On Sunday I went to my second (
I think) baby shower ever. Laura and I were in charge of games. We used two games I had seen before and one that we made up.
Game #1 - Frozen Babies
You take tiny plastic babies and place them in an ice cube tray, fill it with water, and freeze it. At the shower, each person puts a baby-containing ice cube in their drink. Whoever's baby is "birthed" from the ice first wins a prize.
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| Unfrozen babies - only one per cube |
Baby showers are surprisingly competitive. Everyone was trying to beat the system. Immediately following the announcement of the rules, questions were flying. "Can I put it in my coffee?"
No. "Can I suck on it?"
No. "Can I chew on it?"
No. "Can I put it in my tea?"
I already said NO to coffee...
The game is supposed to last a while and promote mingling. Instead people were poking their babies, swirling their drinks, and trying their hardest to get these babies out. The winner was the woman who cupped her hands around her drink and constantly swirled and breathed on her water. She won some bath salts for her effort.
Game #2 - How big is Mommy's Belly?
In this traditional baby shower game people guess how big they think the expectant mother's stomach is by cutting a string to a certain length. Then the strings are compared to the mother's belly. One of the little girls won this game. Thankfully Laura thought ahead and got some kids' prizes.
Game #3 - Swaddling Races
After being lulled into a false sense of security by the previous game's lack of competitiveness, Laura and I set up the final game. This is the one that we made up. One of the mothers gave a demonstration of proper swaddling technique, then it was race to see who could correctly swaddle their stuffed animal the fastest.
At first nobody really wanted to play, but we ended up with 6 contests.
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| Ready, set, swaddle! |
This was a disaster. The woman who swaddled the fastest forgot a minor detail, so she technically didn't swaddle correctly. The next woman just wrapped her baby, so she couldn't win. Then the 12-year-old thought she had finished next, when it fact it was a different woman who
had swaddled correctly. There was a lot of confusion. Maybe next time we'll just stick to sanctioned baby shower games.
Fortunately we had two prizes left over since a kid had won the previous game. We ended up giving the fastest woman a prize (candle) and the best swaddler a prize (picture frame). It was a little tense as we made this decision since the fastest woman thought she had been screwed and the 12-year-old kept yelling that she had finished first. We quickly distributed the prizes and moved on to presents.
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Epilogue:
People really seem to like little plastic babies. We gave the expectant mother a giant frozen baby for the first game since she wasn't eligible to win any prizes anyway. She's excited to use it to freak her husband out in some way.
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| Glass of babies |
Another girl was very excited to get her picture taken eating the tiny plastic baby.
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| A Modest Proposal in action |
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I go to Lake Tahoe next week. I think the 15 remaining tiny babies will be a great addition to the trip. I'm not sure how they will be used yet, but rest assured - they will be used.
