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Shower Excess

July 27th, 2008 at 12:54 pm

I went to a baby shower yesterday. Driving home, I was thinking about how totally excessive it was. (Full disclosure, I had ridiculously excessive bridal and baby showers too!). It's one of those things where I "wish I knew then what I know now".

In both cases (bridal and baby), we registered for gifts. (One store each in my case, two stores this time, and I've seen even more)! Looking back, I registered for things that I thought I absolutely had to have, and ended up never using. If I had it to do over, I would have registered for more diapers and wipes, and less of the gadgets.

The mom-to-be yesterday got an extraordinary amount of stuff. She knows she's having a girl, so it was a "princess" theme. Every single thing she got was pink or purple. I thought to myself, "what happens if her next child is a boy?" She likely won't have another shower to get it all again, but in blue. Crazy. I'm sure she got enough outfits and onesies that the baby will not have to wear a duplicate outfit for the first 6 months of her life!

All that said, I know how excited she was, and I was too. I just wish I had an experienced mom tell me that the wipe warmer that you plug in the wall to keep the wipes warm when they hit baby's hiney wasn't really necessary, that you could warm them in your hand just as easily. The Diaper Genie, where you store used diapers until you're ready to throw them out, wasn't really needed, especially when the refills were $5 each. We move our garbage to the garage every day, and it goes to the curb twice a week. Throw it right in the trash and there's no smell in the house! Amazing...But I did get an amazing free meal in the process.

Today we have a stay-at-home day, except for Church. It looks like it may rain, which is ok for me, because I have things in the house that I need to take care of. Also, with July wrapping up this week, I need to finish paying July bills and see where we're ending up.

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

7 Responses to “Shower Excess”

  1. Nic Says:
    July 27th, 2008 at 01:11 pm 1217164284
    1217164284

    I've been to showers where the hosts were so well organized they requested we shop for clothing and diapers in various sizes...newborn,3-6 mo.,12-18mo., etc. It made more sense and it helped the moms to be through the childs first year at least.

  2. asmom Says:
    July 27th, 2008 at 02:08 pm 1217167708
    1217167708

    When it's your first baby, you want all those frills. Somewhat wasteful but forgiveable. She will learn soon enough the need to be practical but when they are so little and new, I don't see anything wrong with those silly little "must-haves". For me, it was a diaper stacker. I just had to have it! Of course, I really needed T-shirts and socks but it sure was fun to get those other little things especially if other people were paying for them.

  3. scfr Says:
    July 27th, 2008 at 04:42 pm 1217176938
    1217176938

    I tend to give really practical gifts (mega packs of diapers from Costco for example). When my young and ditzy cousin got pregnant out of wedlock, I put together an infant first aid kit for her (even included one of those nice and not so cheap ear thermometers), because I knew that was the type of thing she would not think of doing on her own. When my sister had her first child, it was a Costco gift card (for LOTS of diapers and baby wipes), and when her second was born it was a nice start-off to the college fund. No one oohs and ahs when my gifts get opened, and I don't get a "little rush" shopping for them. I'm sure the recepient is inwardly yawning at the party looking at my gifts compared to the cutesy stuff. My mom even razzed me once for being so practical (aka boring). But even tho I don't have kids, I just know that down the line those are the gifts that are going to be most useful. I'm glad to hear someone admit they wished they had asked for more of the types of things I give. Thanks. Smile

  4. cargirl86 Says:
    July 27th, 2008 at 05:01 pm 1217178109
    1217178109

    I'm at the age when a lot of my friends are getting married and having babies, and I completely agree that these registries are over the top! One of my friends getting married had not one but TWO digital cameras on just ONE of her FIVE registry lists! They were around $200 each. The wedding I going to this fall had a more practical registry, but still, $40 for a shower curtain? I'm just dumbfounded that people would buy that for themselves, much less ask others to buy it for them. (It also is irritating that all of these couples live together before marriage ... I'm not against that, but they're living in fully furnished apartments or houses already! If you already have a shower curtain, why do you need a $40 one? Ugh ... sorry, it bothers me.)

    I think baby showers are a tad different ... while most people have shower curtains already, most first-time moms need a lot of stuff, and of course they want the latest and "greatest" advances. It's still frustrating, though.

  5. cptacek Says:
    July 27th, 2008 at 05:34 pm 1217180058
    1217180058

    I threw a shower for my sister and we didn't have a bunch of 'games'. We had one game...a diaper stacking game to see who could get it the highest. I had brought some big plastic garbage bags so we could take those diapers and put them in the bag and she could take them home and use them.

    I decorated with baby clothes on the hangers, hanging them around the room. Then she got those clothes after the shower.

    I also cut out 8x8" pieces of white cloth and got stencils and paint and everyone painted a piece. I then sewed it into a quilt. Everyone loved it (everyone said it was the most fun they had ever had at a shower) and we didn't waste anything on decorations. It was all something she could use.

  6. fruitbowlk Says:
    July 27th, 2008 at 07:51 pm 1217188273
    1217188273

    I learned so much from my own baby shower that all I will give to moms to be are diaper,wips,gift certificates.

  7. boomeyers Says:
    July 28th, 2008 at 04:48 am 1217220530
    1217220530

    I too knew I was having a girl, and yes she was well dressed for a year. But back in the "olden" days we did'nt have gift registry like we do now and I really regret everyone knew we were having a girl. I remember we did'nt hardly get anything practical and I was so disappointed. I ended up getting lots of stuff like the swing, monitor, cradle, etc from friends or garage sales. I read another blog recently that lamented that there were only two homemade gifts out of 40 people at the shower she went to, and she could tell how much the mom to be appreciated her homemade burp cloths and blanket.

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