April 21

When Amber told me her due date was April 7 I dreamed she would make it to the 21st.
Her midwife told her mid-pregnancy that the 15th seemed more accurate.
God smiled down on me and with a laugh at my sister's discomfort made her wait two weeks after I skipped class for the baby. Those two weeks brought us to April 21st and my sweet new nephew. William Painter Green V is 19 years and 4 hours younger than me and I love him so very much.
My birthday was spent with Angela, Jenna, Corianna, and Nathan recording cheers for Amber's delivery. I had cheesecake with Josh and Katie and Grandma and Grandpa and before I had to go back to school I got to help my sweet little boy come into the world, smell his placenta head, rub his vernix toes, and kiss his perfect cheeks.
What a wonderful birthday and a wonderful boy. Now he's two months and smiling all the time. Today when we made a lot of noise he started making noise to keep up.
Every time a niece or nephew of mine is born I think they are the most loved baby in the world. Liam seems to fit the trend. I don't know how we can keep loving babies more and more but by George it happens; and as the new babies come they are loved by the older babies. No wonder I'm so awesome, I had all my parents' love AND all six siblings.

Welcome to the world Liam, just a couple months late.

A Pending Proposal

I was searching my emails, typing in key words, hoping to find an old message from the registrars office. My search came up successful (not in the area I needed but successful nonetheless).
Four years ago I was a freshman in high school. Amber and William were still 'not dating' but we all knew they loved eachother. To quote Amber's email description of their relationship in Dec. of '09 "
(And by "dating" I don't ACTUALLY mean dating! Just, ya know...hanging out with.)"
While reading these emails from William I think it's sweet to see just how much William loved my sister.
Preface: William showed me the ring he would eventually propose to Amber with. He planned to surprise her in Europe with said ring and come back an engaged man. It was my mission to figure out her travel plans so he had somewhere to surprise her. I kept the "shiny thing" a secret for a long time, very deviously tried to get information from Amber, and emailed the couple every single day of his visit so I would be the first to know they were engaged. William didn't propose. 

_______

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 9:30 PM, William Green wrote:
I don't know what to do either about the ring size. Maybe your mom would know? You should be non-nonchalant and ask her some innocent question about all you girls' hands or something. Shit. This is a problema!
On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 6:05 PM, William Green wrote:
I know the best time of the day in high school was when the bell rang at 3pm! The rest of the day was mine! It was good, because I had good friends to go home to and play soccer with. When Amber came..... hmmm. I don't remember her a lot. I know we always drove to school together in the red slug-bug in the morning, and then I'd try to get her to skip school at noon with me (seniors got out at noon) but she hardly ever would. She did a couple of times. But I don't remember what we did even then. I think we went home. ..... I can't talk about Amber anymore. I miss her. I feel like an overgrown baby wearing my emotions on my sleeve when it comes to that. Maybe I am. Oh well. God still loves me!
.....
I have my whole "proposal speech" planned out but not memorized yet.  I don't even know if I'll be able to go to Europe. No mula. I might have to do it when she comes back. We'll see. Either way, I still need the down low in case I miraculously come into some money or if I rob a bank, or who knows..... but either way.
.....
I'll tell you why she likes me. She's thinks I'm somebody I'm not! Shhh. But don't tell her. It works to my benefit. See, I fool her for a while into liking me and even marrying me, and then when the knot is tied, I become my true self. But by then it's too late for her. I hope this stays within the confines of our, shall we say, friendship!?  Mua ha ha ha!!!
On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 3:31 PM, William Green wrote:
Well, I'm mad at Amber now. I thought things would be fine with us, but I guess I was wrong. I have, heretofore, been patient, accepting, slow to anger and abounding in that other thing (I can't even say the word), and lo and behold, she never writes! See? I don't even know if she exists anymore = I'm angry at her = I'm boycotting her or anything to do with her!!  .... I wish I could get angry at her!

__________

On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 10:37 PM, april mary hubers wrote:
our entire family thinks your going to propose :)....we were driving home from Ikea with Eric, Angela, Mom, Alicia, and me and Eric said "so do you think William took the ring?" I almost threw up cause I thought he was legit but he was just joking :).

 _______

April Mary
On Thu, April 1, 2010 at 7:11 PM, William Green wrote:
Well your whole family was right about me proposing: I was. I didn't though. I don't know why. If it's possible to love someone more than oneself, then I love Amber more than myself. I wasn't afraid of doing it either. Oh well. I think I disappointed her too. I kind of regret now that I didn't do it. Well, the next time I see her I guess.

.....
You should go to Costa Rica as an exchange student. Amber went at your age. Shit. Sorry I talk so much about her. You'll understand when you have a boyfriend that constantly is leaving you up to the mercy of emails and lost phone calls. She won't even call me. She thinks that I really don't get depressed because of that shit. I have to deal with it like every other human being, but still, it's hard.

....
What do you think of me that I didn't propose? Does your family know? You have no idea how many people asked me here if I came back engaged! It was kind of embarrassing! I think they all knew that I had a ring too. How the heck do people know!!
_______________

He finally proposed a year later when they were in Costa Rica and overlooking a river of alligators. Now, four years later, they've just welcomed sweet William Painter Green V into their family. 

Birthing an Essay

Aaron Shupe may not love this lengthy post but there are important parts of the story that will fit together in the end and I hope you will appreciate the detail.

A few weeks ago my English teacher emailed me recommending I submit an essay from English 103 to a competition the English department put on for the first time this year. I had great plans to revise the essay and perfect it to win the $300.00. When it came down to it I did a quick read over before submitting it 30 min. before the deadline. I got an email yesterday announcing the winner and honorable mention. It came as no surprise to me that I was neither and I'm eager to read the essays of my peers who I've gained a bit more respect for. Soon after I got another email saying although I wasn't mentioned I was next in line and an English professor will contact me to present my essay at OPUS (a celebration of student scholarship at Trinity). Pretty exciting and encouraging.

This english essay wasn't really on my mind. I told mom about it and went on with my life. After all Amber is due anytime so my mind has been very baby focused. Because my mind is so focused on the baby and I was home this weekend I skipped classes on Monday. I would say I skipped 50% because I was loving being home and sick of school and 50% because Amber came over at midnight because she was having contractions and wanted to drop off Skylar before labor.

Since I wasn't going to be in class I wrote up an email to each of my teachers letting them know that I wouldn't be present in class discussion because I would be present at the birth of my new niece/nephew and have to take care of Corianna. I didn't say Amber was having her baby I just said she was going into labor and it was important for me to be there. I didn't, however, send it to everyone right away. I send it to my 9:00 philosophy teacher (whose email doesn't accept anything from me for some reason so he didn't get it) and to my 11:00 am Math teacher. I didn't send an email at 1:00 am to my English teacher because I wanted to proof read it and make sure it wouldn't make him question my English major. I didn't completely realize until today that I never sent the email to him.

Today in English class my dear Professor VanderWeele began by having a few students present their findings from our reading. He chose me which jogged his memory.
He got a big smile and said "Oh, April, congratulations! May I share your news?" I was a bit curious how he knew I was expecting a new niece/nephew but wanted to correct him before he announced it to the entire class (because of course that's something my teacher would do..not).
Before he began I cut him off saying "Oh no, her contractions stopped so she didn't actually..." and here I started to fad out from the look of bewilderment on his face (and the faces of my peers) and remembering my essay "never-mind go ahead with what you were going to say"
He told the class about my opus presentation over roars of laughter. But Mike VanderWeele being the creative man he is had a quick response "Well, I guess that brings a whole new meaning to birthing an essay; the contracting of the mind."
I started crying from the humor and mortification.

You're welcome, Amber, for talking about your cervix in front of my entire English 104 class :). I may need to spend more time with Shupe because those details were not all necessary.

5 Years

Five years ago I didn't have a cell phone. I was an Eighth grader at DMC. 

Dad had recenlty joined the Board of the Women Center in Northwest Indiana. He was going to their annual banquet with mom and Joe and Debbie Allen. I got to babysit their kids. 

Before leaving for the banquet we got a call that Anna was 9 cm dilated and would, hopefully, have her baby before the night was over. Around 9:00 p.m. the Allen's phone rang. It was Nate telling me we had a nephew. He quickly told me the name but then hung up because Anna was going to call me. I wasn't sure if my nephew was Zachariah,  Zachary, or Zephaniah. 

Anna called soon after Nate and confirmed that her brand new son was named Zacheriah and perfect. He had a cleft lip just like me. It was love as soon as I heard that. Zach and I will always share our unique 'defect'.

Five years later Zach is the oldest of 5 cousins and counting. He's a pretty good big brother and loves the  outdoors.

Happy Birthday Zacheriah Michael Bos, you sure know how to make a girl feel old.  

English Class

I love my English teacher. If he wasn't an old man and married and my teacher and so much smarter than me I would want to marry him.
This semester I got Emily and Val to take English 104 with Vander Weele. Emily and I have it together and Val has it right after us. I didn't realize it but going in I was pretty nervous about them being there because they knew I loved him but I didn't know if they would.
Luckily they both think he's pretty cool.
Today he read one example of a great homework assignment from Friday. In our class he read Emily's. In the next class he read Val's. They were both pretty excited but maybe not more than me. Now I know they like him and he likes them and the class just got even better. If that was possible.
And we get to do our homework together so it's even better better.