"You also kept the takeout menu from our first dinner together as a couple," I point out.
"That's also historically significant."
"It's Thai food, Nick."
"It's our Thai food."
Diana laughs, carefully wrapping the test in tissue paper. "Your father kept ticket stubs from our first movie date for thirty years. Some men are just sentimental."
"He's gotten worse since Emma," I confide. "He has a whole box of 'firsts.' First outfit she wore home from the hospital, first tooth she lost—which hasn't happened yet, by the way—first shoes she'll outgrow..."
"They're milestones!" Nick protests. "She's only going to be little once."
"She's going to be little for several more years, honey."
"But not this little. Look at her!"
We all turn to look at Emma, who has somehow managed to get banana bread in her hair despite being in a high chairspecifically designed to prevent such disasters. She notices our attention and grins, revealing her eight teeth and a mouthful of bread, babbling something that sounds very pleased with herself.
"Okay," I concede. "She's pretty perfect at this size."
"See?" Nick says triumphantly. "Historical significance."
By the time the moving truck arrives, we've managed to pack most of our life into labeled boxes. Emma has been promoted to official supervisor, which mostly involves her pointing at things and saying "Box!" with great authority. She's also learned to say something that sounds like "Truck!" and applies it liberally to anything with wheels, including the vacuum cleaner.
"Last load," Jason announces, carrying Emma's crib pieces toward the door. "You guys ready to say goodbye to this place?"
I take a final look around the apartment that became our first home. The walls where we hung Emma's ultrasound photos. The kitchen where Nick learned to make pregnancy-craving snacks at three in the morning. The bedroom where we figured out how to be partners instead of just friends, where we brought Emma home and spent those first terrifying, wonderful weeks learning how to keep a tiny human alive.
"It's weird, right?" Nick says, coming to stand beside me. "Leaving."
"Good weird or sad weird?"
"Both?" He wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me close. "This place...it's where we became us. Really us."
"We were always us," I remind him. "We just finally figured out what that meant."
"True." He presses a kiss to my temple. "Ready for the next adventure?"
I look at Emma, who's attempting to "help" Jason carry a box by holding onto one corner with her tiny fist. At Diana, who's already making plans for how to arrange Emma's toys in thenew playroom. At this family we've built from friendship and accident and choice.
"Yeah," I say. "I'm ready."
***
The new house is everything we dreamed of when we started looking six months ago—bigger yard, actual dining room, and most importantly, space for Emma to run around without giving our downstairs neighbors heart attacks. But standing in the empty living room with boxes stacked everywhere and Emma toddling between them like she owns the place, it hits me how much our life has changed.
"Up!" Emma commands, raising her arms toward me. She's gotten heavy—toddlers are surprisingly dense—but I lift her anyway, settling her on my hip.
"What do you think, baby girl? You like the new house?"
She points toward the kitchen and says something that might be "Cookie?" but could also be "Ki-ki?" or possibly just excited babbling.
"No cookies yet," I tell her. "But maybe after we unpack the kitchen."
"I vote for pizza," Nick calls from the hallway, where he's directing traffic with the moving guys. "Cooking seems overly ambitious for day one."
"Pizza sounds perfect," Diana agrees, emerging from what will be Emma's new room with an armload of stuffed animals. "I may have gone overboard buying things for the new nursery."