Thursday, June 18

The last baby showers

No rain this time! Actually, some rain would be great at this point. It's been pushing 40 nearly every day and not dropping much during the nights. I'm not sure how the beloved is staying so cheerful! Luckily we have 2 gorgeous pools here at our apartment complex.

Belly-off - Josie clearly beats Aunt Lorena's no-pregnant-marathon-running torso

A little bit of a news update. Last week we had an ultrasound (35 weeks) and initially our OB thought Tuesday was breech, but then realised his head was waaay down (engaged, yay!) and that lump that keeps pushing out of Jo's belly like an emerging facehugger is actually his bum! Yay, good boy, no being born foot first like your Poggie. Also looks like cervix is 50% effaced and 2-3cm dilated so we could be on our way any day now. Or we might not! Jo saw the OB again today but I couldn't go because of this $&%@ cold :( Here's hoping I can shake it before labor kicks in!!

But I digress, back to the baby showers...

Our second last baby shower was organised by a few of our work friends on a Saturday afternoon at the lovely Miss April's house. There was a table loaded with fabulous food that everybody had made (we contributed sushi and I was so thankful to be able to do anything!

Look at the sheer awesomeness of that spread!

Looks just as tasty from the other side too, right? It was :D

In all it was a very civilised shower. We chatted, ate, and drank. There were three games, one from each of the organisers. The first was to guess the number of Hersheys kisses in the apothecary jar, which I failed miserably at by using my 42 is the answer to everything logic.

It was more like 170

The second game was designed by one of our stats geniuses, where you selected a date and time block for Tuesday's birth, and also a birthweight to be used as a tiebreaker! Not only that, but she gave some statistical background on the general population to use as a guide.

Thankfully Mona's outside-the-box guess of June 14th wasn't a winner!

The last game was brilliant and I, for one, really appreciated it (and you'll see why). It was a form of baby shower bingo, where everyone (except Jo and I) had bingo cards with things like 'onesie' or 'hooded towel' written in the squares, and a sheet of stickers. So while Jo and I were the center of attention opening presents, everyone else also had something to do, keeping an eye on their card and filling it in if we received anything listed on their sheet. We did get a little creative when there weren't enough winners, allowing chocolate to count as baby food and rubber ducky wrapping to count as a bath toy, but it was a lot of fun!


I had to add in this pic of us wearing the amazing felted hats that our friend Jennifer made! The green one is Yoda and the other has the cutest bunny ears.

Course, after all that hard work of opening presents (we have such incredibly generous friends!) there had to be cake. And not just any cake, but kick ass petits fours from the cake shop.

They were so delicious and juicy, almost like they'd been soaked in condensed milk!

Last Friday we had our final shower at work. This was a whole new experience for me, but it was also a lot of fun. There were so many people there I nearly got stage fright and ran away! No games to distract from the public intensity of opening the huge pile of gifts (Tuesday, you are one lucky boy kiddo) but there was a huge and delicious red velvet cake that had my name on it (ok, Jo's too...)

mmm...under that cream cheese icing is dark and delicious red velvet cake

I was so impressed by how amazing and generous and unprejudiced the work crowd were. There isn't room on the blog to show you all our wonderful gifts, including children's books written by our friend Jack's dad in the 60s, handmade spit cloths that say Tuesday with gorgeous grey kangaroos embroidered on them, cowboy-boot socks etc etc...and not only that, some of these gifts were so impressively wrapped that we hardly dared to unwrap them!

Just look at that wrapping - All those little monkeys hanging onto the ribbon!

Now that the hospital bag is mostly packed and our house is visitor free, my big task now is to finally get the nursery sorted. Not that it's really a nursery since we'll be putting his cot in our room to start with, but it is good to have a place for all his 'stuff' and somewhere to decorate and keep as a sanctuary from the day to day. Or maybe I'm just nesting...

16 comments:

Josie said...

You think she's nesting?????
People keep asking me if I'm "nesting" I tell them Jac has that one covered! She really is serious about hanging curtains . . . .

Mothersupex said...

I can understand she wants things perfect - the person she is.

The showers are just, well amazing seems little to say, but honestly, your friends are wonderful and we are so happy for you here.

I'm sure that present from Linda, the last picture, is a scrapbooker!!

Very hahppy for you both, and extra happy that you have such wonderful and generous friends.

Also, the blueberries looked lovely, so too those little greenish cakes. Very healthy.....

Hugs

Adrienne said...

It's all happening. I'm still excited.

Anonymous said...

Will there be room for Tuesday in his bedroom? What great friends you have and all so very kind. The felt hats were gorgeous

Love
jeannie

Mariposa del Diablo said...

I figure I'll attempt the felted lightsaber and Yoda feet when we drive to Phoenix next month :-)

Jac said...

Jennifer! I was going to link to your blog but Jo said you'd abandoned the blogsphere for facebook! We love the hats! I'm going to post better photos of some of the presents later, especially the handmade ones, but those totally take the cake (poor Matt, you should have seen him working out if there was any way Yoda would fit him...)

Unknown said...

I am sooo excited for you two! Can't wait!

Jac said...

Crikey! I blink and there's a new comment! Yeah, I'm busting with excitement. We just did another load of tiny clothes, only one more to go before we're washing for real!! Hard to believe it could be any day now. Never fear, I will post as soon as we're sure something is happening.

Plenty of room in the bedroom still, well there will be when we shift out the residual furniture left by our Norwegian friends. Nesting is so much fun! Who knew?

Big A said...

I've come onto this a bit late: it's all been said! But I'm also really impressed by the kindness and effort of all your pals and work chums.

Thanks to any of them who read this from The Incipient Granpa.

Adrienne said...

I keep checking back just in case there's more news that I'm missing.

xA

Robee said...

We are waiting with bated breath for the next installment! What lucky people you are to have such generous and thoughtful friends.

We are looking forward to the news of the arrival and hope all goes smoothly for you both. I think you will need to hook up to Skype now so you can show off the new little person to his family back here in Oz......

xox Rosemary

Ruthie said...

As Big A said, it's all been said, but... it's lovely to see you both glowing in the hats pic (now saved to the gallery!)
Glad you're all prepared... roll on Tuesday!
xx

Word verification 'boara' - slang Australian term to denote Northern Lights

Mariposa del Diablo said...

I did take quite a break but am back to the blog now, especially with NewBaby on the way :-)

Jac said...

Aww you guys, it's so amazing to have so many of you coming here and commenting...anyone would think you were waiting for something! 0_o

Jennifer, glad to hear you're blogging again. The facebook comment was a little tongue in cheek :P Will link you on my sidebar.

Ruthie, I love the word verification!

Adrienne said...

word verification: fingsomy = a collection of items whose name you can't remember

Just checking in... Mum and Dad said to say hi! They're very excited for you too!

xA

Big A said...

Aw come on, Rennie, you made that one up, didn't you?