Showers of pinkness

That's just ducky!

Having heard from a small horde (a smorde? a hordlet?) of readers interested in hearing about the baby shower I wrote about last week (here), I offer a few observations--but if you're allergic to pink, stop reading right now! I don't want anyone breaking out in hives.

We didn't play the poop game or the pin-the-sperm-on-the-egg game or the name-that-babyfood game, but we played a name game. People wrote answers to questions on a card (What was your grandmother's first name? What is your favorite bird? What is the name of the person on your left? What is your favorite color?) and from their responses created potential baby names: Frances Mango Williams, Almuth Eagle Williams, Strawberry Belle Williams, and so on. The expectant couple selected the winner: Gertrude Hydrangea Williams.  They are, of course, under no legal obligation to apply that name to their baby, but at least they have some options!


Showers ought to be an opportunity for the tribe to share its collective wisdom with the expectant couple, so I challenged attendees to share their wisdom--in five or fewer words. "Don't drop baby in shark-tank" is pretty good advice but perhaps not as practical as "Roughen breast with a towel." My favorite snippet of wisdom? "Keep grandma close." Words to live by, people!

I haven't been to a baby shower in years so two things really surprised me. First, attendance. I plan social events the way airlines sell seats: assume a bunch of people won't show up. In the end, my double-booking led to a dearth of chairs, a problem my son-in-law solved by wiping off a lawn chair and bringing it inside. Fortunately, we had enough cake. Running out of cake would be catastrophic. (Cake-tastrophic?)

My second surprise came during the gift-giving time: nobody brought just one gift. (Except for me. I had no idea the rules had changed!) Every gift bag contained multiple gifts: little pink onesies and sleepers and bibs and washcloths plus diapers and pacifiers, hair ribbons and socks--and let me just say that the only way the baby will ever get to wear all those tiny pink socks will be if she's born with 17 feet, which is highly unlikely.

Of course tiny pink socks can get lost and babies quickly grow out of their onesies, which will get stashed away or passed on to other infants. Baby showers lead to streams of pinkness circulating through the babysphere until people stop having babies or stop feeling the need to draw together as a tribe and support the novice parents. 

I just hope some of that essential wisdom gets passed on as well. After all, you never know when you might stumble upon a shark-tank.