Last week, I asked y’all for some tips on throwing a baby shower and got all kinds of great suggestions about food, decorations and games. I am now going to return the favor and share with y’all two pieces of baby shower advice that I learned yesterday.
1. Do not wait until midnight the night before the shower to start tying silver baby cups and spoons to your chandelier because between the tiredness, the PMS, and all of the clanking of the spoons, you will experience a moment that will make you want to hurl priceless family heirlooms through your kitchen window.
2. Do not decide to wear some cute, black polka-dot shoes with high wedge heels to the shower. By the time the shower is over, you will find yourself seriously considering amputating your feet with a butter knife.
You’re welcome.
All week last week I had a running list in my head of everything I needed to get done for the shower. I planned my menu, bought the groceries, ordered some petit fours from a local bakery, polished silver and borrowed a mammoth coffee urn from my sister-in-law. I was the model of efficiency and, by the time Saturday arrived, all I had left to do was pick up the petit fours from the bakery, go buy some flowers, decorate the house and make the breakfast casseroles so that they could sit overnight.
Piece of cake, or petit four as the case may be.
Anyway, I think I may have mentioned at some point that there has been a lot of rain over the last few weeks. Lots of rain. Lots and lots of rain. So, Saturday morning, our friend W (who is married to E, the baby shower guest of honor) calls to see if we want to drive down to his ranch, bring the four-wheelers and go mudding, better known as muddin’. P said he’d go and take Caroline with him but, in a fit of free-spiritedness and overwhelming nostalgia caused by watching too many episodes of The Wonder Years, I decided that life was too short to send my husband and baby off to have fun without me while I worried about tying a bunch of baby spoons together. I wanted to go muddin’ too.
Sunrise, sunset and all that stuff.
So, I ran to the bakery, picked up my petit fours, came home and threw on some old jeans, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap, and jumped in the truck with P and Caroline. I decided everything else could wait until later, even if it meant I was up until the wee, small hours of the morning.
I had so much fun, which is living proof that you can take the girl out of Southeast Texas but you can’t take the Southeast Texas out of the girl. The ranch was literally a mud pit. We had so much fun and listening to Caroline scream and laugh every time the mud came flying up was totally worth having to go buy flowers at 9:00 last night.
And to give y’all some idea of the amount of rain, this is normally a road.
And here’s some random woman in a baseball cap posing with my child.
I don’t have a picture of E but, rest assured, she was a vision right out of a Pea in the Pod catalog with her pregnant belly coated in splattered mud. It really is the way most mothers-to-be spend the day before an elegant baby shower brunch.
We got home around 8:00, after stopping for a lovely dinner at the Dairy Queen in Lytle, Texas. It’s a wonder that it’s not in Zagat’s guide because, really, the dead, smashed fly on the venetian blind added that little something extra to the Steak Finger Country basket experience. But at least we got Blizzards. Later on, I would need that extra boost of energy that only a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard can provide. And did y’all know that they now make Blizzard cakes? They do. They really do.
Moment of silence and reverence for the Blizzard cake.
After I finally got Caroline clean and in bed, I ran to the store to buy flowers, came home and commenced with the baby shower preparations. I cooked, I tied ribbon, and I arranged flowers. Finally at about 1 a.m., I climbed into bed so that I could toss and turn until about 3 a.m. because once my brain is on, it’s hard to turn off. So, I laid there and pondered what time I’d need to put the casseroles in the oven the next morning, worried about making an appointment to see the dentist, calculated the ratio of the U.S. dollar to the Euro, and solved quadratic equations in my head. Oh, and I also might have thought about what I was going to wear the next day.
For the first time since she’s been born, I was actually a little glad that Caroline woke me up at 6:30 a.m. I spent the morning cooking and cleaning up, while she had a meltdown about the fact that I had used her silver baby cup to decorate. She kept saying, “But it’s mine. It’s my cup. I don’t want you to use it.” And honestly, I wanted to say, “Well, then that cereal is mine. I bought it and I don’t feel like sharing. Give it back. Oh yeah, and quit sitting on my couch. It’s mine.”
But that would be wrong, because I am 35 years old.
So, we negotiated the terms of a lease agreement for the use of the silver cup, and I’m afraid she may be taking lessons in used car salesmanship from JoEL. She drives a hard bargain.
All said and done, the shower turned out very well. We didn’t play any games, mainly because I think party games are of the devil. I have always felt this way and even in 4th grade had no desire to “break the ice” with other kids by lining up and passing them an orange from under my chin. In spite of the lack of party game playing, E had a nice time, got a lot of really nice things for the babies, and everyone said the food was great. The hit of the day were the cheese biscuits with strawberry butter. In fact, thinking about that leftover strawberry butter sitting in my fridge makes me want to grab a large spoon, label it pudding, and call it a day.
I’m pretty sure strawberry butter isn’t part of my new Cooking Light initiative, but Cooking Light doesn’t really offer a lot of help when it comes to PMS.
Here are a some pictures for posterity. Unfortunately, you can’t really see the strawberry butter.
I’ll be rested and ready to throw another party in about 5 years, which would be okay if Caroline’s birthday weren’t just a little over a week away.
Party on.
But this time, I’m wearing flip-flops.
