Baby Liam - Congratulations to Melissa and Greg!!!

I knew early on that my friends Melissa and Greg were expecting their first child.  They told me in a most special way - we were at a birthday party for a mutual friend and Greg mentioned to me he had a pancake recipe that he thought was South Beach friendly for me out in their car and wanted to know if I wanted to take a look.  I thought it was kinda peculiar that he didn't just bring the recipe book inside the house, but I'm a go-with-the-flow kinda girl, so I went outside to go look at the book.  Melissa went along with us and mentioned something about having a special bookmark for the recipe.  Um...okay.

Pause here while I insert (once again) how I'm a total Aggie when it comes to putting together pieces to the puzzle.

Okay, so we get to the car and I ask if I'm supposed to read the recipe or look at the special bookmark first.  I don't recall who said what, but one of them told me the recipe and the other said the bookmark.  They looked at each other and laughed and then chose one, only the funny thing is I don't actually remember what order I looked at them.  Let's just say I looked at the bookmark first.  It basically informed me that Melissa was preggers (yay), but that it was a secret so SHHHHH!  Apparently the look on my face was worth a thousand words as Melissa said she wished she had her camera and she gleefully laughed and said it was priceless!  I, was honored to have been given the gift of knowing.

Prior to Melissa and Greg finding out the gender of their baby, Melissa did a poll on her blog.  I was in the minority to choose "boy", but I stuck to my guns on the day when Melissa and Greg had their ultra sound that determined the gender and called me up asking if "boy" was my final answer.  I was right!  I love being right.

Melissa and Greg had made the decision to keep the baby's name a secret until his birth.  I didn't concern myself with trying to guess it...I really didn't think too much about his name, honestly...until the night before his birth...er...the wee hours of the morning.

Here's what happened...I got a text from Melissa around 6:00pm on Wednesday letting me know that her water broke and she was heading to the hospital.  This was 3 days before her due date.  I was uber excited!  I got another text message around 10:30pm letting me know she had the epideral and that they were going to give her petocin at 4:00am.  My dogs woke me up around 1:45am to go potty.  This was when I could not go back to sleep.  All the sudden my head started getting flooded with names for the baby.  I thought of Donovan, Cameron, Jeremiah (was a bullfrog, don't ya know), Nicholas...and others.  Names kept rolling on in.  All I had to go with were a few clues Melissa had dropped along the way - she had never had a student named this name and that it was a trendy name, but not toooo popular.

I somehow someway eventually fell back asleep.

The next morning, I got some more info via Facebook postings Melissa had made.  Then, at 10:30am, I got a text message from Melissa's mom letting me know that the baby was born and that everyone was healthy, but that was all she knew because she was outside the room.  She said she would update me later when she had more info.  Finally, an hour and a half later, I received all the info...with the most important piece to the puzzle solved...little baby Liam was born to his proud and loving parents.

Liam, by the way, is one of my very favorite names.  I've always had a thing for the Irish names.  My plan since she went into labor was to go visit them after work.  I realized they must be tired and that perhaps I was being rude to push myself upon them, so I emailed Greg to say as much once he sent out a group email informing everyone of Liam's arrival.  He replied back with "He's asked to see you."  That made my heart swell.

I called my sister Cathy and explained I had yet to buy Liam's "welcome to the world" gift, but I didn't want to go to the hospital empty handed.  I asked if I should bring flowers.  She asked if there was something food related Melissa would prefer instead.  My initial response was a pepperoni pizza as Melissa had said that after she gave birth she wanted a pepperoni pizza and a coke.  I then laughed and said that didn't seem very practical, so maybe some banana pudding.  I left it with "I would think about it".

Before I left work, I text Melissa and Greg to see what kind of contraband I could bring them.  Melissa called me and asked if I could bring them a pepperoni pizza and her a coke!  HA!  How perfect!  I asked where from and picked up a pizza from Grimaldi's Pizza.  I ordered it, picked it up, bought a Coke from a Chick-fi-A drive-thru since Grimaldi's only had Pepsi products, and went off to meet Liam.

I met up with Greg's sister, Lisa, and Melissa's brother, Terry, and sister-in-law, Lisa, at the hospital.  We had a lovely time getting to know little Liam.  He sure is a cutie - already so alert - already so loved!  I can't wait to get to know this little guy!  I love him already!  Happy BIRTHday, little Liam! 

picture Lisa took when we first saw Liam!

picture Greg took



sweet little baby Liam!