A Quarter of a Century

Quarter of a Century. Saying it that way makes it sound like a long time, doesn't it? Twenty-five years ago, my wife & I were expecting our second child. She awoke early and couldn't sleep, so she went in the other room. Around 5am, she came and told me we needed to think about the fact that she might be in labor. Being the loving, supportive husband I was, I told her she probably wasn't and rolled over.

When I heard the slamming of the door accompanied with a muttered "FINE!", I made a wise decision. I got up. After sitting with her a few minutes, we decided it was time to go to the hospital. We finished packing and called a neighbor who had agreed to take care of our 2-year old daughter. As we finished packing her things, he called back and told us to remember a car-seat and something and something and something. I told him that he was more nervous than I was.

On the way to the hospital on the planned route (this was still pre-rush hour traffic) I saw a road-sign that looked familiar. I was pretty sure I knew where the other end of this road was and it would be a quicker route, so I decided to try a road never travelled before (at least by me). The funny thing about roads in Charlotte, they all have similar names. There's Sharon Rd, Sharon Lane, Sharon Amity and I ain't Sharin' Sharon. No wait, that last one is a song by Jim Stafford.

Anyway, when I got the end of Sharon something it wasn't quite where I thought it would be, but it was close. My wife was not amused or impressed. We still got to the hospital before rush hour and in plenty of time.

Ultrasounds were not as common 25 years ago, so we had no idea if we were expecting a girl or a boy (even in that day, those were still the only two choices). We entertained a lot of ideas about determining the sex, tried a boiled egg resting on the belly and a few other tricks, but these were mainly for fun. Our nurse that day told us that the baby's heartbeat would tell you, but many times it was wrong. But she had great confidence when she told us THIS one was a boy.

We took the nurse's prediction seriously, as we had chosen girl names but no boy names. Between contractions for two hours we discussed names as we had discussed for the last nine months, still with no resolution. Fortunately for us, no decision was needed as our little girl was born early that afternoon. I'm not sure if the nurse ever knew about her mistake.

Happy Birthday Katie. You've gone from being my little "bean green" to a wonderful lady with 2.2 children of your own. We love you. Hope today is as happy for you as my day was 25 years ago.

My newest granddaughter

Frequent readers of my blog may be experiencing a little deja vu or thinking "wait, Randy's rerunning blog posts." Quite the contrary, this is a NEW blogpost about a new granddaughter. Yes, I told you about Kayden back in December and Audry in January (actually came 12/31) and about Caroline a few weeks ago. Now, it's Anna Grace's turn.

Last night at around 8:45, Anna Grace made her entrance. She weighed 7,11 (Oh thank heaven!) and measured 20+3/4 inches long. She joins her three girl cousins (all 6 months old or younger) and her lone boy cousin (3 years old - details way back here).

Although I had nothing to do with the name choice, I think it's perfect. She will teach all of us, so much about God's grace.

Congratulations Adam & Emily, you have a beautiful little girl. And no idea what you have coming at you. (But I'll give you a hint - it's wonderful!)

For more information, see my wife's blog in one of her very infrequent blogposts.

Sweet Caroline - *updated*

No, I'm not talking about that song by Neil Diamond (which can be seen/heard here). I'm talking about my newest grand-daughter, Caroline Adair Beam. She was born early this morning (4:44am - that's easy to remember) and is my oldest daughter's first child. She came a little earlier than expected, weighing in at 6 pounds 8 ounces and measuring 18 inches.

Caroline joins her two newly born girl cousins Audry (detailed here) and Kayden Grace (detailed here) and will likely torment their 3 year old cousin Anthony (way back here). He's in for a mess between these three and another girl on the way (just hang on Anna Grace, your time's coming).

I will have to share this little girl with her paternal grandfather who is on a local talk-radio show. He & I tend to think in some similar ways, he was able to start playing the Neil Diamond song a few months ago when they chose the name. I may have him beat though, I think I still have the song on an 8-track tape somewhere.

For Caroline's dedication here, I'll use some of the words Neil Diamond wrote: "Sweet Caroline - good times never seemed so good." And when I see her, it will be "Hands, touchin hands - reachin out - touchin me - touchin you."

I'm also going to repeat what I said with some of the others - babies are a sign from God that He intends for the world to continue. A miracle from God, babies teach us so much. Caroline has the ability to teach her parents, her grand-parents, aunts and uncles. Or to be used by God to teach them.

It will be late this week before I get to see this beautiful child, I planned a full week out of town and can't back out of it. Congratulations Adam & Ashley! I know you will be great parents.

*Update* Caroline's paternal grandfather called into his radio program to announce her birth. But I scooped him here.

Happy New Year!

Wow! What a way to bring in the New Year. My youngest daughter, who was (past tense) about 9 months pregnant had a doctor's appointment early New Year's Eve day. Just a status check, but after a few false alarms they were anticipating setting a date for inducing the labor process. Much to every one's surprise, they chose to induce IMMEDIATELY.

The night before, my son-in-law had experienced a lot of pain due to an infected tooth. So he had decided to sleep through the appointment. Zoom, off goes mom-to-be to the hospital (actually, she already was a mom - see here for her son's announcement 3 years ago). I was nominated to pick up my son-in-law to take him to the hospital. To make a long story short, we got to the hospital in plenty of time to witness the birth of a 9 pound 3 ounce little girl, Audry Dyann.

Late that night, my son-in-law had to go the ER. Funny thing, no dentists are open on New Year's Eve. So, I was nominated to sit with him until the ER docs could give him some anti-biotics and pain medicine.

We've spent the first few days of this year starting the spoiling process, a job we expect to continue for years to come. Audry joins her cousin Kayden Grace (see here) and both bring their parents a 2008 tax deduction. (Way to go girls!)

Audry, welcome to the world. In June, you will be joined by two new cousins. You will always be able to say you're a year older than them.

My first granddaughter

What a busy week. I took a short trip (2 nights) to New York. On Thursday, I flew back to find out that our oldest daughter was going to the hospital in Raleigh to have her baby. I flew into Charlotte, so rather than drive to Greenville (home) I decided to drive to Raleigh. However, I had barely gotten off the airport property when my wife called me and she had car problems. I drove an hour to pick her up, only to travel the same roads back on my way to Raleigh. We arrived in Raleigh about midnight and went to our daughters apartment to sleep for the night (trusting that nothing would happen that night).

Early Friday morning we went to the hospital and spent the day waiting. Then about 8pm, she went in for a c-section. At 8:13, Kayden Grace was born. She weighed in a 9 pounds, 9 ounces and measured 21+3/4 inches long. Now that's a big baby. What I don't understand is that they measured her head at 14 centimeters. Why is the head measured in centimeters and the length in inches? Is this done to confuse the baby, parents and grand parents? Seems like a communist plot to me.

We've spent to weekend starting the spoiling process. This is the God given job of all grand-parents, that along with trying to outdo the other grandparents. We're starting out strong.

This is our second grandchild, the first girl. It's also the first in this "batch", we have another due later this month and two more in June. Hopefully, they will all be spaced out a couple weeks from each other so that Grandma gets to help when they first come home from the hospital. I like the idea of having them in batches, I'll have to encourage the kids to plan this way for the next batch.

When our grandson was born (see here), I said "babies were a sign from God that he intended for the world to continue. A miracle from God, babies teach us so much." Kayden Grace can teach her parents and grandparents all about love once again.

Welcome to the world Kayden. Audry, it's almost your turn.

What a great uncle

Yesterday, Sept 18, I became a great-uncle twice. Actually, I have some great-nephews, this is my first great-niece and I added another great-nephew. My neice and her husband on one side of the family had a baby boy, Jacob Thomas and my nephew and his wife on another side both had a girl, Alexia Naud (pronounced "No"). {last names omitted to protect the family privacy - new families need all the rest they can get}. This was the first in each of these families.

Alexia came into the world at 12:46, about 3 weeks early. Last word was she was doing fine, but a little fluid in her lungs. Hopefully that cleared up today. Jacob came in around 1:45, a few days late. All reports are that he's fine.

I think it was my dad that said "babies are a sign from God that He intends the world to keep going." That's a nice way to look at things.

What a weekend!

The weekend was busy!! As normal for our house, we had an invader for the weekend, our 18 month old grandson. He has more energy than both of us combined. The big event was a surprise birthday party for my 80 year old mother (Happy Birthday Mom!).

I was nominated to put together a slide show with old pictures, so I finished pulling them all together Friday night. Of course first, we had dinner with some of the folks who had come into town for the surprise.

Saturday involved finishing up last minute details and getting ready for the party. A little setup, a little moving furniture, then everyone started arriving. Three hours of meet & greet, take tear down it all and then to dinner again (we're a family that likes to eat).

Saturday night we crashed as soon as the 18 month old invader would let us. Sunday morning, I had the privelege of hearing my favorite singer worship her (& my) Lord by singing at my mom's church (another birthday present for Mom). And of course after church, what else, but go eat again.

Yes, a busy weekend, and no time to think about things I normally blog about. But it was a good weekend.

How many children do you want?

The Duggar family have 17 and aren't sure that they're through yet. This family from Arkansas (they father's real name is "Jim Bob" - actually James Robert, but he goes by Jim Bob) has had two sets of twins and 13 individual births.

I've seen their website, it's sure to meet the approval of my pro-life friends. In fact, you could almost say that it's pro-life to the extreme. But what impressed me was that it's not in-your-face pro-life. I got the impression that if one of their friends wanted to use birth control (they obviously don't) they would not chastise the friend.

I did some searching and found that their are some people who don't agree with the Duggars. While the Duggars won't get in their face, they will get in the Duggars' face. They argue that there are too many children starving (not these children though), that they will push their ideas on their children (isn't that a parent's job?) or that they're just weird. They also argue that it's not natural or healthy.

While I agree that they are different, I'm not sure weird fits. And as for natural, what's not natural? A child is the natural result of a healthy marriage. Sometimes it doesn't work that way, but when it does, it's a beautiful thing. The fact that they don't want to prevent childbirth just makes it completely natural.

I'm sure there's a lot I don't know, but I think this is great for this family. Congratulations to the Duggars.

* Update *
The Duggars were on NBC's Today show this morning. They consider each of their 17 children a gift from God. The background searching I did said that they own DEBT FREE a 7000 square foot home. I forgot to mention that the kids are home schooled, on the Today show was a clip of the school-teacher mom teaching bankruptcy law. All of the family looked normal, healthy and happy. My wife said "if you are really happy, you can't fake that".

Side note. We have half that many children (if you count sons-in-law and daughter-in-law).