Guess what, you are going to be Grandparents!

We can hardly wait. This week we're telling our parents that we are planning a family. We've talked about their reactions several times and can't wait to see what actually transpires. Wish we were able to give them more specific details, but we think they'll be ecstatic all the same.

After we were first married, way back in 1992, it wasn't long before family started asking "so when are you having kids?" We were surprised by the question, mostly because we were 22 and had lots more planned for the immediate future than having kids. But that's what people do in our family. They get married and have kids. Not always in that order, but the constant is that they always have children.

We have been the exception. We've traveled the country, traveled the world. Had successful careers, then moved on to new careers and became successful again. We've ran the ups and downs of marriage and have stuck it out. We've done so much in our lives together, but never done the one thing that people expected us to.

Our parents definitely expected grandkids. Scott's parents have been the biggest advocates of this. They started with repeated questions about when we were having kids. Of course Scott just responded with his patent "practice-makes-perfect" line, and that was usually enough to end the conversation.

They started to up the ante. They love shopping at rummage sales and began buying cute children's things that they thought we "might need sometime." We are huge VW fans so when Mom and Pop spotted a cute bright red, children's VW bug scooter car, they bought it. Not exactly a subtle hint.

They joked that Scott's childhood Hot Wheels set was being held until we produced children to play with them. And other little things like that.

I always felt a little guilty about that. All of their friends were already grandparents and I knew they didn't understand why we weren't following the standard operating procedures.


My parents had the opposite problem on their hands. They were under 40 when they became grandparents the first time. And then more grandchildren were born at regular intervals after that. My middle sister has 3, my younger has 2. Mom and Dad were quite involved in caring for 3 of my nieces/nephews, raising them a good part of their lives. Although we got the occasional "don't you want to have kids" inquiry, they seemed too tied up with the grandkids they already had to spend time grilling us about the grandkids we hadn't produced yet.

Flash forward to today. Once in a while one set or the other of our parents asks us about kids. And to be quite honest, we just didn't know how/when/if we were going to have them. We were having a great time in our lives and it just never seemed the right time. I know, I know, there ISN'T a right time, or so everyone says. But we knew it wasn't the right time for us.

But somewhere along the line, things have changed. There's all kinds of reasons I could give about why, but the bottom line is, we want to raise a child together.

So now we know! And this week they will know too. Can't wait to share the news with them.