"So how do you think we should do this?" Adam asked, tossing his cell phone from one hand to the other. "Your mom then my mom?"

"If we tell my mom first she's going to call your mom and beat us to telling her. But if we tell your mom first, she's going to call my mom. You know, when they became friends, I didn't think it would ever be a problem. Apparently my skills in predicting the future are getting kind of rusty."

"I can call my mom and you can call yours at the same time."

"Okay."

He looked over at her curiously, squeezing her hand.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know. I just kind of liked it being our secret. No one else knows. I mean, except for the doctor. Nobody knows but us."

"We can still have secrets. After this we'll go rob a bank."

She giggled and shook her head.

"Okay, let's do this."

She took a deep breath and dialed her parents number while he called his mom. The phone rang twice before her mom answered, sounding a little out of breath.

"Hi mom."

"Hi honey. How are you?"

"I'm good. What are you up to?"

"Cleaning the kitchen, getting ready for family dinner tomorrow. Your dad is reading the paper and Taylor is around here somewhere with Thaddeus."

"Oh, he actually comes around the house now?"

"He's a nice boy, Lindsay. And she likes him."

"I know. I just… well, you know."

"Yes, I am aware of the feeling."

"So, I had something I wanted to run by you and dad, could you get him on the other extension?"

"Sure. Is it bad?"

"No, not at all."

There was a moment of silence before her dad came on the line.

"Hey little girl. What's up?"

"I just wanted to talk to you guys about Christmas. I know it's far away but we're trying to plan ahead a little. But we don't think we're going to be able to make it out of town though. So we thought maybe you guys would like to come out here for a few days, maybe a couple weeks after Christmas."

"We could think about that," Dale answered. "Pencil it in for now."

"And I also wanted to ask you how you feel about being grandparents again."

"What?"

"Because you're going to be."

"You're pregnant?"

"Eight weeks. We just got back from the doctor with the ultrasound pictures."

There was a small moment of silence, then her father's amused voice.

"I think your mom is pretty happy… she's covering her mouth… and now she's crying… and now she's laughing."

"Pretty much the reaction I was expecting. I made copies of the ultrasound pictures and I'll put them in the mail in the morning."

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay. A little bit of morning sickness sometimes, but Adam makes me eat crackers before I get out of bed, and that seems to help. The doctor said I'm healthy and the due date right now is January fifteenth."

"You'd better have a girl, because we've got too many boys running around this place."

"I'm pretty sure that's been determined already, Daddy, but I'll do my best."

"I'm proud of you, little girl. You're going to be a great mom."

"Thank you."

"Speaking of moms, yours seems to have rejoined the land of the living."

"I eagerly await the barrage of questions about every second of my life."

"I love you honey."

"Love you too, daddy."

He clicked off his extension and she heard her mother's voice again.

"Sorry, I was busy being over the moon. I'm back now."

"So I'll take that as a yes, you do want to be a grandma again?"

"I most certainly do. When did you find out?"

"Two weeks ago. I wanted to tell you right away, but we decided to go to the doctor and make it official first. We haven't told anyone else though."

"Oh honey, I'm so excited. How was Adam when you told him?"

"Kind of speechless, but now he's making lists and pricing car seats and having a serious internal debate about regular versus cloth diapers."

"And where do you stand on this issue?"

"As long as he does half, I don't care what he decides. I'm still in that euphoric happy stage where time stands still and January seems like years away."

"Is he being over-protective?"

"Not really. He won't let me clean out the litter box, but that can be really bad for the baby, and I hate cleaning out the litter box, so that works out. He's very attentive but not overly so. It's been nice so far. Easy. My only complaint is that this growing a baby thing takes 40 weeks and I have 32 left to go."

"If the baby isn't overdue like your brothers all were."

"Not amusing, mom."

They finished their conversation a few minutes later and Lindsay hung up with a sigh. Adam was still on the phone, and from the sound of it, he was talking to Hannah now. He put the phone on speaker and Lindsay grinned at Hannah's excited chatter.

"And today when I was at my lessons, I got to learn how to jump! It was kind of scary the first time, but after that it wasn't so bad. Daddy took a video of it."

"You'll have to show that to me the next time we're down there. Hey, can I tell you something?"

"Sure, brudder."

"Well, sometime after Christmas, Lindsay is going to have a baby."

"A baby!" she shouted. "What kind?"

"We don't know that part yet."

"A real live baby? Do I get to play with it?"

"Of course. And you know what else?"

"What?"

"This baby is going to be your niece or nephew."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you're going to be an aunt."

"Like aunt Heather?"

"Yep."

"That is so cool! Do we have to wait until after Christmas?"

"Yeah, we do."

"That's so far away."

"I know. But we went to the doctor and got some pictures of the baby and we'll send them in the mail soon okay?"

"Okay. Mommy says I have to come eat dinner now."

"Alright. I'll talk to you later, squirt. I love you."

"I love you too."

He hung up the phone and tipped his head back on the couch.

"So, do we want to tell everyone at work or wait?"

"I think I want to wait," she said with a sigh. "With everything that's been going on these last few months, I think I would rather wait until things settle a bit. I mean, I want to tell everyone because I think they would be happy, but it just doesn't feel right yet."

"Then we'll wait."

"I want to tell Austin really bad, but she's been through crap."

"Maybe we'll have them over for dinner. You can feel out the situation and decide if telling her now would be good or bad."

"Okay."

"For now, I need to go and get ready for work."

"I hate when you work at night."

"I don't like it either."

"I don't sleep good when you're gone."

"Well you'd better try because you have to work in the morning."

"I hate our schedules right now."

"I know you do. I'm still working on that independently wealthy thing."

"I appreciate it."

He kissed her forehead and stood from the couch, heading into the other room while she stretched out, yawning and running a hand over her still-flat stomach. Not much was happening yet and she looked the same as she had before. Adam swore she was glowing, which she vehemently denied, but secretly knew was the truth. Despite the occasional bout with morning sickness, she was enjoying being pregnant. The best part in reality had been watching Adam. He was such a good daddy already, making sure everything was just right, that they were prepared and that she was comfortable. She couldn't ask for anything better.

She reached over and picked up the ultrasound picture from the table, running her finger over it once again. She had memorized every blob, every line, every grainy detail, marveling in the already beating heart, already feeling nerves, already learning brain. It had fingerprints and it could hear. It was amazing, no matter how many times she thought about it.

"Okay, I'm headed out. I'll see you in the morning."

He leaned down and kissed her gently, then pushed her shirt up and let his lips fall to her skin.

"Goodnight offspring. Goodnight the mommy."

"Goodnight the daddy."

"Get some rest."

"I will. I love you."

"Love you too."