Telling Our Parents

One of the greatest parts of this whole process so far has been sharing the news with our families. We planned some creative and memorable ways to let them know the news, but my parents are much more observant (and I, much less sneaky) than I realized. When I was 6 weeks along and before anyone knew, I stayed with Mom and Dad for a weekend so that I could be closer to my wonderful friend Blair's wedding festivities in St. Louis Park. I think they enjoyed having me at home again, like old times. It also gave them the perfect opportunity to watch my every move and figure out for themselves what I was attempting to hide. In hindsight, complaining of back pain and going to bed at 9:00 PM on a Friday night were not the slyest of tactics. Neither was remaining stone sober for all 13 hours of Blair and Mike's wedding celebration, or trying to convince my dad that the Sprite in my hand was a gin and tonic. I mean really, have I ever been hardcore enough to drink G & T's all day long? They waited until the next weekend (Father's Day) to ask if their suspicions were true, and our not so well-kept secret was out. Even though we didn't share the news in the way we had originally planned, I'll never forget the looks on their faces when they officially found out they were going to be Oma and Papa for the first time (although I couldn't see Mom's face at first because she was hiding it behind a menu so we wouldn’t know she was crying...can you guess where my lack of sneakiness comes from? Haha.) Brian and Darren were also very excited about their new role as twin uncles. Darren cautioned me that I shouldn’t ride the Wild Thing at our annual trip to Valley Scare this fall. He's always keeping me in line, thank goodness. 

We told Nate's family about the baby on the 4th of July. Our idea for letting them know has some history behind it. When Nate's sister Ashley told him she was pregnant with Madison 11 years ago, she excitedly explained that he would soon be an aunt or an uncle, but she wasn't sure which one because they didn't know if the baby was a girl or a boy. Thankfully, that confusion was straightened out before Madison was born, otherwise she might have grown up calling him "Auntie Nathan." So on the 4th, me, Nate, Lee, Cindy, Jason, Ashley, Madison, and Aiden had a nice picnic dinner together at Crystal Lake Beach. Nate handed Ashley a card and asked her to read it out loud. Jokes in the Offerdahl family never die. The card said: "Dear Ashley, Congrats! In seven more months, you will be an aunt or an uncle, but we're not sure which one yet." Lee and Cindy were thrilled to find out they would be Grandma and Grandpa again. The news earned Nate a high-five from his dad, and we almost started a tally of the number of times his mom said, "I'm so excited!" Ashley, Jason and the kids were also very happy that a little one was on the way. Madison let us know that she would babysit for $100 an hour. Time to start saving!