Thursday, February 8, 2018

telling the grandparents

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We told the grandparents we were expecting at Christmas. I was 11 weeks pregnant and honestly would've liked to wait a few more weeks to share our news, but the holidays were such a perfect time to make the announcement.

I generally shy away from big announcements, so I felt a little uncomfortable with all the attention. But there isn't a lot of exciting news in either of our families very often, so I was also looking forward to sharing something worth celebrating with them. Especially since this news was a huge surprise that I knew none of them were expecting!

I actually came up with the announcement gifts completely on my own and they turned out perfectly. So many pregnancy reveals are kind of cheesy, but cheesy or not, I'm so glad that our parents each got to open a little gift and have a souvenir to commemorate the news.

We gave my mom a stocking full of treats and in the bottom was a silver fortune cookie which I told her was a New Year's gift and contained her fortune for 2018:
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Her expression was priceless. She was so excited. I've never seen her so happy in my life and she said it was the best news she's ever gotten (after finding out that she was expecting me and my brother).
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Next up was my dad. I couldn't resist this as a reveal gift:
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Ha! My dad is a pretty reserved guy and I think he was in total shock. As he was processing the news, his girlfriend was fist-pumping and yelling "YAY!" (And I was laughing like an awkward maniac.)
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I told him that he had to come up with his grandparent name and he said "Oh we have to do that, do we?" and I said "Well, you don't have to. We can pick a name for you. Or the baby can just call you Old Granddad!" and he said "No, no! I think I can come up with something better than that!"

We wanted to tell Larry's family the news in person, but we couldn't manage to get everyone together in one place, so we ended up calling them and telling them on speakerphone. Larry's mom said "Oh my lands!", his sister cried, and his brother responded with a hilarious stream of expletives and then said "I just want to drive down there right now and give you guys a hug!" They were all so excited and happy. A few weeks later, we were able to visit them and give Larry's mom the reveal gift (a ceramic bird), plus a bonus (a little egg with "It's a boy!" inside) since they didn't know the gender yet. Everyone cried again. I love that the Smiths are happy criers.
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These pictures make me teary and make me excited to have a son. I hope that our boy grows up to be as sweet as Larry is to his mama.

These photos are all screenshots from video taken on my phone, so they are not the best quality, but I am so glad to have captured the grandparents' reactions. I know our boy will be happy to have them one day. Telling our families is definitely one of the sweetest memories of this pregnancy so far. I really didn't anticipate just how excited they would be! If I had known that the grandparents would be this happy, maybe Larry and I would've considered having kids sooner!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

The attention you get while being pregs is super weird and uncomfortable to me. I especially hate all the probing questions, the advice I don't need, and mamas trying to give me "real talk." The worst was the "welcome to the sisterhood" comment. Groaaannnn. I hear it gets worse once the kids are born so that's something to look forward to...

I love that you were able to capture your parents' reactions - your mom's face is especially priceless. Sly's parents were mostly confused...then started laughing...then freaked when we said it was twins especially since they knew having twins was something I always joked about. My mom, who is not very outwardly emotional, just started giggling like a little girl. After we finished Skyping, she immediately texted my sister and said, "Winning touchdown at the last minute!" Lol. Mom!

I have Sly's reaction on video, but not something I'd ever post. His face was a mixture of confusion, shock, surprise, and then happiness/excitement. He kept saying "Oh. My. God." Over and over like a million times while I awkwardly laughed in the background.

Funnelcloud Rachel said...

Yeah, I find the whole pregnancy experience to be super awkward. I slink around in public hoping no one notices the belly, but I think it's pretty obvious now! I don't like feeling so conspicuous!

"Winning touchdown at the last minute!" That's hilarious!

After we called Larry's brother to tell him the news, Larry's bro texted his brother-in-law "Wait for it" because he knew we were calling Larry's sister next and that she would start crying! It's probably good that her husband got the warning because otherwise he probably would've thought something horrible had happened.

JOHN SMITH said...

It's been 5 years since my grandfather passed away. But his memories are still with me. By: Assignment writing services

timeandxcess said...

I love that you were able to capture your parents' reactions - your mom's face is especially priceless. Sly's parents were mostly confused...then started laughing...
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