SURPRISE!

Last Friday night, John and I had the  boring  important job of cleaning our chapel.  Our congregation recently switched this responsibility from the professional cleaners to the unprofessional members, and so we all signed up to clean on different weekends.

It's hard to be enthusiastic about this, especially at 37 weeks pregnant when you look and move like a walrus, but with Benson and Cole in tow, two Papa John's pizzas and a movie to entertain the boys, we unlocked the dark church and began our job at 6:30 PM.  I decided to set a timer-- as soon as it chimed 7:30, we were out of there, no matter what.

So for an hour, we spritzed, swished, mopped, vacuumed, dusted, wiped, de-cluttered, and de-spidered.  Then our timer rang-- it was 7:30, so I grabbed the keys and headed for the door.  John however, suddenly became very obsessed with details.  "Let me just vacuum the pews before we go."  Vacuum the pews?!  "You're kidding me," I protested, as John heaved the industrial-strength vacuum onto the first bench.  The vacuum hummed to life, and John shouted over the noise that that there were probably tons of crumbs in the pews, and honestly, how often are they deep-cleaned?  I groaned.

Unbeknownst to me, John was stalling.

As he diligently suctioned up Cheerios remnants from the pews (and meanwhile I found some more windowsills to dust), John's phone chimed that he had a text message, so I yelled over that I'd check it for him.  John snapped off the vacuum and ran to grab his phone before I could reach it.  Whatever.  I went back to dusting.  A few more minutes of vacuuming passed, and at 7:45, John turned off the vacuum mid-pew and abruptly said, "All right Karisa, let's go home."  I replied, "That's what I've been saying for 15 minutes!"  Ay yay yay.

A few minutes later, we pulled into our dark driveway.  I fumbled for the keys to our house (which was pitch-black), opened the side door, and flipped on the kitchen light.  And then almost went into labor.

Ten of my favorite friends leapt out me from the darkened hallway, screaming "SURPRISE!!!!!  SURPRISE!!!!!" Benson and Cole almost went into labor too!  We were totally shocked.  My buddies had parked their cars on a different street, snuck into the house while we were gone, cleaned it, decorated it, filled it with food and presents, and put together a surprise baby shower!  

For refreshments, we created deluxe banana splits.  No one even teased me when I went back for seconds.  These are true friends.  Some of them had offered to throw me a baby shower months ago, but I turned the offer down because we already had everything we needed for Baby Ugor.  But they still wanted to celebrate the pregnancy and make me feel like a million bucks, so they orchestrated this amazing surprise.  I'm a lucky girl!

And now, Benson and Cole's new favorite activity is to jump out at me from darkened doorways while screaming "SURPRISE!"  (And then explaining, "Mom, we just gave you a baby shower!")  If this doesn't put me in labor, I don't know what will.