The Transition Area: Babies Bring Out the Best...

Things have been pretty blurry over the past few weeks as we continue to try to get ourselves ready to be a family of three instead of a family of two. But we haven's been the only busy ones...On Saturday, November 12, we had our much-anticipated baby shower in Cleveland. I don’t exactly know what the “road to the baby shower” was like for the organizers (my friend Katie; Philip’s aunts Liz, Brigitte, and Marielle; Lynn; Sarah; Philip’s mom; and my mom were involved and probably lots of other people I don't even know about), but I know there were various meetings, many phone calls and at least 100 emails going back and forth in the weeks leading up to the shower. The hard work certainly paid off! It was certainly the best shower I’ve ever been to, and I’ve heard that other guests have been saying the same thing.

The shower was held at Philip’s aunt’s house, which was totally fitting because if those women are expert entertainers. No matter what the occasion, whenever we go to their house they’ve always got more food than we could want, along with special napkins and plates and decorations that make even an ordinary family dinner feel special. Not to mention the fact that their house is beautiful and the layout makes it easy for people to mix and mingle. Whenever I’m trying to explain how impressed I am by them, I tell people the story of our housewarming party. When we first moved into our house, we were so excited to have our families come down and see it, so we just had to have a party. Of course I thought I had everything I needed and that everything was under control until the Kanjuka’s showed up with a car full of everything I hadn’t thought of. They had linens and decorations and even a coffeemaker! And it was a good thing, because I had none of that stuff!

The grandmas put together a special display for us

The first thing we noticed when we walked in the house was the decorations. There were centerpieces on the tables made from balloons tied to baby bottles filled with aqua, pink, and purple m&m’s, which were resting on brightly-colored receiving blankets. Colorful baby toys were hanging from the windows like sun catchers. Rubber duckies were everywhere, including the ones that were floating in the bowl of green/blue punch. And the highlight of it all was the special table our moms had set up for us on which they displayed the diaper cake that they worked together to make, pictures of Philip and I as babies, and our most prized stuffed animals from when we were small (which apparently my mom went searching through my house for when I wasn’t there). I think we were both really surprised to see those things there!

Duck pond punch

I love being in pictures!

The food extravaganza started right away, and the menu was full of our favorite things: hummus and tabooli, Cheetos (a staple during the first months of my pregnancy), grandma’s chicken, black and white cookies (my favorite cookies that I used to get from the bakery at Stop and Shop when I went with my mom when I was small), pudding stuff, and even a tiny lady finger cake. There was a whole lot more food to compliment those options, and I can’t imagine anyone left that house feeling hungry!

Overwhelming!

Next on the agenda was opening gifts. Opening gifts in front of a crowd (or even in front of just one person) has never been my favorite thing. Since I’m always pretty quick to let my opinion be known, I don’t have a very good filter when it comes to receiving gifts that I don’t like. I actually have memories of myself having terrible reactions after opening gifts as a kid, and the disappointment I caused the people who took the time to choose the gift for me. Not wanting to repeat those kinds of interactions, I try to avoid opening gifts in front of people when I can. I’m also not a very good gift giver. Every once in a while I’ll come up with what I think is the perfect gift to give someone, but those times are few and far between. So unless the gift is something spectacular, I don’t exactly understand why people get so excited to watch people open gifts. But anyhow….opening gifts in front of an audience is what showers are all about, so there was no getting around it at the baby shower. However, since I haven’t been to all that many showers myself (can’t remember the last one, to be honest), I have no idea what the rules are (I hope I didn’t break any!)

Grandma L is going to have to teach Alaina how to use this.

Tiny shoe socks!

Alaina's first piggy bank!

Aunt Sarah begins her corruption

One great thing about a baby shower is that it’s one of those wonderful occasions when you can gently direct people toward the kinds of gifts you want or need by creating a baby registry. And if you take the time to research the options and make smart decisions about what you put on your registry, you can at least try to be sensible about it. Lucky for me that my favorite baby expert—Katie—was willing to spend a day going with us from store to store to choose the things we should put on our registry! And even when people “go rogue” and buy something that’s not on your list, practically anything anyone gives you is going to be something that you can use.

So, after I got some advice from the crowd about the “right” way to go about opening presents, Philip and I (with the help of Sarah who passed us the gifts and Katie who took notes on who got us what) dove into the pile. And what a pile it was. It didn’t look that big when we first walked in, but it’s amazing how many tiny outfits and pieces of baby paraphernalia you can fit into a gift bag. Even more so when that gift bag is nearly 2 feet tall! We got so much great stuff. Some of it was very fitting (an OSU track suit from Christopher and room decorations from Philip’s mom), some was very thoughtful (a handmade blanket from Katie’s mom and matching “mom” and “baby” crystal pendants from my mom), some was very unexpected (an array of gifts from people that Liz works with….people we don’t even know!) and at least one gift was amusing (a giant stuffed penguin from my dad who threatened us with more giant stuffed animals in the future). Of course, the gift that got everyone’s attention was the giant tower of baby clothes in all colors and sizes that Philip’s aunts have probably been buying since before we knew we were even having a baby!

Overall, Philip and I were both overwhelmed with the love and support we felt during the shower and throughout this journey. Sure, the result of the shower was that we ended up with a big pile of (extremely useful!) gifts, but it was most important for us to have a chance to get together with the people that we don’t see often, but who have been important to both of us throughout our lives. We’re so lucky to have such giving, thoughtful people in our lives, and we want our little girl to grow up understanding the importance of being there for others and of helping those who need it!