Painting the Nursery Yellow

We found out in February that we were having a baby. We decided not to learn whether it was a boy or a girl. So in March, we painted the nursery yellow, the color of butter and morning sun.

My husband is not a painter. He got paint on the ceiling, the window and the dog. I was seven months along by then and sat on a stool directing operations, while eating a pickle.

We hung a mobile of paper birds. We set up the crib his parents had given us, the same one he had slept in as a baby. We put a rocking chair by the window and a shelf full of books, some from our own childhoods.

When it was finished, we sat in the empty room together on the floor and just looked at it. My husband said, "Someone's going to live here." I've never felt anything like that.