April Showers

For someone so ambivalent about baby showers, R truly enjoyed herself yesterday. She had gone to some baby showers in the past, but for the last few years it became increasingly awkward to gather with such happy mothers and hear them talk about pregnancy and babies while she had none. Also, as you might be aware, she does not enjoy party games, and that is typical shower fare. Yesterday was a complete reversal: now she's the pregnant one, but she didn't have to play the games. It was beautiful. It was also somewhat emotional, as she saw how many people took the time and effort to come wish her well.

The event was organized by some of her close friends here in Ottawa, and I've heard reports that the food was excellent. After a warm-up game where grown women wrapped themselves in toilet-paper diapers for prizes, they sat down with refreshments to open the presents that people had brought. I remember the first time R was invited to a baby shower out here (held for JJ's first child), and we went to Sears to buy a gift. I think we were there for more than an hour, deliberating over different gifts. In the end, we got a blue outfit. I now imagine that everyone who buys a shower gift spends 2 hours agonizing over it, so I value them that much more.

Many of the gifts were clothing items. In fact, we still have not bought a single item of baby clothing (except for this cool bib that I bought online), and it doesn't look like we'll need to buy any for at least a year. Although a lot of the clothes are for the first 12 months, there were even some toddler items, like this t-shirt with a picture of an RCMP rider -- A nice keepsake for our time here in the capital.

We were totally blown away by the number of hand-made items, like quilts, blankets and sheets. Although R recently acquired a sewing machine, the bulk of our creative work takes place at a computer, editing videos and things like that. Making someone a quilt as a gift seems like a mammoth undertaking. One of the quilts, made by R's super-close friend S, had a bunch of cars on it (driven by various friendly monsters) and a little baby down in the corner with the name "Parkin" embroidered on his diaper. This particular gag has been going on for a long time (at least since December). S suggested we name the baby Parkin because it's a funny fit with our mysterious last name. She's so clever.

The people R works with downtown at Gillespie Reporting Services pitched in to buy us a Travel Playard (or playpen). It's made by Eddie Bauer and it has lots of bells and whistles and matches our beige Zooper stroller perfectly (as well as matching our curtains). It looks kind of like a tent (and it even has tent poles), so we'll make sure to take it out in the wild.

Long after the shower was over and she had come home, R was still in shock at the outpouring of generosity. Because we don't have any family out here, we always felt a bit like we were alone. We couldn't be more wrong. There are a lot of people who care about us, and many of them were dressed in toilet-paper diapers yesterday afternoon.