I love being an adult. I love that I can make decisions about what and how and where I want to eat (within reason, of course - with freedom comes responsibility! she booms aloud), read what I want to read, and so on. The first few years I lived in an apartment by myself I reveled in the ability to wake up whenever I wanted to without parental influence. Heady feeling, that was.

I’ve been barreling down my life since college and grad school embracing the freedom of adulthood, until today. I talked to my mother on the phone today and for a variety of reasons I burst into tears. My cousin is graduating from UConn, and I won’t be there, and all of a sudden, I was a little girl again and wanting to curl up on the sofa with my mom as she stroked my hair and told me that everything was going to be alright. I wanted her to tuck me into bed and roll me into a donut while I laughed out loud with girly giggles.

“Oh my,” she said, as she heard my breath catching and the onset of tears. “I’m making a pregnant woman cry!” I shook my head (which, of course, she couldn’t see on the phone).

“No, I’m okay. I’m just homesick. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you guys and I just want to see everyone and and and” I choked out.

We talked a little more and compared notes; her pregnancy with me and my pregnancy now. She commiserated with the trampolining of the bladder, and how going to the bathroom is wholly unsatisfying now. We ended our conversation with my requesting a variety of homemade foods that only she and Grandma make to my satisfaction and delight.

“Can you bring dumplings?” I asked.

“Hm, probably not - they might not make the trip. But I can make them for you when I get there. Mushu pork, too.”

In the background, my grandmother asked in Chinese, “Does she want me to make manto?” (homemade Chinese bread).

“Yes!” I called out. “The curly kind with the spices!”

July 24th, our son’s expected entry into the world, will not only bring my son into the world, which will be an experience entirely unto itself and exciting in its own right, but it will bring my mother into my world here in Chicago and maybe for a few days, I can stop being an adult and a mom (!) myself and let myself be a little girl again.

I really, really miss my mom.