Randoms 6/26

jandd2014

@dmontgo  I'm doing a Halloween shower too! But more so because I like costume parties and not so much all the creepy stuff

dmontgo

@jandd2014 I'm not much for the gore aspect of Halloween, but I do love the fall treats, the costumes, the decorating...it's all so much fun to me!

sourlemon

I just got an Ergo at target for half price! DH still looked at me like "seriously it's that expensive!". Yes DH, typically twice that! We didn't have a carrier with our first so he legit didn't know. 

whitneyp26

Omg I love the idea of a Halloween baby shower!!! Too bad I'm probably not getting one or I'd do that. 

Mamax2

I love books instead of cards at baby showers. Being a teacher in the past, I have always done a book with a message in it. My usual go to is "Oh, Baby, The Places You Will Go". 

jenlynne0624

I had the books instead of a card at my shower and it was awesome. So many sweet messages when we still read those books. 

So jelly of those having a Halloween shower. I don't think anyone is throwing me anything so I'll live vicariously through you all!

phoenix870509

My mom and 2 best friends are coordinating my shower. I only had 2 requests, and one of them was to request books instead of cards. The other was bring diapers to be entered into a raffle and win some headbands my one friend makes. Other than that, I have no say in what is happening. Since I hate surprise parties I'll know when and where the shower is, and it's going to be co-ed so DH can participate.

ajstevenson

So 3 of my 4 closest friends asked for books in lieu of cards at their showers. I love the idea, but it was a little frustrating as a "gift giver" because either they didn't know the gender or wanted to keep the name a surprise. I think I might do it for our shower if we're completely set on a name. I love the idea of building up a library for LO.

LinziLoo09

I love the idea of a Halloween shower and of books for cards. But this is our second, so I totally don't expect any shower. At ours, my favorite part was the one game we (they) played. I genuinely think showers are stupid and frilly, and the games are ridiculous. But we had a beer drinking contest from baby bottles. The nipple holes are so tiny that it takes them forever, and it's hilarious to watch their frustration. It was a coed bbq, so the game worked pretty well. 

dmontgo

@LinziLoo09 I'm not a fan of the traditional baby showers either. So Halloween shower it is, and definitely coed. I haven't requested any games, because I really have never seen a baby shower game I think is awesome. It's going to be at our friend James' house, and there will be a bonfire, smores, BBQ, Halloween treats, and his house is going to be decorated like a haunted house with Nightmare Before Christmas themes. 

Not sure what my SIL is planning for our family shower since it's supposed to be a secret, but it will likely be more traditional.

slartybartfast

I had a traditional shower - my mom threw it... I've never been a fan but it was SO FUN. It was coed and we had a ton of baby games but everyone got SO into them it was hilarious. It was a really fantastic time. I guess I like any shower where the food is good. I also am really into coed showers. Something about getting just women together of different generations and I feel ridiculously out of place. Like I'm the ogre in a room full of polite ladies in their finery.

I don't think anyone will throw me anything this time. 2nd being so close, we don't really need anything. Except more cloth diapers maybe. and food. I'm really hung up on food today.

whitneyp26

I threw my best friends baby shower last year and it was the poop. I did make it frilly with lots of pink decorations but other than that, we had spiked punch and drinking games. Oh and one of the game was the one where you attach the balloon to your pants and hump each other to pop it. I hid money in some of the balloons and counted that as a party favor. 

HairBossMama

I just drank two large ice waters and I'm supposed to pee for a drug test in 10 minutes. I feel nothing. Any other day I pee every 5 minutes. Come on baby bounce on that bladder!!

(would like to add this is a pre-employment drug screen)

ashleaf2018

I wasn't sure I was going to have a shower being that almost all my friends/family are 5 hours away, but my sister did tell me recently that her and my mom will be throwing me one if I come down there for it, so it may be a bit of an early shower. I do really love the book idea for cards! Also I'm not sure if this is just me or what, but I think gendered colors for a shower are incredibly tacky. But only for boys. Pink is my favorite color, so if I were having a girl I would want everything pink. But I hate blue for boys. Most of our boy stuff will be more neutral colors anyway.

Kacie209

I've thrown a couple friends baby showers. They were both very small, like 5-6 people. I think both went very well, and were kind of similar. It was for two of my college friends. Games were dirty diaper (the candy bar one) and taste testing food. At one of them, my friends DH and another friends DH were also there so they participated and had a great time. I had another game at one where I played a song that had the word baby in it, and people had to guess the artists. That went over so-so.

The last one I was at, they had a game where a pic of the mom and dad were cut into strips and you had to make the baby look like them, or see the combination of what the baby MAY look like. That was pretty comical, and I guess the one I did with another gal was the closest when her baby was born, ha. I had never seen that one before, so it was fun to do something different.

PensiveCrayon

We'll see what my shower sitch is. I'm assuming I'll get a big one thrown by the ladies at church. Other than that, I haven't really bonded with the wives in H's squadron, so if they don't throw me one, I won't be offended. (I say now.)

For the people that did have the favorite books shower -- I'm a writer and a huge book nerd, so naturally I love this idea, but I'm worried I'll get repeats that can't be given away because they have notes written in them. Did that happen to any of you?

Toller

The books instead of cards is a so-so thing for me...love getting/giving books! But if everyone writes notes in them to one baby, then if you have another baby later who will also use the books...idk, the one kid "has" a bunch of books and the other(s) do not..... maybe that would be an issue, maybe not.

Just throwing that out there!

cgss11

@PensiveCrayon Keep the extra book at a Grandparent's house? Or keep one copy in the car or diaper bag? I attended a shower recently with the book thing, but the book I bought didn't have a place to write in (it was one of those early board books) so I just stuck a post-it inside. Despite the directions, a lot of people still gave cards so I'm not sure how many actually wrote in the book. 

On the topic of shower games..my recent favorite I've seen is to have guests make a baby out of play-doh then have the parents to be pick the winner. You could have categories...most realistic, ugliest, etc. It's always fun to see the older generation playing with play-doh, men get involved, and there were both some really amazing and hilarious entries. 

Kacie209

I am not sure who will throw me a shower, IF I even have one. One of my friends, when she found out, was like, "Ya know, I am a great party thrower!" so that was maybe the hint that her and another friend would plan something. No biggie if they didn't, which is how I felt with a bridal shower.

I would love to get books! I started buying some from teacher friends when they'd get the Scholastic Book fliers to order. And good idea with duplicates... could always use some at my parents house. DH's cousin just did one for this at her baby shower a couple months back, which I wasn't able to attend.

DH and I already agreed that we will avoid any unnecessary toys, no matter the age. We see how much stuff our nephews get for Christmas/Birthday and then never play with them again since they're interested in something else when the next gift event comes up. We'd rather see money towards the kid than anything else. But, we'll see if that holds true.

jenlynne0624

Benefit of being team green and doing the book thing was people just wrote "to baby d" so it'd applicAble to both sexes if this one ends of being a girl. I'll be taking the babyish books he's outgrown and putting them in baby's room anyway. 

dmontgo

@Kacie209 I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed by the toys too. I really don't want a bunch of toys that make noise unnecessarily. No cell phone toys. I really like the look of wooden toys...

PensiveCrayon

@cgss11 Ooh, grandparents' house. You're a smart cookie.

@dmontgo I've been super into reading about Montessori stuff. You should check it out -- any books by Paula Polk Lillard are good, and there are also a lot of great Instagram accounts of parents showing off their kids interacting with stuff. Montessori is all about high-quality toys that the baby can understand cause and effect from and that serve a purpose for learning (rather than just lighting up and making noise). I really don't want my house to be overrun by plastic stuff in bright colors. All the books I've been reading urge the parents to keep only three or four favorite toys, or even just household items for baby to explore, in a basket on the shelf so the child doesn't get overwhelmed, but still has options to play with. Those toys are then rotated out with others as baby grows and needs different kinds of stimulation.

Obviously I'm a FTM and my head is in the clouds here, but ideally, this is what my babe's play area will look like!

princesslockness

@PensiveCrayon no one wrote in our books. Not even the grandmas. Not sure why, but all our books will work for multiple kids.

SmashJam

@PensiveCrayon I had a first birthday for DS recently with the book instead of card thing and there were 30 people there-only 1 set of duplicates and I only got one book I already had, which will be a diaper bag book like a PP suggested!

dmontgo

@PensiveCrayon +1 for Montessori--love the teaching and learning styles. Ideally I would love to send baby to a Montessori school for the first little bit. I will check out the books you recommended!

DiFazette

@PensiveCrayon - we love wooden toys too.  It was our choice for the first 2 years until DS started longing for the bright plastic crap.  He's super into trucks so we have a lot of Melissa and Doug toys.  I think they fall into the Montessori style.  We tried to do limiting of toy choices for a while  - it's wasn't too successful but our child is also the Tasmanian devil and always moving - not exactly your quiet play type.  My husband's cousin runs the wooden toy development division at Fisher Price. They hit shelves at Target earlier this year.  

slartybartfast

There are very few toys in our house that DS really actually plays with. He'd play with them if he encountered them elsewhere... but at home he is all about anything he's not supposed to touch. It's always been that way. So we take him to the library, nature centers, etc often.
He's enrolled at a Montessori school where he'll start when he's a little over 2. Just a note to FTMs - depending on where you live, you may need to get your baby on childcare/montessori school waitlists starting like... nowish. We did. DS got on the list when I was 20 weeks last time. They were booked full til he's 2 (which is the right timing for us anyways).

dmontgo

@slartybartfast Ugh we are moving next year and although we know which state, we don't know the exact city.


DH is building the nursery dresser, and I'm checking out the crib mattress. Dude. This mattress is sweet. It's a Moonlight Slumber dual firm foam mattress. When baby gets a little older, you can flip it to the "toddler" side. It's firm but comfy. This kid is gonna be living it up. I'm kind of jelly.

sourlemon

We have lots of plastic colorful toys. DD plays with everything. The more annoying the song the better she likes it. 

LinziLoo09

We have too many toys that play super annoying songs. To be honest, DD got so much for her first birthday, we only opened a couple of things and then gave her the rest from friends and family for Christmas. The Christmas gifts she got from family were opened one by one as we needed to entertain her. People give just a ton of stuff, and you really don't need all that. We, consequently, have bought her very few things other than clothes and books.

cjt121413

LinziLoo09 said:

We have too many toys that play super annoying songs. To be honest, DD got so much for her first birthday, we only opened a couple of things and then gave her the rest from friends and family for Christmas. The Christmas gifts she got from family were opened one by one as we needed to entertain her. People give just a ton of stuff, and you really don't need all that. We, consequently, have bought her very few things other than clothes and books.

Yeah, this is the problem with trying to be minimalist about toys. DS gets so much stuff at his birthday and Christmas that even though I rarely buy him toys, he's got ridiculous amounts of crap. One thing I've done since he was little is hide some stuff, give him a set group of things to play with, and then rotate.

dmontgo

I know my parents will buy the noisiest toys possible, just to annoy me, even though we have requested wooden or educational toys...ugh. We only put one toy on our registry: wooden ring stacker by Melissa and Doug.

ashleaf2018

@dmontgo You should look up Bannor Toys! I follow them on Instagram but they do have a website. They have awesome rattles and wooden toys, I'll probably order a lot of things from them.

dmontgo

@ashleaf2018 Oh my! They sell them on Amazon, too! Muwahahahahahahaaa....

princesslockness

Those of you who have or are afraid of loud toys. Put a piece of scotch tape over the speaker. It is still loud enough for LO to enjoy, but mom and dad don't lose their minds.

maamawaabangi

Our noisy toy rule (told to all extended family)... If it annoys mom it stays at your house and they get to play with it there. Honestly I don't have the mental capacity to deal with toys that beep, play music or annoy me. They disappear or find new homes. 

I doubt we will have a shower. It's baby no. 7... There is stuff we need however. But it's like a new car seat for our almost 2 year old. Last time some friends hosted me a diaper shower... And nursing pads and wipes. It was super nice to not have to try to cloth diaper for the first few months. 

zubenescamali

oh the noisy toys. it doesn't matter what you do. someone will buy them something terribly annoying. for example, MIL thought buying LO a discovery kids electric guitar (the kind you just strum and it plays a "rock song" for you) would be a great idea. well it got to stay at her house until she moved in with us. I hate the damn thing.  it cost them $1.50 at a yard sale and I have almost smashed it 1000 times.
and I wish we could have limited the toys overall.  trouble is, family likes to open presents and then actually open the present and play with it immediately.  so there are no returns. it's the never ending carousal of crap.
I can only hope my relatives realize we don't need any toys at all for this third child. but they won't.

ashleaf2018

This is on slightly the same topic of toys, but how does everyone plan on handling birthdays for these December babies? I definitely want them to still feel like their birthday is special even with Christmas just around the corner, but as a FTM I'm not really sure how to navigate this. Obviously it won't matter much until they're old enough to understand what their birthday is, but I'm worrying early.

PensiveCrayon

@dmontgo I'm in the same boat as you -- most likely moving when the babe is a year, and to who knows where. (Military FTW!) And that's with H's work extension! Otherwise it would have been any time between October and January. So who knows the Montessori situation where we'll be going

@ashleaf2018 Gooooood question. This child is probably going to hate me for having him or her so close to the holidays. Any late December/early January birthdays out there with real life experience??

Edited for tag

dmontgo

@ashleaf2018 @PensiveCrayon I'm a December 15th baby, and my mom would throw me a little party or sleepover in early December. Then on my real birthday we did something as a family. Usually at least a couple of people could have a sleepover at the beginning of the month. It honestly never bothered me.