tentatively started calling her by the name we picked out, instead of Jawbone. But the more that we called her that name, and the more we looked at her little pouty face in the 3D ultrasound, we found that a particular nickname suited her better. It just feels more natural. I mean to do a first trimester write-up, because there is so much I want to remember about this pregnancy--my Tabasco cravings, my crying jags over children's literature, being SO HOT and sleeping with all the windows open on 40-degree nights, not wanting to "jinx" things, but not being able to stop from buying the baby books, spelling out VIVAT JAWBONE in word tiles on the coffee table and leaving them there for weeks, seeing a pair of perfectly formed feet frog-kicking across an ultrasound screen--the greatest moment in my life to date... But to be quite honest, the way things are going, I probably won't get around to expounding more on these things than I already have. It makes me sad to think that this time is already slipping away from me, but then I remember all the things I will be glad to miss. Reading in front of the toilet, sick sick sick, mood swings, food aversions, sleeplessness, never being able to empty my bladder quite completely...

My good friends Jamie and Patrick had their baby early on November 10. His name is Atom Gray I_____. I am not a fan of the name, but I am a fan of Baby Atom himself. He is so sweet, with Patrick's Austrian nose and Jamie's Korean eyes, in a peculiar shade of blue that I hope endures. He never fusses, and he makes the grumpiest faces when he is displeased. He is going to be my baby's first friend, and I love him for that, but I also love him because he is the living embodiment of my friends' love for each other. I love going over to their house with supper and folding his little onesies and then holding him while his mother eats and naps.

In non-baby related news, we've completed a few home improvement projects in the past few weeks. Rather: James has, although I consider myself the mastermind behind the finished products. Example: James laid new vinyl flooring in the bathroom and I caulked! And also: I laid tile on the easy parts of the kitchen floor, and left the cut outs around the radiator and doorjamb to him. Tomorrow, James will spray paint a new bookcase that I picked out online! I just love feathering my little nest.

Thanksgiving is in three days, and I am looking forward to spending it with James and James alone. No cats, even! It seems impossible that we have been together for 10 years and never spent the holiday alone before (unless you count the impromptu Ghetto Thanksgiving of 2003 with Patrick Riggs, Eli, Alex, etc), but this has been such a nice entry that I will decide not to go into the "James's Mom is a Crazy and Manipulative You-Know-What" spiel and just say that we're looking forward to it. We rented a luxury cabin in the mountains near Luray, Virginia, and we will spend it there (and keep our phones on silent to avoid the thousand mournful calls from You-Know-Who, just checking in! To say she misses us! And ask if we need anything! And by the way, she misses us! And isn't having such a good time. Because she misses...)

There is a great big golden orb of a moon tonight, hanging in a ring of hazy smoke right over top of my building. I keep going downstairs to look at it. Because it's pretty, and because I can.