I love my family. I do. But over the summer, I have been annoyed as all get out everytime we get together. All we hear is,
“When are you guys having a baby?”
“You’re just scared, aren’t you?!”
“Isn’t it your turn?”
“Is it you or is it Jeremy? You can tell us.”
“Just take the plunge…you’re gonna be fine!”
What they didn’t know was that we were off the pill since the end of February. So over the summer, everytime we heard the dreaded procreate comments, I pulled out the line, “Well, it’s all in God’s timing.” I find that when you throw God in there, it tends to shut people up. I learned that in bible school. That effect lasted one time with my fam…then they were back on that bull throwing out comments like beads at a Mardi Gras parade. Which is fine. I would probably be ticked if they didn’t want a grandchild/nephew/neice. I would probably throw a hissy over why they don’t want us to go forth and multiply. I would mope over why they wouldn’t want us to fill the earth with little baby bowers. Then I would end the hissy/mope with a good ole fashioned eat-fest. Then they would have to be related to that obese girl with the emotional problems. The one that Jillian loves to beat up. They really are in a lose-lose with me 🙂
So obviously, I knew that they were gonna be excited when we spilled the beans about Babysaurus. We invited them over for some pizza. It took some doing but when we finally had my mom, dad and my sister Lori all in the same room. The lights were dimmed. The random photo slide show started. We didn’t have a plan. Just gonna let them figure it out.
My dad was having a bad night…his legs and back were hurting really bad (too much golf) so at one point he said that he was gonna take off. I basically convinced him that we weren’t gonna see each other for the next couple weeks (lie). I think I even whipped out the fake tears (curtesy of a few bruising leg pinches). I just secretly prayed he would forgive me. He went back into the room and held his eyes half open.
I, however, was wide-eyed. Looking around violently…trying to make sure I got every single flinching reaction.
Then the photo of me and the peestick popped up.
My mom asked
“Who is that girl?”
Not exactly the reaction I was looking for.
Eight seconds of silence followed.
“OH MY GOODNESS, KATIE ARE YOU PREGNANT!?!?”
“THIS IS HOW YOU ARE TELLING ME?!?!”
Do you realize how long eight seconds is? It’s long. Really long. After we confirmed we were gonna have a little Bower baby, my mom started crying and immediately wanted to rub my stomach. My dad was all smiles…and surprisingly his aches and pains had disapated. They had the questions….we told all that we knew….which wasn’t much. Then they celebrated. They prayed over us. They even dreamed with us. Their is something about babies that makes people sloppy happy. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.
And then we asked my family to do something impossible. Something that is against their very nature. Something that somehow didn’t get programmed into their brains. We asked them to keep it a secret. You see, we were gonna try to keep it on the down-low until we could tell people in person. Basically we were staring at my mother (poor Little Debbie) asking her to not spill the beans. She’s a wonderful person – but she’s not that great with keeping the can closed. I knew that two options existed. My mother could accept this challenge and possibly die from a heart attack or a brain aneruism anytime she saw a human under the age of two. Or she would fail miserably…with the grand reveal involving a billboard or a bullhorn or a body tatoo. She accepted.
Please pray for her. Her last words were “You realize that I am not gonna be able to think about anything else!”