Like They Tell The Bagger At The Checkout Line, If You Find Space, Fill It . . .

We first discovered Jen was with child while we were out of state visiting family. Jen took the test first thing in the morning and bounded out of the bathroom in the guest room.

My first thought was something along the lines of, "Holy moly, that was quick."

It was too soon to tell anyone, even the family, or so we assumed, so we tried going about the day not saying anything. I convinced Jen that even if people were suspicious, no one would dare ask.

This worked well for about half a day or so.

One thing we were aware of was that a baby's organs develop in the first part of a pregnancy, which means that it's important not to use alcohol during this critical stage. It's kind of a tricky thing, that, because unless you are "trying" trying to get pregnant, you're probably drinking.

Suffice it to say, Jen knew that she couldn't be drinking now. Which is all well and good, but unless you're hanging out with George W. Bush — or Mitt Romney, I guess — alcohol is all around. Suffice it to say, covers would be blown sooner or later.

Like sooner. We went to eat that night and the restaurant was behind when we arrived for our reservation, so they sent out a round of sparkling wine as a gesture of good will. Jen sort of barely sipped hers, and I ended up finishing it.

When it came time to choose the wine, everyone of course turned to Jen. Jen had just got her advanced certificate in wine and spirits studies. She picked out a bottle of wine, then refused a glass when the server returned with the bottle.

"Is there something you want to tell us?" Mom asked.

We hemmed and hawed and denied anything, which seemed to "work" in the sense that the line of questioning ceased. Jen then proceeded to check her phone for low-mercury fish.

So the lesson we learned on the first day was not to refuse the glass. Instead, always accept the glass, and allow me to drink it, as slyly as possible. I basically spent the first trimester drinking for two. Friends informed us later that we fooled absolutely no one with this method.

When we got back to Kawama, the first thing I had to do was seal the grout on the tile around the tub. One thing I didn't realize about grout was that it needed to be sealed. Now we're low-VOC kind of people. I even know that VOC stands for "volatile organic compound." I sort of understand the idea of a volatile compound. I don't totally understand the organic part. (OK, I just Wikipediaed it; I get it.)

Anyway, so given the news we got while we were away, I made sure to look up the VOC number on the grout sealer. I noticed there was a number. I had no idea whether it was a good or bad number. I figured that it was only once that we'd be using this stuff, and we needed to use it, so I bought it anyway.

It went on like this as long as I was working on stuff around Kawama: Avoid things with VOCs; use them anyway figuring it was better to get it out of the way sooner and sort of lance boils or whatnot.

And then about that the spacious front room on the second floor that we wanted to use for a big office . . . like I said before, it's very easy to fill up space once you find you have it.