The Brutal Truth About Shower Gifts That Guests Actually Keep
I'm standing in my kitchen, staring at a tiny resin carriage I just found in the back of my junk drawer. I honestly don't know whose party it came from. Before I had my own kid, I thought you had...
Writing a Baby Shower Card When You Have No Idea What to Say
I was standing in the greeting card aisle at the local Portland Fred Meyer, holding a pastel yellow card featuring a deeply anatomically incorrect stork, completely paralyzed. I had solicited advice from three different people on what to write in...
The Accidental Winnie the Pooh Baby Shower Guide for Anxious Dads
Dear Tom from six months ago. You're currently hiding in the downstairs loo. I know this because I'm you, and I remember the exact texture of the bathmat you're presently sitting on while trying to escape the chaos of your...
The Baby Giraffe Metaphor That Completely Changed My Motherhood
I was exactly 34 weeks pregnant with Maya, wearing these black maternity leggings that had a crusty, highly suspicious patch of dried Greek yogurt on the left thigh, standing in the middle of a big-box baby store just absolutely weeping...
Why We Traded Stuffy Showers for the Modern Co-Ed Baby Bash
I'm sitting on a pastel-pink velvet chair in a suburban banquet hall watching my cousin unwrap her nineteenth burp cloth. Someone is measuring her waist with toilet paper while a group of aunts I haven't seen since my wedding stare...
Surviving the Modern Baby Shower: Themes, Rules, and Absurdities
My mother-in-law insisted we needed a hired tea service with crustless cucumber sandwiches, my mate Paul told me to just book the back room at The Crown and put some crisps in a bowl, and an American lifestyle blog I...
The Truth About Baby Shower Decorations (And That Balloon Arch)
I was thirty-two weeks pregnant with my oldest, sitting flat on my kitchen floor, and ugly-crying into a pile of deflated sage green balloons. My husband had just walked in from work, taken one look at me holding a dual-action...
The Truth About Baby's Breath Flowers at Your Shower
I was standing in the middle of my living room at seven in the morning, eight months pregnant with my oldest, aggressively sniffing my own sofa cushions. My mom was in the kitchen cutting crusts off pimento cheese sandwiches for...
Baby Shower Games That Won't Make Your Guests Cringe
I was thirty-five weeks pregnant with my oldest, feet swollen into the shape of overcooked sausages, sitting on a floral armchair in a rural Texas living room while my mother-in-law's friend Brenda aggressively inhaled a microwaved Snickers bar smeared inside...