Dad: Dazed and Confuzed

It's the weekend of my sister, Michelle's birthday, and the family is going out to breakfast. It's a long, long line at Mimi's, and we have a 30 minute wait in front of us. To kill time, we let Michelle open her present. We got her a super cute, fully accessorized outfit for her to wear with attitude now that she's sporting 15 years on earth. It was so cute in fact, people came up to us asking where we got it.

Once that was over, we casually mentioned that we got my dad something, for no particular reason. We handed him the gift bag and he pulled out the box and unwrapped it. He said, "Oh what a nice frame!", and promptly passed it to my step-mother, Kathy.

Let me stop here and point out the fact that the sterling silver frame is decorated with a baby carriage and has little block beads strung across it that spells out "B-A-B-Y". And don't forget the fact that inside the frame is an ultrasound picture of the baby.

But no, Dad doesn't see any of that... it's just a frame. Makes me wonder what he really sees all these years that I've been buying him Father's Day, birthday and Christmas presents.

Suddenly, Dad sprung do life as Kathy screamed, "WHAT!!!!", then asked, "Is this, what I think it is?"

Then Dad, ever astute says, "What?"

Kathy's ignoring him, and says, "Are you pregnant?"

John and I are finally glad that somebody gets it, and answer, "Yep."

Then Kathy screams to the entire population that is waiting for breakfast at 10:30am on a Saturday morning, which is considerable mind you, "We're pregnant!!!"

Dad says, "Lemme see". He means the frame. "I need to build you another room on your house."

So that's the story of how we're remodeling our house again, after only 2 years since the last remodel. Hopefully, by the end of the year, we'll have a 3 story, 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a view, a HUGE walk in closet and a baby nursery.

Telling Mom

Although I didn't get to tell my mom under the best of circumstances, I did manage to make it fun for her. I had just flown home at the last minute to see my Nana in the hospital. We weren't sure if she was going to make it through the weekend, and I didn't want Nana to leave without her knowing that I finally did it.

Mom and Ray picked me up at the airport and we went immediately to the hospital. Nana was in ICU, so we had access to visit at all hours of the night. I was glad that Ray came too, so I could tell them at the same time.

Ray pulled up in front of the hospital, and was letting us out. I had to tell them before I went up and told Nana, so I stalled by saying I had something for them.

I had given them a book about retirement, since they are both considering it this year. However, I replaced the first page in the book with my own text. The question I posed to them was "What's the first thing you should do in retirement?"

There was a card below beckoning them to lift it. My mom thought I was going to give them financial advice. (Where would she get that idea?) But when she lifted the card, she saw "Play with your grandchild!" and a picture of the ultrasound.

Again, and just like Ginger, no sound came out of my mom's mouth. In fact, it was quiet for a while as she processed the info. (In retrospect, I think it's cuz the baby doesn't look like a baby, but a bean shaped smudge. But jeez, these women worked in a hospital, you'd think they know what an ultrasound is!) My mom can't do that neat white person neat where the eyes become bigger than the mouth like Ginger can, but I've never seen her smile so much and hug me for so long. She exclaimed, "I am so happy!!!"

In fact, Mom has pretty much been in a good mood ever since. Ray is offering to pay me to stay pregnant. I think I'll pass. After all, I live 500 miles away and morning sickness sucks.

The next day, Kami took one look at the ultrasound declared that the baby has the same head shape as John, so at least I was faithful. She's right, on both counts.

Telling Ginger

Ginger came to visit us for her annual birthday trip. We did our traditional spa and shopping day, but this time at the new Burke Williams spa in San Francisco's new ShoppingTown. I spent the day hiding morning sickness and trying not to give away the secret.

We made reservations at a local french restaurant, La Provence, to tell her the good news. Unfortuntely, because my grandma was ill, I had to fly out immediately after our spa treatment and wasn't going to be able to make dinner. John picked us up from the spa, and we decided that we had to tell her between the spa and the airport. So movie theater lobby, which is in front of the parking garage elevators, it was. At least it's a nice theater. They sell Kettle Korn and everything.

We told her we had one more birthday gift for her. It was a sterling silver frame, with a baby carriage and a string of blocks that spelled baby. In the frame we put a copy of the ultrasound.

Prior to this day, I forecasted exactly what Ginger's face would look like. And bet that no sound would come out for a while. For a woman with the gift of gab, only this could stump her.

She didn't disappoint. It took several minutes to register, but her eyes got really wide and her mouth tightened to a little O. Being Asian, I think it's really neat when white people can make their eyes bigger than their mouths. She teared up and nothing came out of the little O.

Then I was off to tell my mom.