1.11.15 - Baby Showers

Yesterday was our third and last baby shower. The first was in Metropolis with much of Jack’s extended family. It included cupcakes and sunflowers and a lot of gifts from people I’d hardly met before. It was sweet but strange. 

Grandma makes cupcakes while hockey plays in the background.

They even got sunflowers for the spread - my favorite! :)

The second shower was in Missouri with more of our immediate families and good MO friends. It included Head’s Up, baby bottle beer chug, the balloon ribbon tie race, and the safety pin don’t-say-"baby" game, as well as Merlene’s delicious sliders, Ellen and Everett's cheesy potatoes, Neil's (?) fruit salad, and more cupcakes. It was a lot of fun, though big enough I didn’t really get a chance to talk to a lot of people. Julie and Merlene ran the whole thing: Merlene provided a big, clean house and much of the food, and Julie instructed people on games and where to put gifts and how to set up, etc. Both of them told me later they felt like it was surprisingly easy to do, so I guess tag-team hosting works. :)

Setting up. Note more cupcakes.

Baby bottle beer chug winner (left) and milker (right)

Zoey wants to get in on Head's Up action.

The final baby shower was in San Francisco with our CA friends, including people from my forensics program, old study partners from CCSF and Berkeley, ex-co workers, and all sorts. It was a good turn out—not quite as large as the MO party but large enough to feel like a party and still be manageable.

Merlene and her two sisters had hosted the Metropolis party. Julie (and Merlene) ran the MO party. But I didn’t really have a lieutenant to run the CA party, and I was kind of regretting having set it up in the first place. I was tired from the trip to MO and not sure how to keep people from being bored at the CA party; I didn’t feel like I had the energy to plan much. However, my friends really came through. Erin, Janice, Julianna, Sarah, Ellen, and Bryon all got there early to help set up. They made a ton of delicious food (spinach artichoke dip, chicken wings, oreo-stuffed chocolate cupcakes, etc) and they helped me get and set up the supplies for the same games from the MO trip, plus decorating onesies. They all participated enthusiastically in the games and they helped clean up at the end too. I barely had to clean anything, and neither did Jack!

(Julianna makes queso dip, and Sarah is short.)

The finished onesies. So creative!

 Oh, that’s another thing. I had originally thought Jack wouldn’t be able to go to the shower, but he managed to rearrange his schedule to go, which meant a lot to me. The price he paid, though, was that he had to work at midnight after the shower. So I let him sleep in as long as possible – until about 20 mins before the shower started at 2pm – and then he went to lay down for a couple more hours as the guests we’re leaving. And it worked out fine because I had so much help cleaning up it wasn’t a problem at all.

Baby bottle beer chug: Ben won.

Balloon ribbon tie race: Julianna won.

On top of all that, Janice, Erin, and Rachel still got me baby shower gifts too! Almost everyone did, which I wasn’t really expecting.

Maurader's Map blanket from Janice, Erin, and Rachel!

A cuddly common cold from Kale, haha.

I had a great time. I enjoyed hearing people laugh so hard at Head’s Up. I thought the balance of guests there worked out great to where everyone knew a few other people they could talk to and no one was sitting silent or bored. They got into the games, and really into decorating the onesies, which I love. It was actually a very easy, fun party.

So now I’ve had three baby showers basically thrown by a bunch of people who care about Jack and me, and both having the showers themselves and receiving all the gifts we’ve gotten has been really touching. We have a nice fund set aside to buy supplies for Clara, and people have gotten us a lot of the principle supplies already anyway. Overall I just feel well taken care of and loved, and I also feel reassured, especially by the CA baby shower, that even though Jack and I are far from family, we have a lot of people here who care about us and can help us transition into parenthood.