My first baby item.

Today, I got my first baby thing. The shopaholic that I am, I'm almost surprised I haven't bought anything yet, just because I, you know, can. But it feels preemptive and like it would jinx everything, so I've withstood.

I met my soon-to-be mother in law and my fiance's 13 year old cousin in downtown Nashville for lunch.

I found them at a store a couple doors down, called Estelle's. It was one of those places that made my nose itch the second I walked inside, with cats meandering around and dust-ridden antiques lining the walls.

I'd only been in the store two minutes before the woman behind the counter--in her mid-60s and the quintessential antique store owner--informed me that Taylor Swift came by the other day, and I had to feign being impressed at the presence of a country music star who I wouldn't even know existed if I didn't work at a Nashville news station.

Eight years later (seriously, I can't believe I didn't give birth in the story listening to this lady talk) after she'd rung my mother in law up for the three pieces of jewelry she'd found, she started asking questions about me and the 13 year old cousin.

"These your girls?" she asked, genuinely interested in that 60-year-old-antique-store-owner kind of way.

"This one's my niece," MIL responded, gesturing at the girl who's nearly a foot taller than me and looks every bit more 18-years-old than I do.

"And this one is my son's fiance, the one who's pregnant with my grandchild."

They'd obviously been talking before my arrival.

After that, all Hell broke loose. I was hugged and kissed on the cheek by this old woman more than I've even hugged and kissed my own grandma. She INSISTED on giving me a present and left to rummage through the back of the story for her baby stash.

She came back with a memory book, adorned with little yellow ducks and aptly entitled "My Little Ducky Book."

This is the kind of thing I might point and laugh at, telling whomever I'm with that this is exactly the kind of thing I do not want just because I'm having a baby.

Babies don't care if their shirts and blankets and wall-hangings have ducks on them.

I, however, am not a fan of ducks. And I do care.

But you don't come across such kindhearted people like this woman every day, even in places like Nashville that house many more kindhearted people than most.

I feigned excitement even better about that book than I did about Taylor Swift, and I hugged her back. I promised we'd return when we found out the sex of the baby, and after we'd had it, and after it entered preschool and high school and college and then, even, when my baby had its own baby, just so she could gift us with more ducky-stuff.

The whole ordeal was so sweet and sincere that I'm sitting here looking at this dusty vintage book, and it doesn't make me want to gag. Ducks and all. And that's saying a lot, because I just threw up every bit of my lunch.