Tyler's Baptism & Telling Nonna and Pappy

Luckily, we had this trip planned to go up to New Jersey so we could tell Mom and Dad Sharpe in person that we were having a baby! Otherwise, we may not have seen them until September (for Tommy Franklin’s wedding) or November (for Meeting of the Minds) so this trip was just perfect! Since we were flying into Philly so late at night (we were supposed to arrive in Philly at 10:45pm), our plan was to head to Lehman’s apartment to hang out with him and his girlfriend, Steph, and spend the night there. We ended up not getting in until after midnight and finally arrived at Lehman’s apartment at almost 1am. They were troopers and stayed up with us for a couple of hours, but eventually we had to go to sleep. It was great to meet Steph, don’t screw it up, Lehman!

We got up early and headed to meet our friends, Gerrie, Paul and Dex for brunch. We were in for such a treat, Gerrie is a chef and went all out for an amazing brunch. It was a lot of fun to hang out with them for the morning, and Gerrie and Paul gave us lots of pointers on staying sane during the pregnancy. Gerrie also gave me “Belly Laughs” by Jenny McCarthy which is hysterical so far. And Dexter couldn’t be cuter – if I wasn’t already pregnant, I would really want to be after that morning, he is the sweetest, happiest baby and you just want to love on him all day. But of course, we had to go, so we headed to T.J.’s parents house.

On the way, we debated as how we should tell mom and dad about the pregnancy. It was Mom’s birthday yesterday, so we bought a birthday card for “Grandma” and signed it from “the baby”, but we couldn’t figure out when to give it to them. We had early dinner plans at Maggianos for the seven of us (Jay, Tracey, Mom, Dad, me, T.J. and Tyler) but we hadn’t quite worked out when we would give Mom her gifts.

When we got to Mom and Dad’s house, they were hanging at the pool with Mom Mom and Pop Pop. Mom Mom and Pop Pop were heading out that night with a lot of the Sharpes to see Mark Cucinotta’s dinner theater rendition of Dirty Dancing, so we wanted to wait to tell the 'rents after Mom Mom and Pop Pop left because we weren't sure when to tell the extended family. We had to work fast, because if I wasn’t drinking, our charade would be up quickly. Dad had already given me a dirty martini as I was getting ready (poor T.J. drank it for me) so we knew we had to do it pretty soon after we sat down for dinner.

Of course, we were in a rush to get out the door and make the dinner reservation, so T.J. had the great idea of giving Mom her presents at the restaurant. One of the gifts was a wine glass, so when Dad told T.J. just to leave the presents in the car for after dinner, T.J. thought quickly and said that he wanted to give Mom the wine glass for her to use during dinner. Giving Mom the gifts was a little awkward, it is a family style restaurant, so there were a lot of servers at and around our table, bringing the wine, bread and appetizers. Also, Mom missed seeing the card in the bag, so T.J. had to dig it out for her. The card said something like "Happy Birthday Grandma" on the front, and inside I wrote "Looking forward to meeting you on March 17, 2010 even though i love you already Nonna! Love, Grandchild #2 on the way!" :)

She was speechless and they were so excited. T.J. actually got it on video, it is too cute. Dad was crying and hugging the waiter and everything, and of course Jason and Tracey were excited for us too. It was awesome, all of us were pretty happy! Of course, soon after came the complaints about us living so far away in Flaw-rida LOL

Sunday, we got up early and headed to Tracey and Jason’s to get some pictures of Tyler before the baptism. We bought a picture frame as one of Tyler’s gifts, so I really wanted to get a great picture of TJ and Tyler for the frame. Tyler is adorable to begin with, but that day he was the happiest I’ve ever seen him, he was smiling ear to ear and just awesome. I got the greatest pictures, and couldn’t decide when the time came to pick one for the frame, so we printed them all.

Church went really well, Tyler was so good, like he knew it was his very special day and he was just perfect. T.J. did great in his Godfather role, though a practice run wouldn’t have hurt. We headed to lunch at a great Italian restaurant, and Tracey was so sweet to bring alcohol free wine for me to drink at the lunch. T.J. and I had debated about telling all of the family of the pregnancy (I was just shy of 6 weeks at this point), but it seemed like the right thing to do with so much of our family in the same spot, so we decided to wait until the end of the luncheon to start telling the family - even though a couple of T.J.'s cousins already knew (their maternal instincts must have kicked in, or they noticed that wine). Everyone was so excited for us, it was so wonderful to be able to share it with everyone in person. Overall, it was another wonderful weekend! Although I don’t recommend the alcohol-free wine, I’ll stick to club soda with lime, thank you!