Friday, April 27, 2007

The (Other) Call That Shook the World

I told the story of us getting The Call, but the call story I will remember just as much is calling my mom to tell her. You probably have to know her to appreciate this, but know that 1) she is really really excited for her long-awaited first grandchild, 2) she really wanted it to be a girl, 3) she is a first-grade teacher, and 4) she is on the hyper-emotional side! (Sorry, Mom—if you want to defend yourself, you'll have to figure out how to leave comments on here!)

After we printed the photos and absorbed the referral information a bit, it was about 12:15 here—just after-school time for Mom in Michigan. Perfect. I called her school and asked for her. Mom had told me about how when she was a young married gal she and her friends had a deal that when one of them found out they were pregnant, they would call the others collect—so you knew if you got a collect call from Linda, Judy, Cindy that they were having a baby. So I asked the person at Mom's school to page her saying that she had a collect call (I didn't really call collect). After a minute Mom got on the phone with her professional teacher voice:
"Hello, this is Linda H."
Me: "You have a collect call from the mother of your grandchild."
Mom—confused: "Who is this?"
"It's Wendy."
"Wendy! Oh!" (starting to shriek)
"It's a girl."
"It's a girl?! IT'S A GIIIIIIIIRL!!!! OH! OH!" (and other extremely high-pitched, loud, shrieky noises!)
And all the other teacher ladies started shrieking too! The yelping and ohhhing went on for several minutes as Aaron and I stood there laughing. She was completely blubbering and freaking out. More people kept coming in the teacher's lounge to see what in the world was going on, so she'd tell them and they'd all shriek and laugh again. Finally I said, "Do you want me to tell you anything, or do you just want to keep screaming?" It was so funny—and fun! I will never forget that . . . or let her live it down!

She is coming to visit next week and, after showing baby Anna's photo to all the world and hitting the local baby resale shop, called her travel agent to see how many suitcases/pounds she can bring—Lord have mercy and bring more grandchildren so this one isn't spoiled to death!

I love you, Mom . . . Anna's grandma at last!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It really was funny. It was expected that it was going to be loud...but the length of time was longer than I expected. I would have expected a normal human being to run out of breath much sooner. :-)

Anonymous said...

As I have known your mother my whole life, I have very clear picture of this (I can see it like they do on tv with the split screen, your Mom shrieking on one side and you and Aaron cracking up on the other) and I love it! Loved the second set of pictures, too! I will get cracking on getting an Oregon based family reunion together!

Anonymous said...

My sister had a similar reaction when I told her that we're having twins.

Amy said...

I can hear the shrieking in my mind right now! How fun!

CritterLady62 said...

I go to your mom's church and boy is she excited. She has multiple copies of the picture of Anna around the house and she is on cloud nine! What fun! You've got a little cutie there; I'm sure you cannot wait to get her home and let the spoiling begin!

RMMcDowell said...

Tee-hee. Your mom has been in contact with me too . . . we're both SO excited. :)

Stacie said...

Just found your blog- your daughter is beautiful! Congratulations!! I love reading about THE CALL from everyone. Can't wait to get ours someday! Thanks for sharing.
Stacie