Heavy Downpour

Never with so little enthusiasm have I set out for a party than yesterday afternoon, when my MIL and I attended a baby shower for my husband's cousin. I was not pleasantly surprised. The lengthy afternoon consisted of the following:

• Fifteen minutes of being introduced to people I had either met before and didn't remember me or who didn't have any interest in conversing with me.
• Five minutes of consuming the meager amount of food that would fit on a pastel pink baby shower plate five inches in diameter with my pastel pink plastic fork.
• Fifteen minutes of avoiding and then pretending I hadn't avoided participating in the "Baby Price is Right," a game who could be easily won if you had bought Desitin or pacifiers any time in your recent retail past.
• An hour and a half of alternatively watching said cousin open pastel pink baby clothes, pastel pink baby hats, no less than two baby monitors (including the one we had bought off the registry, which of course came after the wrong one someone bought and of course didn't come off the registry so our gift was deemed the "duplicate"), and enough tubes of Desitin that I don't think that this mother will ever know the true price of Desitin and at the same time being deputized by the expectant mother's mother to document the whole thing with her digital camera. For fun I took several shots of said aunt-in-law folding all the tissue paper for a future use. I wonder what she'll do with those shots.
  
• Another twenty to thirty minutes of avoiding playing a game in which everyone else attempted to name children in both movies and books. I was seriously disappointed by the expectant mother's lack of knowledge of any characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, Little House on the Prairie, Little Women, Peter Pan and Charlotte's Web. This child has no hope.
• Finally departing without having had a single conversation with either the expecant mother, her mother, or anyone else that we didn't actually meet, after two and a half hours of excruciating boredom and just a wee bit of nausea.

The party favors where pink and white m&ms. There were little pastel pink baby clothes and pictures of the expectant mother and father at similar ages (I seem to remember this little trick from their wedding) hung from clothesline around the room. There were some pink balloons, but amazingly enough the punch was sangria-red. Although the cups to put it in were pastel pink, and of course we were required to put stickers on our cups. Of course. Of horses and balloons, I think.

Now I'll let you in on some of the finer points of the day--I need these in order to feel like a whole day of my life was not a waste of time:

• My dearest Mr. Bump making me coffee in the morning, even though he doesn't drink it (although not technically part of the shower, part of the day so it counts).
• Being 45 minutes early to the shower and driving around with my MIL until we found an ice cream shop, and then taking the time to have a cone--I had chocolate, she had raspberry.
• Taking Mr. Bump's grandmother, probably the sweetest person above 80 in my life and the only one of all of Mr. Bump and my grandparents still living, out to dinner at Pagliacci's. I think she liked her dinner and we enjoyed seeing her--we have not had the pleasure often lately.
• A moment with my MIL when a woman at the shower said she's "all about grandbabies" and "can't wait to be a grandmother" was gushing in earshot. I turned to her and all I said was "Bless you."
• Various other moments throughout the day when my MIL and I would share a look, a sigh, a "hurry up and open another f-ing present!"
• The last thing is one of the first things that happened in the morning that I'm not sharing, but it made the whole damned day worthwhile.

Maybe someday we'll get pregnant, or maybe we won't, but I make this vow right now. No shower. No games. Just a great party for all our friends and family before our life changes forever. That's if we ever get pregnant. At the moment, I wouldn't hold my breath.