Telling My Dad, Peggy, and the Baker Five -- March 14, 2009

On Saturday, we met my dad and his wife, Peggy, for lunch at Picasso’s Pizza. My dad’s sister, Billie, was in town from Alaska and joined us for lunch. We thought they knew something was up because they kept asking if we were in Dallas for anything special. Seriously, they must have asked five times.

Amy and I arrived to Picasso’s first and organized the table so the three of them would be on different sides. However, when they got there, they sat down in different places. They must have been trying to make it difficult on us. :) There was no way my dad and Peggy could see the book at the same time.

At lunch, our anniversary came up so once again, I brought out the book. Peggy was sitting next to Amy and me so I handed the book to her. I knew I had to hand it to Peggy because if I gave it to my dad, he would most likely not have gotten all the way through the book and would have never gotten to the surprise. Peggy, on the other hand, looked at every page and showed my dad pages every once in awhile. I’m not sure how much he could see since the lightly was a little weird and, as Billie pointed out, his glasses were very dirty. Eventually, Peggy saw the last two pages and made sure my dad looked at them. They were very pleased we were having a baby. Yes, I said “a.” We had to make them look at the last page multiple times before they realized we were not having “a” baby but two of them.

After lunch, we headed over to visit Amy’s brother and his family. (The're the "Saturday Morning Donuts" guys.)

They were the last ones we needed to tell. Our plan for them was to get their kids alone and ask them to help us surprise mommy and daddy. We wanted them to take a sonogram to their parents and say, “Surprise! Look at our new cousins!” As it turns out, that was easier said than done.

Normally, I frequently find myself alone with the kiddos whether it be in a cut throat game of hide in seek or just some playing in the front room. However, this time, everyone was hanging out together. While nice, this hindered our plans. Neither Amy nor I were alone with the kids for several hours we had been there. We were about to go to dinner with my mom (who would definitely want to talk about babies) so Amy called Ella and Will into the other room to enlist their help. After a few minutes, Ella came running out without Will holding the picture. She handed it to her mom and just as she had rehearsed said…well, she said nothing! After three kids of her own and a nursing degree, Amy Su can easily read a sonogram. She quickly recognized the two sacks in our tiny little picture and happily said “there’re two in there!” Michael, who was watching basketball on the couch, said “two of what?” Surprisingly, Amy Su teared up slightly. She is normally so stoic. Just as surprisingly, Michael also teared up slightly. Amy Case thought for sure Michael was going to cry when we told him the news. The Baker fam was very happy for us. They were also happy that soon, the Cases will now cause a lot of raucous and not just the Baker Five.

For dinner, the five Bakers and the two point two Cases met my mom at Fuddruckers. While there, clever Will had several name suggestions. If we have two boys, he suggested Cal and Billy. If we have to girls, he likes the names Anna and Kate. Will obviously likes the name Kate. That is the name he gave his now deceased frog (“that didn’t take long”) and also what he named my car because of the talking navigation system. I was a little surprised he didn’t suggest the name Bubba. I know he enjoyed that name two years earlier at our wedding when that was the name he insisted on being called. That's Bubba on the right.

And we are now finished with our round one of telling people. Hopefully, there will still be some people we can tell around Easter (which will be twelve weeks). I’m a little worried my sister will have told everyone by then. She sure does know a lot of people and she is eager to spread the word. :)