Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Mama Drama


So I realized the other day that my mom and I really needed to get those baby/wedding shower invitations out.

For the British, a baby shower is a luncheon that is held in honor of an expectant couple that is attended by all one’s female relatives and friends (men are mercifully spared, except the dad-to-be) and to which each guest brings a gift for the baby, generally practical things like bottles, towels, blankies, etc. This way friends and family are helping out with all those financial strings attached to impending baby arrivals. A wedding shower is similar only the gifts are household things to help a new couple start their home up (e.g. dishes, cooking ware, appliances, etc.).

Anyway, I realized that if we were to have this joint wedding/baby shower on January 22 as planned, we needed to get our gift wish lists registered at some stores and then get those invites out. This led to my sister and I spending 4 hours in Babies ‘R’ Us and Target on Saturday using wireless scanner guns to zap items in the store that I wanted on our gift wish list so that our invitees would know what we wanted. This was fun for two hours and mind-bending in the second half.

I discovered new depths (or perhaps shallows) that I never knew I had. I was most preoccupied with realistic usage, meaning, would I actually use the things on my list or end up with an apartment full of you-know-what. Here, my sister, a mother of two, came in handy. I remained focused and realistic until we got to bedding. Dear god, Babies ‘R’ Us had some adorable bedding sets for the baby’s room. It took 10 minutes for me to decide between Farm Animals or Froggies and Duckies. I walked up and down the aisle comparing the two displays in a fervor that I think can only compare to a dirty old man trying to choose between the Olsen twins. In the end, Froggies and Duckies won for its softness and overall joviality. I hope that when it comes times to choose a university or life partner our child will not find it so difficult as I found this choice.

Meanwhile, two hours later over in Target, my sister and I started breaking down about the time I had to pick out kitchen gear. There are far too many types of doohickeys for preparing and serving food. My sister had remained impartial until this point, giving advice without passing judgment on my final choices. But alas, she MADE me add Corningware to my list. For those of you like me who could care less about such things, Corningware is a type of dish for baking and/or serving in, but it is also rather nice looking. I would have liked to have just gotten other plain dishes for cooking in the oven with, but my sister asked, “What will you serve guests in? How will you entertain? What will you serve me in when I visit?!” I thought the other dishes, which can go in the oven and come with covers for placing leftovers in the fridge, were fine. If it’s good enough to cook in, it’s good enough to serve from. But she wouldn’t have it and scanned in a Corningware set.
I have expressed that if anyone should buy this set for the shower, the first time my sister eats over, I will purposely leave the Corningware out on the counter, empty, and serve her from the plain cooking ware. Obviously Motherhood has not yet sapped all the puckish spite out of me.

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