Letting the Cat Out

As our 10 week Doctor visit approaches, Steve and I are finding it impossible to keep the news to ourselves. Our friends, Maria and Doug, came for a visit from Arizona, so they were the first to hear the good news. Other geniuses figured it out on their own, but they were the first people we told. With my new dietary restrictions and noticeable decrease in energy, I was bound to be discovered anyhow. It feels great to finally share our news with the people we love.

Next was my mother. She was going in for knee replacement surgery. We thought it would be cute to send her an ambiguous message along with flowers: "Here's to a speedy recovery...and the ability to run around after your new grandbaby!!" We meant to be vague, but she's sharp, Vicadin or no. The boundless joy that filled her mind mind must have burned through the dense fog of pain medication. She called me immediately, while shouting the news to the rest of the family in the hospital room. I could hear my sister, Kelly, and my nieces, Kyle and McKenna, cheering in the background.

We decided to be clever about telling my parents. We were all gathered there in the house, about to go out for Indian. I said, "Before we go eat, we just want to show you this new website we did." And then I typed in the url (www.brykbaby.com). Now here's the thing. We'd made a couple bets before we told them. I bet Raegan that (1) It would take my parents at least five minutes to figure out that we were actually having a baby (Raegan felt this was ludicrous), and (2) My dad would figure it out before my mom (Raegan assumed women's intuition would count for something).

Here's how it panned out:
The brykbaby website is loading. The URL 'brykbaby.com' is clearly visible. No reaction. Then the little baby Raegan designed pops up and blinks.
"Oh, that's cute," they said.
They read the words aloud as they appeared on screen.
"Brykbaby. Arriving April 2007. That's cute."

Still no reaction. Then a good, I don't know, thirty, forty seconds of confused silence passes. At this point, even my sister Shelley is quiet, though I'm sure she had it figured out by now.

Then something clicked in my dad's brain. I mean, it was like audible. And he starts jumping up and down. He's shouting, "Hey!! Hey!!!" But mom was still in the dark. You can't blame her. She only just started using electricity last week, so she's still trying to figure out how to work the television, let alone the internet. Seconds later, it hits her, and pandemonium ensues. There was crying and there was hugging and then I spent ten minutes explaining how to get back onto this website.