Tag Archives: gramps

Sep4

Back in the Day …

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Back in the Day …

A couple of weeks ago, much to my chagrin, Chang and Angel stumbled upon a DVD on our shelf and made us watch it.  I’m not even sure what this particular DVD was doing on our shelf in the first place.  I think it technically belongs to the Parents, but at some point which I do not remember, we must have borrowed it from them. Why, I do not know, as I do not tend to enjoy subjecting myself to the kind of torture that is watching that DVD.

You see, it is a home video from the year of 1995. You know, the year of big hair, leotards, and stirrup pants.  It was also the year I turned thirteen and suffered from all of the above.  That was the year all of us kids got together with our childhood friends, Nicki and Dustin, and produced a play based on Adventures in Odyssey’s episode “The Vow.”  For years, it had been our favorite radio drama, but this was the year we were going to turn it into our very own production.  I, however, was entering the teen years, and it wasn’t necessarily “cool” to listen to radio drama anymore.  My younger siblings hadn’t caught up with the trends yet and were still obsessed, so they spent months writing the scripts (and trying to understand what terms like “fade-away jumper” and “documentaries” were), building the sets, and rehearsing parts.  Nicki and I were roped into playing the parts of Donna and Jesse and grudgingly went along with it.  In the end, we invited our parents, grandparents, and a lonely neighbor down the street to our live performance.

In the moment of putting stuff like that together, you have no idea how humiliating it will be years down the road. The movie is probably not as embarrassing to The Brother, as he rocked in his Lakers Jersey, or to The Kid, who was five and Just. Plain. Adorable in his walk-on role.  But for me, it’s one of those movies that makes me cover my face and watch through my fingertips due to my bad hair and oldschool fashions.

However, it is good for one thing, and that is comic relief.  So, despite the fact that I said I never wanted anyone else to see this again, I gotta admit it is Highly Amusing and may be worth the humiliation I may suffer in order to share it with the rest of you.  It won’t be winning any awards, but it always gives my family a lot of laughs every time we watch and reminisce.

Kids, don’t try this at home. Unless you want to be subject to blackmail at some later point in your life.

Apr22

This is how we roll

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This is how we roll

Sister and her little munchkin came to visit for a few days this week, and yesterday we drove up to Carmel to visit them at my grandparents’ house.  Jeshuah was feeling active and excited in the late afternoon, so they went outside for a walk around the sidewalks while I fed Analie.  Once she was full, dry, and cozied up in her panda sweater, I stuffed her in the sling and we went outside to play with the “big kids”. (Also known as Jeshuah.)

We found him attempting to drive his walking toy up the neighbor’s driveway and into their garage.  The garage door was open and the neighbor lady was out doing something to her tree; she was trying to be subtle and yet still obviously watching Jeshuah take a running start to try to get himself up the hill to the house, then just as he was starting to make some progress Sister would grab him and turn him back around and drive him back down the driveway.   He tried this three times with no success.  Sister always busted him.

Poor guy.  It’s rough being a kid.

I gotta say, that child is pretty fast, even heading up hill.  Especially considering he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

We walked through the yard and arrived at the site of the chaos, Analie happily wadded up in her sling and head peeping up over the side, clearly impressed by Jeshuah’s mobility skills.

The Kid and Sister glanced up to see us coming, and then they burst out into laugher.  Because I guess Analie looked hilarious?  Judge for yourself:

Please note that I was unaware I was in the picture when it was being taken.

This is how we go on walks.  It’s much easier than finagling with a buggy, and Analie likes it better because she can see what’s coming, not what is going.  I don’t blame her either.

We crashed Jeshuah’s party, because Sister drove him back to the Grandparents garage where she strapped him into his buggy, and off we all went on a walk around the neighborhood.  (I think the neighbor was disappointed to see Jeshuah leave.)

Perhaps someday you’ll find us walking on the Monon this way, and then you too can laugh at us.  It’s the thing to do.

Oct16

Unconditional

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Unconditional

First of all, The Kid is here this weekend.  He called on Wednesday or something like that all, my Fall Break plans fell through, CAN I COME OVER?  I guess he was going to go to Florida or something.

Anyway, we said he could come.  So he showed up on Friday evening and it has been a party ever since.  Actually, less a party and more just we’re all tired so we’re dragging ourselves around trying to find the motivation to brush our teeth.  (True story: The Kid and I realized at about 12:30 while on the way to lunch that neither one of us had brushed our teeth yet today.  I’m not sure what our problem is.)

Joey had to go to the office today because he’s preaching tomorrow and his sermon was mostly (but not quite) finished.  This left The Kid and I to mess around the house and try to do projects.  Here’s what we have accomplished so far:

  • Tried to hook up the Interwebs catcher from AT&T…but we had Some Difficulty with wiring due to the fact that someone (cough) cut all the phone jacks out of the walls.  The Kid and I made a trip to Lowe’s, where the sales guy told us to buy the wrong kind of wire, but we still bought it even though we were sure it was wrong.  I’m not sure if that makes it our fault or not.  Anyway, no webs.
  • Tried to run the leaf blower.  No gas.
  • Tried to run the riding lawn mower and mulcher.  Once again, no gas.  Also, it was dirty and The Kid said “I’m not riding that until we spray it off with a hose.  You do have a hose, don’t you?”  Yes, of course we have a hose.  We have like 18 of them because Gramps offloaded a portion of his hose stash when they moved a couple weeks ago.
  • Tried to rake.  I got about…ten minutes into it and then got hungry and quit.
  • Successfully picked up the litter in the front ditch.
  • Moved the trash can back to the back of the house where it belongs.
  • Got flipped off by a guy who wanted $2.00 for gas and we wouldn’t give it to him.  He didn’t seem legit to me in the first place and, after he did that, he really didn’t win any points with either The Kid or me.

So basically, we’ve failed at everything we’ve tried to do except for like two things..  And to top it all off, we haven’t brushed our teeth.  (Not even Joey did, I just asked him.)

The plan was to meet for lunch at 12:30 at Boogie Burger.  So about 12:10, The Kid, Henry and I got in the RAV-4 and drove down to Broad Ripple where we found Joey.  Coincidentally, we parked in the same parking lot even though we were coming from two different places.  It was magical.

We ordered our food (rather, they ordered while I stood outside with Henry) and then sat down at a table in the sun to drink our drinks and eat our eats.  About ten minutes into the meal, Joey shot out of his chair like it had just lit his pants on fire and said, “I need more root beer!”

Immediately after Joey left, a man came up to the table and started talking to Henry.  It was kind of weird, but we are used to people stopping by to see Henry because he’s furry and slightly cute.  Most people are suckers for things that are furry, even if they’re only slightly cute.

“Nice dog,” said the man.

“Thanks,” I replied, and then I started to say something else…..but the dude totally turned around and walked away from me as I was talking to him.  It was super weird.  The Kid and I just raised our eyebrows at each other and went back to eating our fries.  Joey shortly returned with his root beer, and all was right in the world.

Until.

Just as we were finishing up, the man came back.  And he brought his friend.  We had been noticing him this whole time running around in the street, stopping people to ask them if they were here for “the auditions”, and giving people directions to places they hadn’t asked for directions to.  He seemed like he may be a little….off.

Anyway, he was back.

He walked right up to our table and looked down at Henry and said, “Oh….Oh….you guys are BLESSED.  I mean, you have a NATURAL CREATURE who loves you unconditionally.”  He paused and watched Henry sniff around on the ground for a second.  Then, “I mean, have you ever loved anyone unconditionally?”

Joey, The Kid and I all stopped chewing.  An awkward silence fell over the table as each of us tried to decide how we wanted to answer the question.  We were all trying to figure out if this guy was trying to share the gospel with us, or if he was just kind of awkward.  I mean, we had been watching him run around in the street for the last 15 minutes causing confusion.  After what seemed like a super long amount of time but probably was only about 3 seconds, The Kid mumbled, “well, I’ve tried…”

And the weird thing?  The guy had already started walking away the minute he asked us if we had ever loved anyone unconditionally.  I don’t even think he heard our answer.

So, probably not trying to share the gospel.

Five minutes later, he drove by in a truck and waved at us.  That’s when we decided it was time to leave.

Sep27

One Of My Favorite Pictures of Joey

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One Of My Favorite Pictures of Joey

This Sunday, Joey performed his first baptism.  It went off quite well, too.  (He’d practiced on The Kid when we were all in in the hot tub the night before, which I think helped a lot.)

Unfortunately, we forgot Joey’s nice, conservative brown swim trunks at my grandparent’s house after we went swimming.  So Sunday morning, Joey realized he was going to have to wear his wild Hawaiian flower ones with the cargo pockets that always fill up with tons of water and then go ooshing everywhere when he gets out of the pool.

Because everyone was in town helping us get settled in and helping the grandparents pack up for their move (which will take place later this week), pretty much my entire family excepting The Kid was at our church on Sunday morning.

Gramps managed to snap this quality picture on his iPhone of Joey and The Brother.

Many things should be noted about this picture:

  1. Joey’s outfit is amazing.  Red shirt, white striped button down, khaki blazer, wild swim trunks…and Simple slip ons.  A true class act.
  2. Joey looks extremely nervous and stressed.
  3. The Brother is drinking a LOT of coffee.
  4. He also looks kind of stressed too (probably from drinking all the coffee?), but likely not for the same reasons that Joey would be nervous and/or stressed.
  5. The sign directly above their heads reads MEN, which is appropriate considering only men are in this picture.

And now I should do what I came to get on the interwebs to do, and that is figure out what kind of interwebs service we will have at our house.  It’s super hard to do research on a service provider when, like, you don’t have internet at your house yet.

Sep25

A Backhoe

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A Backhoe

This afternoon as I was sitting in a comfortable chair at Casa de Grandparents, Gramps walked by and said, “It was a backhoe.”

I was all, Um, WHAT was a backhoe…?

And Gramps just crossed his eyes at me and he was like, THE THING FROM YOUR EARLIER POST THAT YOU DESCRIBED AS A BIG YELLOW SMASHING MACHINE.

Oh, that.

Guys know the names of all kinds of heavy machinery implement type things.

I just googled “backhoe” because I wanted to see what it looked like again.  Someone had earlier suggested that the device I was unable to name was a “front end loader”, so I googled that too.  Internet.  They look exactly the same.  Please advise how these are different.

This is a backhoe.

This is a front end loader.

See what I mean?  Basically the same machine.  OH WAIT.  Maybe it’s because the backhoe has an extra claw on the back of it?

Well, I’ve had about as much fun as I can handle.  I’m going to go back to my earlier campaign to see if I could get my grandfather to give us his hot tub.

So far it’s not going well for me.  Or Joey, he’s trying too.

Sep11

Home Depot said it was a “1″

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Home Depot said it was a “1″

On Friday morning, Joey and I started painting the trim we purchased at Lowe’s.  We got it all painted, which was kind of shocking, and then this morning, Joey started installing it.

Before embarking on this project, Joey did a ton of research on the interwebs, most of it being on Home Depot’s website.  Back in Texas, we always did our home repair type shopping at the Depot.  Mostly because it was close to our house, and the other mostly because we just liked it better.  Here in Indy?  Home Depot is super far away, and Lowe’s is just up the street.  We have to shop at Lowe’s now. OH THE HUMANITY.

Anyway, Home Depot had little videos on their site about installing trim and stuff.  So Joey sat there, engrossed for hours, and watched them all.  His favorite part was when the nerdy guy wearing safety-goggles said, “On a difficulty scale of 1-5, this project is a 1.”

Any time someone wearing safety goggles tells you something is a “1″, do not believe them.  Or, if you must believe them…at least assume it’s going to take you like a jillion hours longer than it would have taken them to do said project.

All this to say: Joey has started installing trim.  He’s got a about four doors done, most of the baby’s room, some of the hallway, and he had started on the Room of Requirement before I got kicked out of the house this afternoon.  I don’t know what kind of progress he has made since 2:30, because I was sent away.  I do know that he and Gramps made a trip to Lowe’s after I left, but that surely didn’t slow them down too much.

So, the trim is coming along.

And here’s why I got kicked out.  I had a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, the Gestational Diabetes test.  I went there with an empty stomach, drank the nasty orange sugar drink, and got my blood sucked (just like old times!) and my doctor said, “we probably won’t call you if it comes back negative.  But if there is a problem, we’ll call before Friday.”

You can imagine my surprise, then, when my phone rang on Thursday afternoon, and it was my OB.  And I missed the call because my phone was on silent somewhere.  This happens to me quite regularly.

“Um, Joey?”  I said, staring at the missed call log on my phone.  ”My OB called.  This better not mean I have Gestational Diabetes.”

He looked at me with a kind of husbandly confusion, the sort where he’s not really sure what to say but if he thought about it long enough he could come up with something very motivational and yet encouraging at the same time.

I called my OB back, and they were closed for the day.  DANG.  So I had to wait until Friday morning when they opened, at which time I called them immediately.  I hadn’t eaten any breakfast yet, just in case they were going to tell me to scoot myself back in to repeat the bloodwork, and I was starving.

The nurse I spoke with said, “Well…I don’t think you have Gestational Diabetes, but let me check.  Um…um…where is it…NO, you don’t have Diabetes.  But you are anemic.”

Um, what?

I guess they ran an iron panel or something at the same time.  Anyway, I’m anemic and they’re all PRESCRIPTION IRON PILL when I asked if I could take something homeopathic.  (I will fight that one harder next week at my appointment, just watch me.)  But this explains a lot of strange happenings I have been experiencing lately, all of which I thought were normal pregnancy symptoms for the third trimester.  However, turns out it’s not normal to be this exhausted, see black spots swimming around in front of your eyes on a regular basis, and alternate between a racing heartbeat and palpitations.

Who knew?  Not me, Internet.  Certainly not me.

But I was sitting there reading the symptoms of anemia in pregnancy and being like “Hey!  JOEY!  This makes so much sense!” and “I HAVE THIS!” and “No wonder I keep feeling like I’m going to pass out a couple times a day!”

That being said, I started my big kahuna iron pill today.  I have a few things to say about it:

  1. The side effects of the pill, according to its package, are precious.  Cannot wait.
  2. It’s small and black and looks like a piece of lava rock.
  3. My stomach has hurt ever since I took it this afternoon.
  4. It makes my breath smell like Cheerios.
  5. The darn pill complicates my life, I can’t eat 2 hours before taking it or one hour afterwards, and I have to drink 8 oz of water when I take it, which precludes me taking it before bed.  Ugh.

Maybe once the iron kicks in I will feel more zippy.  But until it does, I mostly just feel like I have been ran over by a mail truck and now I don’t feel so guilty for feeling that way.  Anyway, that’s why Joey kicked me out earlier today.  I guess I was looking peaked and wan, so he sent me home to take a shower.

All that paint was really hard to get off.

Aug16

The Black Eye

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The Black Eye

I was full of curiosity about Joey’s aforementioned black eye when I woke up this morning.  About 8:00, I picked up an ice pack and grabbed some Advil and went in to the bedroom where Joey was trying to pretend like he was still sleeping.  I told him to put the ice on his eye and take his medicine, and he was Extremely Cantankerous.

“I’ll make you bacon and eggs…” I bribed.

“Really?” He perked right up.

Ten minutes later, with bacon sizzling on the stove top, I discovered that he’d built himself a nest on the couch, all pathetic-like.

And because I am overflowing with sympathy, I was all TAKE OFF THE ICE PACK SO I CAN GET A PICTURE OF YOUR EYE.

Well, he took off the ice pack, but he wouldn’t open his eye.  Which is disappointing because he looks much more…black and blue if his eye is open.

I told him he looked awesome, and the only response I got was that he put the ice pack back on his eye.

“Want some coffee?” I tried.

He said yes, he did want some coffee.  But he was kind of pathetic about it.

Ten minutes later, with coffee in his mug, eggs and bacon on his plate, orange-mango juice in his glass, and prenatal vitamins in his stomach (which I did not admit to him actually were prenatal vitamins until after they were swallowed), he seemed like he was in much better spirits.

Until I told him he just took prenatal vitamins (for the sore throat he was saying he had when he woke up) and then he looked at me like he was about throw me in the lake.  If we had a lake, which we don’t.  So I figured I was safe.

And now, I have to go to take a shower so I can go up to Carmel to have lunch with my grandparents and get the mail.

The end.

Jun25

$412.81

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$412.81

It seems like once a year, Henry makes us go broke.  For instance, last year it was the Deer Ticks incident after the backpacking trip that wasn’t.  That was extremely expensive what with blood tests, shots, and prescriptions.  But totally my fault for not even thinking about there being ticks everywhere in the forest that we would need to protect our small, furry dog from.  I think the grand total of Deer Ticks pulled off his body was topping 150, so we were just thankful he didn’t have Lyme Disease.

At that vet visit, they examined Henry’s teeth and told us that his teeth looked terrible for a 3 year old puppy.  Note to self: Shih-Tzus historically have bad teeth and gums.  We were instructed to brush his teeth daily, but that would only be preventative to keep them from getting worse going forward.

They wanted us to get his teeth cleaned, and that would have a sticker price of somewhere in the neighborhood of $300.00.  If dogs teeth get to rotten, they require extraction which costs an additional $100.00 or so, but it’s also important that their gums don’t get all grody and if the teeth aren’t clean, it also leads to gum diseases.  As the vet kept talking, it just kept getting more and more potentially expensive.

Our eyes got real big and glassy when they said that, and we instantly put it out of our minds.

Actually, we didn’t so much put it out of our minds as it got shoved to the back burner.  Because right about the time we were going to scheduled his teeth cleaning, I wound up in the hospital and by the time I was back up and walking around, we had completely forgotten to send Henry to the vet to get his teeth cleaned.

Then, last month, we went to Indianapolis for our Big Long Exciting Week.  Henry came too.  We spent so much time in the car with him, we noticed that his breath was getting really, really bad.  So I looked it up on the internet, and super bad puppy breath is directly related to the state of puppy’s teeth and gums.  It was then that I remembered that we had forgotten to take Henry to get his teeth cleaned.

Oh, and then there was that time Gramps and Grams drove Henry around and Gramps alleged that Henry’s breath was so bad he was forced to air our the Edge when they got home.

As soon as we got back from Indy, I called the vet and scheduled Henry’s appointment for yesterday morning.  They told me I’d have to drop him off first thing in the morning and pick him up between 4 and 5 because they’d need to observe him all day since he’d be under anesthesia.

ANESTHESIA?!  MY TINY LITTLE PUPPY!?!

Joey dropped him off and I called the vet around noon to see how Henry had done.

“Well, we did have to extract a molar,” the tech told me.  ”It was very loose.”

POOR BUDDY!

They also had to inject him with antibiotics and pain medicine (cha-ching, cha-ching) and were sending us home with pill bottles full of the same (again with the cha-chings).  I hung up the phone and related the damages to Joey.  We were both dreading dropping all the cash, but honestly if we hadn’t done it it would have been much more expensive if he’d needed dozens of teeth extractions later.

Once his little mouth heals up (next week or so) he is on an Every Morning Teeth Brushing regiment.  Whether he likes it or not.

When I went to pick the little fluffball up from the vet, I was happy to see the tech carrying him out from the recovery room (Henry hates the vet so he pulls on his leash when we’re there so I just carry him) and he got all wiggly when he saw me.  He seemed to feel just fine.  I paid the hefty bill ($412.81 – OUCH) and carried Henry out to the car.

About 8:00 last evening, Henry started coughing.  He’d hack and hack and wheeze; we just felt so awful for him.  We just petted his head and told him we were so sorry he had to get his tooth out.  His little jaw is swollen.  I’d take a picture but he’s so furry you can’t see it.

He hacked all night.  About 3:00 a.m. when I was up petting him I realized they must have intubated him when they were extracting his tooth, and then I REALLY felt awful for him.  There are few things worse than waking up and realizing your throat feels like it got scratched raw with sandpaper.  I checked his chart this morning, and sure enough intubation was on it.

I got him to take his pain pill this morning, but so far he’s not interested in the antibiotic.  I don’t want to use one of those throat-shoving things since he did just have a tooth out, but he definitely needs to take it this morning because he needs another one tonight.

I think I’ll have to go back to PetSmart and see what kind of lures they have there.

Or maybe just go buy a can of tuna and rub the pill in some tuna…Henry loves tuna.

Jun5

I Love Trouble

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I Love Trouble

This morning, I comandeered Gramps’ computer because the battery in mine died due to lack of charge, and the charger’s in Joey’s lappy bag and we forgot it (and his computer) at the church.

Whoops.

Joey had to get up bright and early (6:30) to make it to a breakfast meeting, and I woke up too and couldn’t fall back asleep so I figured I might as well get up.  The Kid and his lady (that’s my word for girlfriend in reference to one belonging to The Kid, but I just realized he also calls me Lady so I guess it could be confusing) just so happened to be driving through Indianapolis last night on the way to Ohio for some wedding, so they stopped by at 11:00 p.m. because I mostly begged them to.

I was all, PLLLLLLLLLLLLLEASE THE KID, PLEASE STOP BY AND SEE ME.

And he was  like, Lady.  Fine.  Whatever.  We’ll come over for 15 minutes.

So the finally got here, drank some coffee and stuff, and then were on the road again by 11:30 p.m.  It was kind of last minute, as it were.

Anyway, where was I.  Oh yeah, getting into trouble.

So Joey and I fell asleep about midnight and 6:30 this morning came awful early.  So I laid around until 7:30 and about the time I decided to get up, I spilled my entire glass of water all over myself, the side of the bed, and the floor and I’m still not sure how that happened.  In any case, everything was wet and it was no longer fun to lay around in bed.

Henry and I wandered out into the kitchen where we smelled coffee but saw no one, except Grandpa’s computer.  (Which I guess isn’t a person when it comes right down to it.)  I sat right down and booted it up and noticed it had a picture of a very nice rock formation as its background.

So naturally I changed it to the most obnoxious picture of Henry I could find in a quick-fast hurry on my blog.  Because Grandpa’s currently out painting the deck, but you just never know when he could finish up and come back inside for, like, more coffee or something.  And if he sees me anywhere near his computer he’ll know I’m messing around.

And now I think it’s time for breakfast.  Grandma and I are going to go to Lowe’s this morning to price flooring.  I’m not taking a shower before we go, neither am I putting on fancier clothes than my lounge pants and this t-shirt that suddenly does not fit me at all.  I mean, it did last week…but this week it’s way too short and looks totally lame.   But it’s the only one I packed.

Jun1

1,544 miles – plus a BONUS

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1,544 miles – plus a BONUS

Yesterday evening, we finally finally finally FINALLY arrived in Indianapolis after driving around the Midwest so much that we doubled the milage on our new RAV-4.  For a fleeting moment last Wednesday evening as we were loading up the vehicle, we considered taking the Corolla…but I begged Joey for the RAV-4 since it’s much easier to nap in the backseat, and there is about an oodle’s worth of legroom for the passenger.

He relented, and we took the RAV-4.

We have, so far, listened to the entire unabridged versions of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  We’re saving Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the drive back to Texas.  It’s 11 hours long, but our drive will be 16…not sure what we’ll do with the extra 5 hours.  Maybe we’ll just have to drive extra fast.

Oh, and I should mention, on Thursday morning while driving through Oklahoma I saw 23 dead armadillos in the space of two hours.  Unrelated to the aforementioned, but still notable.

So I’m sitting here in Grandma’s chair, looking out the window at the pool (which still has a leak, and which is still driving Gramps crazy – I think we should name the pool BP) and Henry is sitting on the red couch beside me.  Joey’s still sleeping.  I’m actually not sure if Henry is supposed to be on the couch, but I think we’re about to find out because Grams just came downstairs.

Hmm, she didn’t say anything.  We may be in the clear.

As soon as Joey wakes up, Henry’s getting a bath.  He smells like the inside of a garbage can (Henry, not Joey…I just realized that was an ambiguous statement), and he needs to make a good impression (again Henry, not Joey).  Who knows how long Joey will be asleep.  He’s all tired out from driving so much in the last five days.

But, ah, yes, the bonus information.  That’s probably the only thing most of you care about.

On Wednesday evening before we left for Iowa, we planned to head out to Baylor Grapevine on a mission of sneakiness.  A family friend is a radiologist, and he had graciously offered to give me a sonogram to see if we could ascertain the gender of our baby.  (Actually I think Joey called and asked on Monday.)

At 6:30, we received the call from Deanine to hit the road, so I grabbed my container of Ruby Rio Grapefruit juice to chug on the way, and off we went.

The grapefruit juice appears to have done the trick, because the baby was bouncing and wiggling and moving all around when we got there.  First we tried to see if we could get a good shot using the regular old pregnant-lady kind of sonogram wand, but it just wasn’t quite clear enough.  So (goody!) we switched to the other kind of wand and – surprise! – the picture was much sharper and more clear.

Everyone was staring at the screen saying things like “I think that’s a little boy” and “Hmmm, do you think it’s a girl?” and “Well, I thought I saw proof it was a boy” and “Wow, that looks like a girl to me”.

It went back and forth for what seemed like ages.

Ages.

Ages.

Ages.

Then, finally, the baby moved just right.

“THAT,” Charles and his associate said, “is a girl.”

“It’s a girl?!” I squeaked.

“It’s a girl.  See those three lines?” They indicated some extremely fuzzy lines on the monitor that I thought looked very ambiguous.  But I nodded vigorously, hoping I was looking at the right set of lines.

“Oh yeah,” they said again.  ”That’s a girl.  98% sure.”

I threw my hands up over my head and whooped.  Joey whipped out his phone and took a picture of the monitor screen because they didn’t have a printer hooked up to it.  He has since been showing that picture to pretty much everyone.  Poor little girl.

Yesterday, about the time we crossed the Illinois/Indiana border, she kicked me four times.  She was just as ready to get out of the car as I was.

And that, Internet, is the bonus information.

It’s a girl!