Three years ago, I was washing these clothes for the first time. They were pristine, tags still on, and I imagined the tiny feet and arms that would fill them; admired the ducks and trains that decorated them. They were so cute.

I washed those same clothes earlier this week, folded them and put them away in Little Brother’s dresser–stains and all. They may be worse for the wear, but I’d like to think I’m better for it.

And maybe they aren’t really worse, either. What’s so great about pristine, anyway? Each stain tells a story, a bout of spit-up that we both survived, a diaper explosion that didn’t do us in, a leaky bottle that we escaped unscathed. Before I had a child, I was an expert on children. Now I’m an expert on my child–but expert looks less like “knowing it all” and more like knowing him, being his advocate, holding his hand.

This all looks so much different than I thought it would.

“All” includes marriage: a memory leaped into my head this week of the period of time before I knew The Husband, back when I had heard about him through mutual friends–this guy who lived in London and was moving back to New York and was going to meet us at church this Sunday. A nice guy. My future husband. Then I saw him leaning against the wall at Hunter College, accepted a beer from him at the Alabama bar, and he seemed harmless, which was a nice change from most of the guys I’d known. Now I step over his socks and hear him singing upstairs to The Kid and wake up beside him and don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the unexpectedness, the beauty of life’s surprises, of the things we never planned for and didn’t see coming.

At some point, the page between not knowing and knowing is turned, and though there will always be some veil of mystery keeping us from knowing everything, some grace that protects us from carrying that weight, there is the Then and Now. There is the year of not getting pregnant (or not staying that way), the year that ended in a major surgery followed by a positive test. There is the six-week period of muscle spasms and doctor-calling and medicine-loading and hand-wringing, of thinking it was all for nothing, followed by an upright (mostly) head and finally turning left. There is the “apple” and babbling and there will be the every-other-word too. There are the rampant kicks and contractions and there will be the brand new face, the warm weight in our arms.

There was the appointment last week, with occupational therapy, for TK to be evaluated. And for once, there was the “this isn’t a problem for him” and the sending us on our way, followed by an ENT appointment yesterday of the same nature. Were all of the diagnoses that are available today, available when I was a kid, I have no doubt I’d have racked up a few of them, the variations from normal that put you in a box slapped with a label. And sometimes the labels are helpful, when it comes to early intervention and therapy. But sometimes, what you need more than a label is someone who knows you. Who sees you. Who watches as you arrange the blocks rather than stack them and, rather than giving you a code for insurance, calls you a dreamer. Who hears “apple” and interprets “cookie.” Who observes all the things other people call quirks and recognizes them as pieces of herself, maybe some of the weirder pieces but pieces nonetheless–and knows you’re going to be okay, not because some doctor confirmed it but because grace whispers it. Because grace designed it. Because grace doesn’t allow for anything but okay.

He doesn’t talk, but he stares at my belly, places his head there, and has chosen these past few weeks to become a mama’s boy, reaching for my hand and rushing to hug me. It’s like he knows. And after he’s gone to bed, I call that nice guy over and have him look out the window with me at the same sun that set in New York, now setting through the trees across the street from our home. The pages turn, each one more full than the last.