When You Take a Box to Dinner...

Some actions are ordinary: you go shopping on a Monday; you select a gift and ask the store clerk if he can put it in a box; you wrap yourself in the coats or scarves of the season and go out for dinner, box in hand. You go about the daily routine of nourishing: feeding your body with food, your soul with company, your mind with shared ideas. You partake in the gifts of the ordinary day.

But some actions are not ordinary: you go shopping on a Monday, yet-to-be-seen ultrasound picture secured in an envelope in your purse; you pick out two gender-specific articles of clothing, hand them with the envelope to the store clerk (along with a small wad of cash), and ask if he would mind putting the outfit that corresponds with the ultrasound results in a box while you leave the store; you wrap yourself in the coats or scarves of the season and (with your spouse) take a box out to dinner. Before you've deliberated for even five minutes about when you should open the box (you've been known to hold out until dessert or at least until the pause between appetizer and main course), you pull off the ribbon and peer inside before any food has arrived. You go about the daily routine of nourishing yourself: feeding your body (and the body of a little one in the making) with food, your soul with thoughts of the company to come, your mind with shared ideas of dreams that have yet to be. You nourish your heart (and smile when you break open your fortune cookie to reveal the Chinese word for "family" printed on one side). You partake in the extraordinary gifts of an ordinary day. It's a boy!