My Life as a Novel

This is maybe the only point in his life where it's ok for me to brag about how "pretty" he is, so I shall! Y'all seriously. Mendy and Derek made a PRETTY baby!

And he's soooooo sweet!

My parents and sister were very obliging and I think I held him most of the day on Saturday, except for during feedings and some nap times! :) I think he likes me. He hasn't actually said the words yet, but I can tell he's working on it.

And with the birth of this child, I stumbled across my newest pregnancy goal: to look as good as Anna did right after she popped a baby out. Seriously. Unbelievable how good she looks, and this is literally less than 20 minutes after the baby was born. What an inspiration!!

This past weekend was The Amazing Race for Hope with the Journey Church. SUCH a fun time! Kyle and I teamed up with the Jernigans to make our 4-person team. There were 12 other teams "competing" for first place in a Race event that took a GREAT deal of planning and coordination. I mean to tell you, those Cinnamons mean it when they say "Go Big or Go Home!" They did an AWESOME job!!!

We all met up at the church on Saturday at 12:30, received instructions and our first clue and we were off for 24 hours of racing/pit-stopping madness!

Several of our tasks were lighthearted competition, but the majority of the event was about serving the area. We collected a LOT of boxes of food for the Lowcountry Food Bank, bought lunch for at least 25 random gas station employees in the area, sorted, tagged, and shelved over 2500 articles of clothing at the Lowcountry Orphan Relief Center, landscaped the lawn at Sangaree Intermediate School (some of us in the pouring rain), and gave out a BUNCH of bottles of water to unassuming pedestrians in downtown Charleston.

I have more pictures to upload, but this is all I've got for today. I was racing, so I didn't have time to take pictures every step of the way.

Day 1:

Going into this weekend, I really had no idea what to expect. But it exceeded all of my expectations, and I really feel like the impact of what we were able to accomplish will be felt for a while. In ourselves, and in the community.

This was an incredible weekend. And we can't wait to go back and visit again!

Ok, his whole trip has been great. Kyle and I have both really enjoyed having him around. For more than just the fact that he cooks us dinner (though, let's be honest ... it doesn't hurt!). I feel like we haven't done all that much since he got here -- just our regular "stuff". But the weather's been great, so we've been able to sit outside together and just hang out. It's made for some great evenings. We'll be sad to see him go, for sure!

Kyle and I were in Hampton for Christmas and I'd been thinking that a pregnancy test was probably in order for a few days, at that point. But for some reason -- let's call it Holiday Distraction -- I hadn't. So when his mom needed to run some errands, I said I'd go along. I tried, and I think I succeeded in hiding the test from her under some unnecessary items also tossed into the basket. But it made for a rather tense few moments in the ol' CVS.

Back at the house, Kyle was in the shower and I knew I couldn't possibly wait a moment longer. So I didn't. I tested while he showered and:

I held the test stick up over the shower door and said, "Um ... Merry Christmas?"

Kyle is such a pro. He said, "Cool" and seemed genuinely excited. My first reaction was not quite as calm and collected. My hands started shaking and sweating, and I had to go lay down. I was very excited, but also shocked! A few minutes later, Kyle came out of the shower and said, "What's next?" I told him I wanted to get one of the tests that says "PREGNANT" or "NOT PREGNANT".

So I chugged a couple bottles of water (you know, so I could pee again) and drove back to the store.



Confirmation.

And we told his mom. We showed her the test pictured above. She squealed a little and hugged Kyle. Then, turning to me, she said, "You're ok, right? You're going to be ok!" Guess I was still a little shell-shocked. And it showed.

We told his brother later on that evening. We wrapped up another pregnancy test and put it under the tree for him. When he opened it, he acted confused. And I finally had to say, "John. Do I need to spell it out for you? Kyle and I are going to have a baby."

He looked at his friend, Kari, and she said, "I think you should give her what you bought for her."


That's right. He'd bought me a pregnancy test. No wonder he was confused. We'd given him, basically, the same thing!

I knew the first thing I wanted to do was to call my brother, Craig. He and his wife, Amy, had been trying to conceive for several months and, if I was going to tell my family on Christmas morning (which I what I really wanted to do), I didn't want her to be completely broadsided and get upset. I wanted Craig to know so he could "warn" her if he felt like he needed to.

Craig called me about 20 minutes later and asked me to hold my announcement until the day after Christmas. Disappointed, I said, "I guess I could. Why?"

As it turns out, he and Amy had their own news to share and had been holding it for almost a month and a half.

I jumped up and down (don't tell the doctor!) and squealed and cried and acted COMPLETELY girly and then told Craig to have Amy to call me so we could talk -- and maybe break the news to my parents together.

And, thus, a plot was conceived. (pun completely intended)

Amy and Craig went to Walmart that night and purchased stockings and wrapped them in separate boxes. After all the other gifts were unwrapped, Craig gave one box to each of my parents and instructed my dad to go first.






And after a few minutes, my mom remembered that she had an unopened box to return to.


"I wonder what it is!!"



And I was too busy laughing to get her first reaction. But it went something like this:

"Hahaha. Baby Polk."
(realizes, wide-eyed, what she'd just read out loud)
(re-reads in silence)
(looking at me) "Is this for REAL?!"


And then my dad cried again, while my mom laughed. A lot.

My mom excitedly purchases gifts in the months leading up to Christmas in order to "Wow" all of her kids on Christmas morning. And while we were all still wowed this year, Christmas 2008 will forever be branded in our family memory as "The Christmas She Was Outdone".