Um, What?!

On August 2, 2022, I got a mysterious message from Digger. He wanted to come over for dinner. That, in and of itself, isn't mysterious. It was the ominous, "I've got something to tell you" followed by Ashee messaging me to see if Digger had talked to me yet that made me wonder what was going on.

He was obviously nervous about telling me something, which was very weird. My kids and I have been through some shit together, and I couldn't think of a single thing he could possibly be afraid to tell me. Seriously. What could he possibly have done that was so bad that he was afraid to tell me? And that he had to go to his siblings for support before coming to me? I finally coerced him to just spit it out.

And, oh my, I did not see it coming.

He finally found the nerve to tell my that Jay and I were grandparents. Not going to be grandparents. Were grandparents. 

Wait...what?

We'd had false alarms in the past with Digger, and Monster had a daughter who we've never met (that's a whole other story for another time). As far as I knew, Digger wasn't dating anyone, and hadn't since his previous girlfriend a year ag...oh.

Now, I know my boys are man-whores with questionable taste in women, but I thought I'd taught them all about birth control. I drilled it into their heads when they were younger. I even bought a box of condoms for all the kids to use, and left it under the bathroom counter. I told them that if they or their friends needed more, to just let me know, I'd refill it, no questions asked. I told them all about Planned Parenthood and that if they didn't want to come to me for more condoms, they could swing by and pick some up for free from there. Hell, I'd even offered to take Digger's high school girlfriend to PP to get birth control if her parents wouldn't.

I didn't condone my teenagers having sex, but I was also realistic about the world we lived in. Just because I managed to get through high school a virgin didn't mean my kids were going to do the same, even if that's what I'd prefer. On the flip side, I also told them not to marry the first person they slept with (like I did) and that if they ever got pregnant out of wedlock that I'd forbid them from getting married. Marrying just because someone got pregnant accidentally rarely works out well. I want my kids to marry for love, not because they got knocked up.

Apparently, Digger's ex had gotten pregnant before they broke up, but didn't realize it. Once she did, she hid the pregnancy and birth from him. Digger only found out because their mutual friends got tired of covering for her and threatened to tell him if she didn't. She finally told him about Gremlin when he was three months old.

Finding out he was a dad shook Digger's world. He's always been great with kids, and we knew he'd be a fantastic uncle if his sibs ever decided to have children. He, however, had never planned on having kids because of his disease. From the time he turned 16, he'd been determined to get a vasectomy to avoid passing his genetic burden on to any of his children. He never got around to the vasectomy, and obviously the lesson about always using condoms didn't stick, so now we have Gremlin.

We hurriedly arranged a baby shower, and everyone got to meet the newest member of the family. Digger had met him in his ex's presence a couple of times prior to the baby shower, but this was the first time the rest of us got our hands on the little one.

Look at how in love Digger is!

This was one of the few times Beel got to meet his greatgrandson.

When Grandma Nita died, our family went from four living generations to three. It was very odd. My entire life, we'd always had more than the normal number of living generations. When Digger and Ashee-butt were born, we had five. When Great-grandma Wheeler died, we were down to four. We hung out with four generations for decades, and Grandma Nita was determined to live to see five again. 

Sadly, that didn't happen, and we dropped down to three, with the Bionic Cowgirl as the matriarch.

Now, we're back up to four.