By now you probably already knew…

By now you probably already knew…
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper Thursday, December 9, 2004

We hadn’t decided how or when to tell our girls. We thought that a special dinner or something might be fun. We thought about telling them when we told Bethany’s folks. Then we went to the library.

“Me have a secwet,” Grace told Mrs. Rosberg, the librarian. “we hafin’ a baby bwother!” she announced with a smile.

We were mortified. How did she even know, since we hadn’t told her? We make it a policy to 1) not tell anyone till we tell our own parents and 2) tell as few people as possible until we’re at least four months along. Maybe that’s superstitious or overly private or not putting enough faith in God or something, but the majority of miscarriages happen in the first trimester, so we don’t advertise the first few months.

Fortunately, it seemed like Mrs. Rosberg didn’t quite understand Grace, what with her speech impediment and all. We were ready with the explanation that there’s a new baby at the babysitter’s and that she’s been asking for a new baby at our house too, but we really have know idea where she comes up with these outlandish ideas…etc. etc.

Of course, it makes sense that Grace would’ve known even before we did. Last year she was pestering us about it. One day I was swinging her on her swing and she told me she wanted a baby brother. I chuckled at her, the way dads chuckle at kids when they ask for something outlandish and the dad thinks it’s really cute, but doesn’t want to smash their dreams either.
“Well, honey,” I tried to placate her, “Mommy and Daddy aren’t even thinking about having more kids right now and even if we were, I’m not sure whether or not we can really afford to. I’ll tell you what kiddo, if it’s really that important to you, why don’t you ask Jesus about it.” Bad idea (at least if I didn’t want more kids). Asking God if you should have more kids is like asking your parents if they want more grandkids. The guy LOVES babies. I also have this theory that He pays more attention to the prayers of little kids too.

Darned if that turkey Grace didn’t stop everything she was doing, walk over to the slide, fold her hands and ask God for a baby brother right then and there!

“So if we had a little brother, what should we call him?” I asked the girls one day.

“Ummm, STEVE!” Grace declared.

“Let me guess, like Steve, the host of ‘Blues Clues’?” I asked.

“Uh huh,” Grace confirmed, nodding her head.

“NOT Steve,” Ellie protested, “JOE!” For those of you who don’t have little kids, the character of Steve left the ‘Blues Clues’ show to go to college and left his puppy, Blue, and his house to his little brother Joe.

Unfortunately for them, we are NOT naming any of our kids after TV characters. My parents tried that with my older brother. Dad loved James Gardner’s show “Maverick,” but at the Hospital, he forgot that Gardner played “Brett Maverick” and accidentally named my brother after Brett Maverick’s brother Bart, which decades later, of course, became another famous TV name.

No, we don’t know what we’re having. No, we aren’t going to find out. But I love when students ask me…

“Do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?” they ask.

“Yes” I answer.

“So what are you having?”

“A baby,” I tell them, “well, if you want to get technical about it, I guess that actually my wife is having the baby, but it’s ours.”

“No, are you having a boy or a girl.”

“Yes, our baby will be either a boy or a girl.”

“Are you going to find out whether you’re having a boy or a girl?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When it’s born.” At this point they usually give up with a groan.

No, we don’t like to share the names we plan on, if only because we may change our minds last minute. Be that as it may, there’s never any shortage of people who have name ideas. Most of them characters from TV shows. One student thought they’d be smart and suggest “Mallory” for a girl. Yeah, whatever. My nephew Nolan doesn’t know how close he was to being named “Agamemnon.”

We’ve talked to the girls and made it clear that Steve and Joe aren’t name options and that if they get a sister, they still have to love her and be thankful for her.
Grace never fails to ask Beth, “How’s Baby doing today?” with a pat to her Mom’s tummy.

“One, two, three, fower, FWIVE! Dere’s fwive people in dis van,” She’ll tell us, “Because I counted Baby!”

Ellie has offered to give Baby, her toddler bed- but not her “blankie” or her night light/music box that attached to her crib (and later her toddler bed).

The other night, out of the blue, she asked me what I wanted for my birthday. As if a two year old is really thinking seriously about what to get her father for his birthday.

“Well, gee,” I told her, “you know, Baby is due to be born right around my birthday time, so I guess I just hope that Baby and Mommy are alright and healthy and everything by my birthday.”

“Yeah, me too, I guess,” she told me.

Since I figured that she asked me because her birthday is in December and a lot of people have been asking her, I decided to ask her too. “Say, Ellie, it seems to me that YOUR birthday is coming up here in the next couple of weeks. What do you think you’d like for YOUR birthday?”

She must not have been trying to get me to ask her that because she really had to stop and think about it for a while.

“Hmmm,” she put her finger to her head and got a very pensive look on her face as she thought.
“Um…turkey an’ p’tatoes!” she declared.