After hearing the good news that my sisters are pregnant, I imagined them leading the households of a sort of neo-Cosby show, our collective favorite sitcom (my friends still mock me for our Cosby pop quizzes, obvious jealousy over lacking encyclopedic knowledge of the show). There would be some structural differences; much of the action would take place in Queens in the 21st century for one. So while I'm excited about these new additions to the fam, the way I found out makes me at once grateful to email technology and vaguely sad that I wasn't at home to drink the champaign I imagined my parents popping when they heard the news.
Being so far from home means not being present for such momentous events like pregnancy announcements. My sisters told me via email. In between messages from my friends with funny youtube clips was the news that I was going to be an aunt once again, that my parents are going to be grandparents. Will my mother tell the kids to call her "Mother- the sequel", like Clair wanted to when Winnie and Nelson were born, or will she opt for something more traditional like Grandma, Grandmother or even Big Momma? We'll find out in a few months...
As winter winds down in London, I'm noticing more and more pregnant young women walking around looking like they have a soccer ball (or should I say football) under their dresses. I have to really fight back the impulse to try to knock out the ball, because its a baby, even if the moms to be look like a snake who just swallowed an egg.
Thankfully as I walk to and fro school or ride on the tube I don't have to hear the little bundles of joy being less than charming. All because of podcasts. Walking to SOAS I hear not beeping horns, or 90s pop blaring from cars, but rather episodes of the Tavis Smiley show. As the American accents from the public radio podcasts take me elsewhere - a transnational Anglo America, to a place where I can be present for announcements of pregnancy and go to school with citizens of the European Union.
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