36 Weeks Pregnant — The Baby Shower
As the birth of our first child fast approaches, we knew it was time to ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶f̶r̶e̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶s̶i̶b̶l̶e̶ celebrate with our loved ones by holding a baby shower.
My wife decided that she didn’t want a traditional gathering with a bunch of chicks sitting around eating candy bars out of diapers and trying to guess who farted. We both agreed that a co-ed, outdoor gathering that barely resembled a baby shower would be the most fun for our guests and over the quickest for us. Not to say that we aren’t social, but rather to say that I am not social. Parties were fun until I quit drinking a decade ago and realized that parties are torture and why can’t I be at a party where there are no other people. Because I don’t like parties, on the rare occasion that I throw one, I do my best to make them painless for my guests. I want them to be casual in attire, dining, and length of attendance. So basically you can wear what you want, have a variety of simple foods, and stay for as long or short of a time as suits you. Picnic in the park was the perfect answer.
While my wife’s friends jumped on board to assist, I decided to do the bulk of the planning myself. It’s not that I wanted to, but I consider throwing a party a task akin to wiping my ass. In a perfect world someone else would do it for me, but I’d always fear that the result wasn’t going to be up to my standards. That’s not a knock on anyone else. I just know that when I wipe, I wipe 100% clean. So you know I don’t throw a shitty party.
That said, the ladies stepped up when it came to food, decor, and baby laundry.
We had a pretty nice spread of homemade food to go with the pro chef I brought in to grill up burgers and hot dogs. There was so much food left over that I sent tons home with people and still donated a huge amount to an Overeater’s Anonymous meeting or something. They’re big on potato salad.
In maintaining my rule of casualness, we didn’t want to force people to play too many organized games. On the other hand we did want to incorporate some forced fun which came with prizes for the champions.
A diaper raffle where one person won a great prize pack and we got 6 months worth of free diapers. That’s what I call a win-win for me and my bank account!
We offered a gift card to the winner of the Make-A-Baby competition.
The only awkward moment was the couple that saw the sign but didn’t notice the Play-Doh. They put on a good show though!
Our final two games did actually require group participation. One was a child abuse game where everyone threw a baby doll at a random person and that person had to painfully scream out something baby related. If you screamed out something that another participant had already screamed out then you got sent to foster care and were out of the game. Eventually it was down to just two people punting the plastic infant at each other and screaming out baby related words until my wife’s Aunt was declared the world champion of throwing babies at other people and won a fabulous prize.
The other game, the one I found most entertaining, was what we cleverly titled “The Lisa/Frank Game” because those are our names. Everyone stood in front of us and we’d read off an entry from a list of questions. If you thought the answer was “Lisa”, you went and stood on her side. If you thought the answer was “Frank”, you stood on mine. Anyone standing on the wrong side of the line for that particular question was eliminated. Ultimately, the winner was someone who had never met me and didn’t necessarily know Lisa as well as some of her friends/family did. Just goes to show you that people are terrible at games. Anyway, below are the questions we asked without the answers. If you’d like to play, just copy and paste them into a comment either here or on Facebook with your guesses. If you get enough correct you might win a prize or get nothing. You’ll have to play to find out.
Who had ice cream for breakfast this morning? Who wakes up earlier? Which one of them learned to knit as a child? Who swore the baby was going to be a girl? Who is more obsessed with their hair? Who leaves love notes all over house? Who got their first tattoo at the youngest age? Who chose our sons name? Who farts more? Who has had surgery? Who made Skittle soup as a kid? Who slaves away over a hot stove all day so there is dinner on the table every night? Who meditates every day? Who’s favorite candy is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? Who hogs the sheets? Who was the master decorator of Four’s (our son) room? Who is in charge of the remote? Whose car is messier? Who’s more scared about having a baby?
In the end, the baby shower turned out to be relatively painless and a lot of fun. As an adult you spend less and less time with your friends and more time caught up in your own lives, careers, kids, and activities. It’s nice to get together with everyone before your baby is born and starts sucking up all of your time like it’s breast milk and your life is a giant nipple.
The most important thing to remember about having a baby shower is to ̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶g̶i̶f̶t̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶e̶r̶ appreciate the people that love you and will be part of your new child’s life.
A big thank you to all of our family and friends who came by to celebrate the most important occasion of our lives. We truly appreciate each and every one of you and can’t wait for our son to meet the people we care about most.
And for him to shit in all of the diapers you bought us.
Originally published at http://badassdad.com on February 4, 2015.
