I never imagined when I wrote my first column 23 years ago about my toddler son that someday I’d be writing about him getting engaged.
Yep. Big news at our house!
I’ve been expecting it for a while. I’ve had my camera primed and ready on several occasions when my son and his girlfriend visited my house, only to be left high and dry.
I got in a tizzy one night when he texted me and asked if they could come by.
My heart was racing, and my expectations were high when I answered the door, only to find out his girlfriend needed to use our printer.
A week ago today, he called me on his way to work, and I blabbed on as I do.
Then he said he actually called to tell me something.
“What do you think it is?” he asked.
I said, “Either you’re getting married, or you got a promotion and you’re being transferred.”
I was hoping it wasn’t the second one.
He told me he’d proposed, and I screamed. He said lots of sweet things about his fiancee that made me a proud mom.
She had asked him not to make a huge deal when/if he did propose, so he baked one of her favorite things: strawberry cupcakes.
He wrote “Will You Marry Me?” in icing, with one letter on each cupcake.
(I can hear a collective “awwwww” right now.)
He encouraged her to have “a snack.” He said he thought as soon as she saw the Tupperware container of cupcakes on the coffee table, she’d go straight to it, but she didn’t.
Instead, she sat down to put on her shoes to go meet a friend, so he turned the container around so she could read them. She started to open it, but she stopped when he got down on one knee, and she asked if he was serious. He had to ask her to look at the cupcakes to complete his plan, and she finally did.
She said “yes” and cried, she told me.
They had picked out a ring, but she didn’t think he’d bought it.
It was the day before they celebrated their three-year anniversary of dating that he proposed, so it’s not a whim. She’s a lot like me, only much more talented. (She can sing! She can sew! She runs marathons!) My son is quieter and even-keeled, like his dad.
After I got off the phone with my son, my heart was still racing. My firstborn, engaged! It’s exciting for a mother if her son is happy. And he is.
I walked into the kitchen and shouted to my husband, “Well, it finally happened! John and Brandi are engaged! … David? David? HELLO?”
He came in from the garage, so I said it again with the same emphasis.
We both got a little teary-eyed (well, I know I did), and we hugged.
Our little boy. Our little 6-foot-4-inch boy. Getting married.
We went out to dinner with them the night after the proposal, and we talked a lot about possibilities.
The other day I used the words “my future daughter-in-law” for the first time and then got all goofy about it. And this was to a total stranger.
A few days later, I asked my son what colors they were thinking about, and he said, “I don’t know the answers to any of those questions.”
She texted me a photo with examples of the colors she likes and potential locations.
They say they’re going to wait a year. Of course, they’re getting all kinds of advice — the word elope keeps cropping up, but I don’t think that will happen.
They already have joked that they’re going to copy one of the poses in the wedding pictures my husband and I had taken — separate photos of us staring intently at the other’s ring. OK, it wasn’t stupid in 1987. Neither was my hat.
The Groucho glasses my husband wore in one of his pictures? Maybe.
It’s going to be a fun and, yes, sometimes stressful journey. But we’re ready.
She’s been part of our family for a while — this just makes it official.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or at tkeith@arkansasonline.com.