Telling The Parents

When you find out that you are going to be parents...especially for the first time...a few million things run through your head. All the things you have to do to get ready, all of the things in your life as you know it that are going to change...and, how do we tell our parents.

First would be Andrea's mother, Charles and Nana, we always knew they would be first. We decided to go visit them on Thursday October 7th, and to keep them off the scent, we said that our visit was to celebrate our own birthday's, Andrea's a couple weeks late, and mine a couple days early. After dinner, we told them that we had a couple of gifts from our trip to Tennessee the weekend before. Little did they know...our big news was contained in those two little gift bags. Inside was a frame that informed them, that baby Rhoads was COMING SOON! After a few seconds of disbelief, and the shock wore off, they were excited, and wanted to know the whole story, how long had we known...and when was Baby Rhoads expected.


Next would be the Rhoads family, who were about to find out that they would be grandparents for the first time. On October 9th, after spending the day at a gallery opening, we were all at our house, and had just enough time to break the news before heading off to dinner. We again disguised our intentions under the veil of gifts from our trip to TN. This time, we told them that we had some tacky T-Shirts for them, in keeping with the tradition that our own grandparents started many years ago. The T-Shirts however, informed them that they would soon be grandparents. And once again, it took a few seconds for them to understand fully what we were trying to tell them, and once they did, the tears of joy were falling. I still don't think that my dad has come to grips with it, he keeps saying that he is not old enough to be a Grandpa. Sorry dad, you are plenty old enough.


Next would be Andrea's dad, Diane, Uncle Ronnie and Andrea's brother and his family. Thankfully, we were already getting together with all of them on October 10th for lunch. We went back to her dad's house for cake and ice cream, and set up a family photo. After getting a couple of good pictures, then we changed the countdown, instead of saying "Cheese Burgers", we yelled out "ANDREA'S PREGNANT!" No one believed us, and Alicia wanted to cut to the chase, and find out if we were kidding. We weren't. We filled them in on everything, and got them up to speed, and told them to get ready, Baby Rhoads would be here before they knew it.


Now they all knew. They might not believe it yet. But they will.