Week 5: Why You Should Be Born

10/16/10 Reasons Little T should come join us

[For 6 months we'd planned a renewal of our vows with many good friends at a huge house in Breckenridge, Colorado, with the intention of indulging in some unhinged hedonism. We found out about you 4 days before the big party, so the plans of alcohol, hot tub and excess had to be changed -- and just after the ceremony to renew our vows, we announced that you had come to join us. 6 weeks is very early to announce a pregnancy because 1/5th of pregnancies end naturally during the first 3 months. We hoped to convince you to stay, so we asked our friends to write in your diary to give you reasons to make it through the dangerous first months. Here's what they said -- it worked.]

We hope you come join us little one! We love very completely and we believe in patience and indulgence and Magic Shell. You'll enjoy life. :o) -- Momma


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Little T,
You were loved before you were born. You are special and can do any thing you put your mind to. Remember you get what you give and a person is as happy as they make up their mind to be. Believe in yourself and your dreams. Live, Laugh, Love. -- Kelly Harr
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Little T,
Your parents love you and each other so very much. The warmth and kindness they exude is contagious -- they are waiting to share this and so much more with you. Aaaaand they will benefit from your smiles, coos, giggles, warmth and innocence. May the three of you bring the best of life to one another :o) -- Anonymous
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Baby T,
You have the most amazing parents ever, and their dog kids are really cute too. I know that you will have more love than you know what to do with. We look forward to the hope of your arrival and watching you grow. Enjoy your time in utero! -- Anonymous
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Little T,
There's a beautiful world out there waiting for you to discover. Just yesterday Mother Nature revealed just how kind she can be. It was a mid-October day but it was 80 degrees without a cloud in the sky. The high mountains were covered with a frewsh blanket of fresh snow, but the foothills were alive with fall colors. The most amazing shades of yellows, reds, and oranges with a backdrop of the bluest of skies. You would not believe the palette -- it defied any reasonable expectations of beauty. Imagine... that was a single day... an endless variety of experiences awaits you. -- Allyn
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Ups and downs is how it starts. Then you start wiggling, squirming, just ready to make trouble. The best of luck to you Little T, making the most of your world. We hope to meet you soon and laugh with your Mom and Dad about just how unprepared one can be for parenthood. Take care and be nice to them! They just want you to be smart, athletic, beautiful, honest and of course the best possible thing in their lives. :o) Lucky you, being welcomed to a wonderful world where your parents want you.

Have fun, laugh hard. -- Malia
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Hey, I hope you have fun with the little guy. And congrats. Well,l I do so hope you find the little guy adoring. Ph, just to say, they can be a pain the butt. Well that's all I really have to say. I'm only nine.

Love, Karl Gjerapic (Gordan's biggest son)
p.s. Hope he's not too big of a handful.
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Hey little one. Your parents definitely need someone with good engineering judgment to keep them honest and firmly on the ground. This is where you come in. The whole reason whyyou and your parents should stick around. Your Grandma Carroll would be very proud. Love, Gordan
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One good reason for Little T to come to this world is to understand so many different possibilities for himself/herself. The fact that there are so many interesting languages and cultures (as your mother would definitely explain) shows that you can be so many different things -- believe in as many wonderful things as you wish. There is a huge world waiting to be explored, both outside and inside the corners of your own mind! Love, Ashwini (from Natural Language Processing)
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Little T!
Come and see us because we are old and fossilizing. We have come to have our own ideas and world views, and we like them very much. But you will have new ways of seeing things, and you will see new and different sides of the truth. So you should come be in the world so you can make us wiser. -- Sam Beardo (Linguistics Intern on Zapotec whose house just burnt down in the 4 Mile Canyon fire)
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Hi Baby,
Come and it's better out here! You've got a mommy and daddy who love you, doggies that will be loyal to you, and many "aunts" and "uncles" who are excited to meet you! Love "Aunt" Angie


10/16/10pm
Little T,
Now is a fantastic now. Your Daddy and I married each other newly today in the shadow of the craggy Rocky Mountains. The good, kind, brilliant and creative people whose lives enrich ours with thought and friendship -- our friends, all of whom want to meet you and many of whom wrote or will write in these pages -- they all cooked us delicious food, hung up balloons and ribbons and lights, or folded napkins and cleaned the kitchen up after. Everyone's love supported us and everyone's love will support you. Can you feel that? Can you feel how happy they are that you're coming? In five years we will throw a less ceremonial Yippee for Love reunion and there will be a kids' table. If you don't change your mind about coming to join us, you'll be in the middle of all this love too.

May you be safe and peaceful. I love you. -- Momma

10/17/10 -- Wishes from friends at Breckfest
Little Thye,
You are truly lucky to have such caring, loving, understanding parents. There are so many wonderful things to experience in this world. Your parents will be wonderful guides. -- Renae
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Little Thye,
You need to join us because Wyatt has a lot of fun toys that he will share and he will be fun to play with. We will show you all the cool things you can do on walls with crayons. -- Bryan
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Baby T,
Please come join us. You have awesome parents that'll take you places and teach you things. You'll be the envy of all children. -- Casey (computational Corvey's partner)
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Little T,
We are so excited to have you join us in this world! You couldn't have asked for more caring and devoted parents -- both to you and to each other! We love you already and can't wait to meet you -- besides my little girl will need a playmate :o) -- Lori [Her little girl is Nora Nieter :o) ]
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Sweet pea,
I sit in the soft light of the fire on a big comfy leather couch. It is the last night of our luscious tiny yippee-for-love celebration, and the sounds of videogames down one hallway mix with the voices of your Daddy and his friends cleaning paintball guns, playing on the internet and watching football in a different part of the humongous lodge we rented for the occasion. White bells, flowers and doves still adorn the walls and mantle of the fireplace, and plastic balloons peek out from behind chairs. Sparkling metallic balloons still float with happy loving messages in the game room with the coloring books and the 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle of the world map.

Two of those mylar balloons are attached by pink and blue ribbons to the soft red diary in which I write. One says it's a girl and the other says it's a boy. We don't know yet which you are, though I am hoping you are one of each. I hope you are twins because I want you to have a perma-playmate and an ally to dive into Life with. Twins are said to be more than twice as challenging as single births, but it's all so challenging anyway that we may as well shoot for the sky, right?

Grandma Carroll and Mommy at the Original Breck Fest, 2005

Now it is very late, almost 1am on the first day of my 6th week of pregnancy. [My dating was incorrect, and the 6th week did not begin for 2 days.] My tummy just started feeling yucky which I'm happy about because it means you're really in there. I am sad because I miss your Grandma very much. She is an angel with you now so I bet you know her better than I do. Please smell her neck for me and tell her I love her. Chet said if I can be half the mother my own mother was, I'll be fantastic -- and he is absolutely right. She would be so proud of me for wanting you, for wanting life, after the darkness I've been through. She would cook me soup and rub my shoulders and sing to me. I miss her very much and I wish I could feel as close to her as you must feel. I want my Mommy too.





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Little Thye,
How can you not want to join us on this incredible journey? You'll have two of the most loving, capable parents to guide you along whatever path you choose. Plus the technology when you reach our age (at the time I write this) will be fantastic. Hurry up and get here! -- with love, Joshua
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Dear Little Thye,
Oh My God it's so freakin' much fun out here!!! There's pretty mountains and yummy foods (and beer someday but not till college!) and the music totally rocks (and it sounds a lot better without all the swooshing of amniotic fluid and such) and there's interesting scientific and philosophical questions to excite your mind and a whole bunch of fun stuff to excite your body! And most of all, the people out here are so wonderful and so much fun to hang out with while eating and listening and playing.l And there there's Love. I won't get into that right now but you'll get it some day, and you'll understand. It's so so worth it. So get out here already, it's time to have some fun!!! -- Danny
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Little Thye,
You will have two of the most awesome parents. I know you will be well loved. I wish you good luck on everything. -- Chris Hood