happy birthday to you!

August 2042 - Patrick Seiff is 29, Clara Seiff is 24.

Clara may have learned all about childbirth in medical school, but going through it is a lot harder than she had expected.

happy birthday to you

August 2041 - Viola Cameron is 50, Alison Cameron and Toby Wright are 16.

As Alison's due date gets closer, Viola is getting more and more excited about the baby. She's still worried about how her daughter will deal with being a teen mother, but she can't wait to meet her first grandchild.

happy birthday to you

April 2040 - Caroline and Charlie Wilder are 38, Riley is 15, Laura is 11, Michael is 7, Andrew is 5, Rose is 18 months.

After having five children, Caroline is no longer scared of childbirth. But Riley is pretty freaked out when her mom goes into labor.

happy birthday to you

August 2038 - Andrew and Emma Larrea are 25 (Samantha Ottomas are 55).

Andrew and Emma are expecting their first child, conceived while they were on their honeymoon.

happy birthday to you

I've decided to start doing birth announcements to help keep track of what's going on in the neighborhood. I'm still deciding how to do them. Since I have three babies born in a four month period, I put all of them in the same update. We'll see if I keep grouping them like this, but I think this way is efficient but not too confusing.

ETA: Yay for bigger photos!

lullaby haze

August 2033 - Jack Cooper is 31, Jillian Cooper is 30, Jackson is 5, Rachel is 3, Piper is two weeks.

Jillian gives birth to her third child, another daughter. They name her Piper, Jillian's maiden name.

the re-arranger

May 2028 - Jack Cooper is 25, Jillian Cooper is 24.

Jack grew up poor, but he always knew he was destined for greater things. After college he started his own law firm in Providence.

cowboy take me away

August 2024 - Caroline and Charlie Wilder are 23, Riley is 2 months.

At 23 Caroline is a lot more grown up than she had expected. But she was never a party girl or a career woman. She has friends, she got good grades in school, she loves her job as a teacher, but the most important thing has always been her family. She left her family far away in Minnesota when she left for college, but now she's made her own - her husband and her baby daughter, who she gave her maiden name, Riley.

what a good boy

May 2024 - John and Anne Smith are 23, Caroline Wilder is 22.

After almost two years of marriage, Anne loves having a grown up life. She's an associate professor of literature at Lowell College, although right now she's on maternity leave since she's eight and a half months pregnant.

Being alone in the house all day is starting to make her go stir crazy, so she invites her friend Caroline Wilder over. Caroline and her husband Charlie are also expecting their first child; she's due just a month after Anne.

"It's kind of exciting," Caroline says, "growing a person inside of you. Charlie is totally fascinated."

"Yeah," Anne replies, "but I can't wait for this kid to be born. I'm so huge."

waving goodbye

August 2023 - Sandy Fairchild is 39, Ricky Cormier is 29.

Sandy Fairchild has gone through several incarnations -  high school party girl, popular college sorority girl, studious law student, ruthless lawyer, respected judge. She shocked the people of Providence when she first started dating Ricky - he had been only 26, ten years her junior. But he was fun and exciting, and their relationship provided her life with a much needed jolt of excitement.

But even after all of those changes, she isn't prepared when she realizes she's pregnant.

my only offer

May 2023 - Robert Stanton is 22, Jenny Stanton is 21, Meg is 2 months.

When Jenny had thought about her senior year of college, she pictured parties and friends, flirting with boys and occasionally doing homework. But all of that changed the summer before her senior year when she realized she was pregnant.

Robert was the one who decided what to do. He always has a plan. She moved into his apartment in Providence, just a few blocks off campus, and they got married one fall morning at the courthouse.

angels of the silences

February 2023 - Orlando Centowski is 28, Steffi Centowski is 27, Phoebe is 2, Nate and Theo are 3 months, Elizabeth Ng is 25.

Orlando met Steffi in college. He didn't think a popular cheerleader would ever date a nerdy math major like him, but they fell in love, and he proposed to her one morning in the cafeteria.

They got married in August at the college chapel, and they moved into a nice house in Providence. She worked as a police officer, and he got a job as an oceanographer. After a few years of marriage, they had their first child, a daughter named Phoebe. It's everything he thought his adult life would be.

He's not sure why he did it, what he was thinking.  He was back on campus again that spring, around graduation, and he ran into Elizabeth Ng at the student center. They had lived in the same dorm when she was a freshman and he was a senior. They've been friends for a long time, and somehow one thing leads to another.