"What's This About Ya'll Having A Baby?"

Only hours after writing that last post about telling people, the cat is about 90% out of the bag now with family.

By the end of the afternoon yesterday, we had a great plan together for telling our family later this week. We were going to tell Don & Emily (the other pastor and his wife) first last night, so that I could ask for this weekend off to go to Louisiana. I had already checked with both of my parents to make sure everyone would be around this weekend (without letting them know we were coming). Our plan was to tell Kim's brother and our sister-in-law Wednesday night, then Kim's parents on Thursday night. Then we'd take off Friday to drive to my mother's in Bastrop, LA and surprise that side of the family on Friday night (Saturday and Sunday weren't options because the entire town will be New Orleans watching Bastrop in the state football championship). Saturday morning we'd get up and go surprise my Dad and the rest of my Benton family, then take our time getting back to Austin on Sunday. Pretty good plan, huh? Everyone gets a surprise visit and gets to hear the news face to face.

Well, about 10 minutes after talking to my mom and while driving over to Don & Emily's to begin this sequence of events, my mom called me back on my cell phone. "Hey, it's mom again. Right after getting off the phone with you I decided to check your blog, and what's this about ya'll having a baby?" I was shocked, I had no idea what part of my other personal blog she was talking about. I thought I had been so careful keeping this blog secret. I stammered and stuttured and finally asked, "What?" She proceeded to tell me that she still checks my normal blog every few days (even though I haven't posted to it in over a month), and that my profile now finished by saying "Oh yeah, and we're having a baby." I pride myself on being quick on my feet and even conniving at times, but I had nothing. I couldn't think of any way to cover it, so I said "We didn't want you to find out this way, we were coming this weekend to tell you that Kim is pregnant." First came the squeel, then "Oh my gosh, I am so excited." Several more minutes were spent with her and her congratulations. And as we talked, I turned the car around to come home and figure out why the internet was betraying us.

When we created this blog, we password protected it and made sure Kim and I were the only ones who could see it until we wanted all of you to. But I built it through Blogger/Blogspot, just like mine and Kim's personal blogs. And when I made a profile bio on this baby blog, it imported it to my other blog too. So I deleted that one line about having a baby from the profile immediately. The good news was that so far my mom is the only family member that knew about my blog. She was here the weekend I created it, but I wasn't going to tell other family and friends until I had more content up on it. The bad news was our plan was at least partly ruined, and we got paranoid that other people would find out soon too. So we went on what can only be described as an Austin "telling spree." We went and told Don & Emily. Then we went and told Kim's parents. Then we went and told Clayton & Megan. Somewhere in there Kim told her best friend Dey. Everyone has been surprised, but seemed happy and excited for us.

But I just feel terrible that my mom found out like she did, and I feel really bad about most of my family not knowing yet when so much of Kim's family and our friends here do. I'm sad my dad won't find out for 4 more days, but I'm glad we'll get to tell him face to face. Our plan now is to go to Benton Friday night and surprise everyone, then come back to Austin Saturday or Sunday in time for church. My mom said there's no point in making the longer trip to Bastrop now that she knows, and that she'll keep the secret from the rest of my extended family there until we get there for Christmas.

But as the poet said, "The best laid plans of mice and men..."