April shower

I have been working on this post for the last few days, and I was hoping to have it finished by Mother's Day, but that didn't end up happening... ANYWAY, my mommy threw me a super sweet baby shower while I was home in Ohio a few weeks ago. I can't thank her enough - party planning has always been more of my thing, and my mom wasn't exactly in her comfort zone. But she did an awesome job and threw in some major surprises - and usually I'm the one surprising her, so I was totally caught off guard!

My mom had been referring to "her committee" of helpers for the shower for quite some time. I assumed she was talking about her best friend and my sister, who did both help, and maybe my grandma, who had been weighing in on the guest list ... but apparently my mom had another arsenal of helpers in the form of three of my high school teachers. Teachers I hadn't really seen in eight or so years.

I was a little nervous about the shower to begin with because I hadn't been home in six months and hadn't seen many of the guests in at least that long, so I knew there would be a lot of people to catch up with and not a lot of time to do one-on-one visiting.

At the beginning, there were only two or three guests - and I was starting to feel the pull of trying to "work the crowd" - when I saw someone out of the corner of my eye. It was my high school band director - who actually has known me since I was in fifth grade. My mom saw my look of shock/confusion (at that point I think I still thought Mrs. Long had just stopped by the church for some random reason during my shower) and came over and reminded me of her "committee." Apparently she had been sneaky and invited a few people from my past ...

Looking at the scrapbook with Mrs. Long.

Mrs. Long brought the band scrapbook from my senior year, which was hilarious to see again. It was amazing to see who had changed and who hadn't, and we chatted a bit about who was doing what, living where, had gotten engaged, married, etc. (Facebook is quite the tool for keeping up with old high school bandmates!)

Catching up with Frau Baker.

And then I saw another person enter the room: Frau Baker, my German teacher for four years of high school. The funniest part about seeing Frau Baker again was that when she hugged me she said, "Brigitte! So good to see you again!" Brigitte was the German name I adopted for class for at least three years. (One year I tried to change it to Amrei because I thought Amrei was edgy and different). But Brigitte was the name that stuck. Sometimes Frau would "slip up" and call me Kerstin, which would be the more direct German translation of my real name, but it amazed me that after almost 11 years, she still called me Brigitte. She also wrote my card in German, and I had to translate it. Whew. Talk about being on the spot.

While I was trying to recover from my shock, and my sister was catching up with Mrs. Long and Frau Baker (Marti also has extensive histories with both teachers), I saw another person standing near the door. She looked familiar, but I didn't place her at first. Then my mom said, "Do you remember Paranoid Spice?"

Ahhh, yes. During my senior year of high school, the newspaper staff had given ourselves names of Spice Girls. We had Sporty Spice (the lone jock on staff), Baby Spice (a dead ringer for the real Baby Spice), Spelling Spice (a dear friend who struggled with spelling in his articles), Scary Spice (my menancing co-editor in chief), and we called our advisor Old Spice :) Until she started fighting us on semi-controversial issues and we had to convince her that she wouldn't be suspended/we wouldn't be sued/the newspaper wouldn't be banned if we printed this article or did that interview. That's when Old Spice became Paranoid Spice.

Mrs. Mast (aka Paranoid Spice) was one of the greatest influences of my entire academic career. She never lost faith in me and pushed me to become a better writer, designer, editor and leader. I was on staff for four years, and I was an editor or the editor for at least two of those years, so I spent a lot of time in the newspaper office and with Mrs. Mast. We had a small staff, so there was a lot of one-on-one time. I went to journalism camp partly because of Mrs. Mast. Opportunities were opened for me at Kent State because of Mrs. Mast and what she pushed me to do. To say she shaped my journalistic career would be an understatement, and I will be forever grateful for all that she helped me with ... and while not every day on the newspaper staff (or any newspaper staff, really) is sunshine and rainbows, I have a lot of fond memories from those years. And sadly, I don't know if anyone got a photo of me with Mrs. Mast at the shower.

The amazing part is the work my mom had to do to track these people down. I'd lost touch with Mrs. Mast (I blame it on the fact that she lives in Amish country and like to joke that I send e-mails, not carrier pigeons, plus I never make it back to the high school anymore). My mom ended up tracking her down through a fellow church member who teaches at the high school (he was actually the yearbook advisor when I was in high school, and the newspaper staff shared an office with the yearbook staff). I hadn't seen Frau Baker in at least five years, when I ran in to her at a graduation party. My mom had originally tried to contact her by calling her brother. And Mrs. Long is one of my little brother's teachers, so she was easy to track down.

My mom corresponded with them through invitations dropped off at the high school and e-mails. I don't think I ever would have suspected that there would be surprise guests at the shower.

Thanks for everything, Mom! :)

And now, the not-so-surprising parts of the shower, illustrated with lots of photos:

My grandma, sister, hostess mom, me and Elle.

The shower was held at my mom's church, and we invited family (both mine and Tim's) and some of my closest friends. The shower was quite a drive away from most of Tim's family, but his mom made the trek across the state and survived getting lost to join us :)

Tim's mom and I.

I hadn't seen my cousins Linda, Melissa (who drove in from PA) and Sharon (shown here with my grandma)
in quite some time. It was great to see them again!

My sister assisted in the opening and record-keeping of gifts.
Here, I open a gift from my friend Sara. I was laughing because
the card contained the three bobby pins I'd lent her the night before :)

I got to help pick out the cake :) It was delish!

I spent a good chunk of my weekend with my closest high school friends :)

Lindsey, me (holding the doll that was part of the shower game), Sara, Jen and Megan.

I also got to see some of my favorite college friends (Aimee just wanted to make sure she didn't go two years in a row without seeing me ...)

Aimee, me and Claudia.

And Elle received a ton of awesome gifts. This girl now has quite a wardrobe, including sunglasses, sleepers, bibs and the cutest dresses you've ever seen. She also got outfits for every holiday courtesy of Aunt Marti, some adorable toys, towels and books and a bouncy seat that I think she'll love. Because I had to travel back to Florida via plane, I was a bit concerned about how to get everything back ... but luckily, a lot of people also gave gift cards, which travel extremely well :) And the clothes and toys didn't take up much space, so I was able to get everything back to Florida in my oversized suitcase plus one large box that we shipped while I was still in Ohio. It arrived in Florida two days after I did :) Now I just have to put together the dresser so I can put away some of her awesome clothes!

It was a great shower, and we truly feel blessed by all of the people already in Elle's life and their generosity. It seems our little girl's arrival is highly anticipated by a lot of people!

How we announced "the news"

Warning: Long, media-filled post ahead!

In a few days, I am going home and will see family and friends that I haven't seen since we found out we were expecting. (*Technically, I was pregnant while in Ohio the last time, but we didn't know it ... and there's a story there worth a separate post ...) I have quite a bit more belly than I did the last time I was home, and I've been thinking about how we delivered the "big news" more than four months ago.

I've been known to pull a fast one or two. There was that time when I went to Pennsylvania to be at the 16th birthday party of my best friend from first grade - I dressed up in a gorilla suit to surprise her (above left), and it was the first time I'd seen her since second or third grade.

There was that time when I was in high school and we threw a surprise baby shower for my mom. She had NO clue. (Photo at right is of Mom walking in to the shower.) There was the time I cut 10 inches of hair off to donate to Locks of Love, borrowed a fake hair piece from my college RA and spent an afternoon o' faux hair at home before telling my mom and little brother that I was sans a long, natural ponytail. (If you want photos of that, I've got 'em.) There was also that time that I flew home from Florida for Thanksgiving, had my dad pick me up at the airport and we arrived home to completely shock my mom. (Wow, Mom, you're pretty easy to fool!)

During that same trip, I surprised my little brother with a trip to a Cleveland Cavaliers game as an early Christmas present. My mom didn't want me to let him know of the pending surprise too early, so I had to wait until the morning of the game to tell him. Because I am conniving and tricky, I videotaped his groggy-but-excited reaction as he woke up and found the tickets ... and then found out that we were going to the game that night.



And there was also the classic surprise 80th birthday party we threw for my grandma - what started as a way for "Kristin to save money by flying in to Pittsburgh and visiting with Grandma for a day" turned in to a "This is your life" episode for Grandma, complete with a visit from my brother and sister-in-law from Colorado. I really thought Grandma was nearly on to us several times, but we managed to keep it under wraps, and it was a huge success :)

Grandma, tissue in hand, cries to Mom and Marti:
"I can't believe you surprised me!"

There have been some near-surprises, too - like the time I planned to surprise my best friend Meghan by showing up in Phoenix for a bachelorette-themed weekend (we got engaged about six weeks apart, married about six weeks apart and got together for one weekend to have makeup trials, go through bridal magazines, discuss wedding details and enjoy a night out and an afternoon at a spa courtesy of her then-fiance ... bliss!). She kind of ruined that one herself when she essentially guessed it outright and her husband had no time to cover (but it really worked out better that way, as we were able to plan the weekend out and make the most efficient use of our time together!).

Meg and I show off our engagement rings
during a night out in Glendale.

So it's not REALLY unfathomable for me to deliver what is arguably the biggest news of my life - and definitely the biggest news of the year - in surprise fashion, is it? And considering I was faced with a) the time to brainstorm ideas and b) the obstacle of being 1,000 miles away from most of our family and friends, it required a little sneakiness on my part to amp up the drama. (And I TOTALLY should have taken pictures or video of these.)

I waited allll day to tell Tim. Which killed me. I tested on a Sunday morning. On Monday morning, I took my lunch break at my part-time job (and I was working a 5 a.m. to noon shift, so "lunch" was at 8 a.m.) and called my OBGYN's office to make an appointment. I then walked out of the break room and went to my manager, whom I had known for only two weeks. We need to put requests for time off in two weeks ahead of time, and my appointment was 10 days away. I blurted out "Mike, I need next Wednesday off to go to a doctor's appointment because I'm pregnant." It was weird to hear "I'm pregnant," and I'm pretty sure Mike didn't know what to make of the info, either, but he said congratulations and told me taking the day off would be no problem.

Another photo from Mom's surprise shower, just for fun.

For the rest of the day, I had to wait until my dad was home from work and my little brother was home from school before I could call my parents. I usually talk to my mom every day, and I had to refrain from calling her on Sunday because I was worried I'd slip.

So that night, I called my mom and asked her if she'd help me with a class project. I told her we were videoconferencing in class that week (it's an online class, so it was plausible), and I was trying to see how many people could comfortably fit in the screen, so I asked if she could gather my dad and little brother in front of the computer. She gathered them with little resistance, we signed in to iChat, and I told her I'd need to ask some test questions but it wouldn't take long. I started with some lame ones ... "Dad, do you want to retire?" (He laughed like crazy, which I knew to take as a yes.) "Doug, how was school today?" (I think at this point he was making up an answer, but I was worried about blowing the delivery of my next question, which referenced the fact that my brother and sister-in-law had announced that they're expecting about three weeks before we found out *we* were expecting.)

"Mom and Dad, how would you feel about becoming grandparents twice this summer?" At this point, my dad got this *look* on his face, and my mom said something like, "That would be fine ... wait. What?! Are you trying to tell us something?" And by then I was smiling like an idiot and nodded. I told them the details - what little we knew at that point, how we were going to call my siblings and Tim's parents and brother's family that night and tell a few close friends, but we were going to keep it a secret from extended family until after the appointment, just to confirm that things were OK thus far.

I then called my sister and told her she had a limited amount of time to join Baby Club 2010. She instantly understood the reference and started asking questions, like how far along we were, when we'd found out, etc. I called my brother and asked if he thought his baby or mine would arrive first. I thought that might trip him up, but he laughed and said, "Well, I guess that depends on when you're due." (At the time, I thought there might be a chance we were due in early to mid-July, like my sister-in-law.)

Tim was hesitant to call his parents that night because they had been at calling hours for a family friend. I was rather impatient, though, and told him that this good news might help during a difficult time. He called a few times, got voicemail, and then finally got through to his mom. He asked about the calling hours, made some conversation and then pretty much got right to the point: "Well, Mom, I'm calling to tell you that Kristin is pregnant." I was standing right next to him, jumping excitedly from foot-to-foot while I untangled Christmas ornaments, and I could just hear the disbelieving silence. Then the excitement :) (Tim's mom agreed that it was indeed much-needed good news given the circumstances.)

We called Tim's brother, Todd, and sister-in-law, Angie. When Angie answered, I asked her how Tim's nephews were and got a rundown on their involvement in basketball and the family's preparations for Christmas. Then I told her "the big news" and laughed while she reacted with shock and screams. (I think the first thing she said was "You guys have to move back to Ohio.") Angie told Todd, and then we got Tim on the phone to tell his nine-year-old nephew, Cal, who thought it was "pretty cool" that he was going to have a cousin.

To tell some of my closest-in-relationship-yet-most-distant-in-proximity friends, I pulled similar stunts. I talked to my friend Lindsey during a previously scheduled phone call and told her I was mad that she was moving to Minnesota ... because I didn't think she'd be able to see my baby very often. I think she was initially guarded and ready to defend her family's choice to move (a choice I've supported 100% from the beginning, so I think she was surprised to get delayed opposition from me). Then she was silent as she processed the last part of my statement :)

I had oh-so-casually e-mailed Meghan with a story similar to the one I'd used on my mom. I explained to her that the "class videoconferencing" required the use of Skype, a program I'd never used before, but she and her husband have used regularly. I asked if maybe we could try to Skype on Tuesday evening and just make sure everything worked. My plans were nearly blown, though, as she told me they'd been having trouble with their sound and she wasn't sure it would work. But she agreed to try, and we set a time.

I signed on that night, and her husband had helped her hook things up, so she told me if I had specific questions I'd probably have to ask Mike. I think I said something like, "OK, cool ... but I have to tell you the truth - there's no class project. I actually have some news that I wanted to share with you ..." To this, I think she responded with a semi-confused "Oh?" And then I told her, "I'm pregnant!" I told her the background of how we'd found out, answered some questions, and Mike came in during our brief chat and said, "I knew something was up ... I figured you knew how to use Skype and I didn't know why you needed to test this ..." Luckily for me, Meg was much more unassuming :)

I made calls to family and another handful of friends the next week after the first appointment had gone well and we had seen the heartbeat, and then for the most part, we didn't really tell anyone until we sent out our Christmas cards ... complete with a signature wishing "Happy Holidays from Tim, Kristin and Baby Wolfrum (due Aug. 3, 2010)" and included a copy of the ultrasound as "baby's first photo." The reactions to *that* were rather enjoyable as well :)