I Love Presents!

I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but somehow I went from being a pregnant girl with no baby showers to a pregnant girl with three baby showers. One given by a friend of mine, Elizabeth for most of my friends, one given by Suz Knitter for our family, and one given by Janie, a friend of my mom's, and each vying passionately for winner of Most Kick-Ass Shower ever. No doubt the Kick-Ass shows how not typical these Baby Parties were.

I won't attempt to relive even the highlights of all of them, but I thought I'd post some of the more interesting gifts. Not to offend anyone who's gift might not be posted! All our gifts were tremendous- I say this sincerely. We got GREAT gifts. I didn't know what to expect when The Hubba (who might be called Matty too as my memory is not what it used to be and well, consistency just isn't one of my top three qualities right now) and I registered. He had the gift gun and I had the know-how, which was sad as I hadn't a clue and nearly everything we saw I exclaimed, "Are you kidding me? It costs how much?!" My grandfather would have been proud. I was more than a little shocked (re: horrified) by the entire Babies R Us experience.

But, good heavens, did people step up. We got bouncy chairs, walker-things, traveling systems (thanks you Matty's Granny! that system alone scared the bejeezus out of me- Graco does not mess around), baby hangers, play jungles, clothes, baby hangers, books, decorations for the nursery, and baby hangers (people are really nuts about those tiny hangers, huh? We're still finding stacks of tiny white plastic hangers in the most random places). We were gifted and blessed and treated and it's been amazing.

For blog purposes, though, I cannot display all our booty. So here were some of the more interesting highlights!

An extravaganza of handmade UT baby goodies, all knit and crocheted by the glorious Miz Knotty:






She is an absolute star. The UT booties-sneakers were my favorite.

A Pack n' Play (thanks to Matty's parents!):


Also known as the HMS Baby. Seriously, I think the point of PnP is if we ever really upset Baby, he or she will have a seaworthy vessel in which to set sail. This thing is HUGE.

The aforementioned Travel System (again, thanks to Matty's Granny!):


Makes you think there should be lights and sirens and perhaps one of those automatic parallel park gadgets such as Lexus now offers.

Cloth diapers:



While we've gotten some funny looks over our decision to CD (and trust me- I throw no stones- I've already apologized to Knitty Yoda several times over my own unhelpful comments and raised eyebrows on this subject back when she decided to cloth diaper their second Little One), we've also gotten a tremendous amount of support. And that support has come in the form of cloth diapers themselves! So while I'm sure I'll post more about this new and fascinating subject later, for now I'm just mighty appreciative of having such a great start.

Super high-tech digital monitors from Pops and Suz Knitter (this was on top of the shower AND they paid for our Bradley Method Class- if you're curious, learning how to birth naturally ain't cheap):


I had to mention the monitors because of the response at the shower. Here I am pulling out cute booties and tiny onesies that Baby wears for about a second and everyone "oos" and "ahs" and it's lovely and I pull out these very fancy and incredibly useful monitors and there's a general "nice, nice, show us more tiny clothes!" consensus. So I now think we, as a people, are far more interested in fashion than life-saving devices, yes?

A three-volume set of Sandra Boynton books from Mum Knitter:


Oh, and she's buying us our rocking chair for the nursery. Have I mentioned how incredibly generous the people in our lives are?

Speaking of generous, all of our baby furniture, handed down to us by my Cousin Shannon:




I still can't get over this one. This was the end-all, be-all in fantastic, necessary gifts AND such a stress relief. I promise being 36 weeks pregnant with no nursery furniture in sight isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds. But Shannon said it was give it to us or sell it in a yard sale and she'd rather give it to blood and this is exactly the kind of comment that makes you so happy you moved home and have family right down the road from you.

And finally- the pièce de résistance, though I rank nothing any better or more important than any other gift- this one- well, see for yourself:

(It's a little hard to see in the picture but on the onesie there's a bicycle that says "Dave Matthews Band." Sigh.)

Anyone who knows anything about last year for us knows Knitty Yoda's gift... I don't have words for it. So instead, let's allow the clothes to speak for themselves. Listen! I think I hear the faint reprise of Lie in Our Graves...

If this were a Mastercard commercial I think it would read something like:

Baby Pack n' Play: A lot of money
Baby Travel System: Tons of cash
Bradley Method Class: get our your ATM card
Nursery Room Rocking Chair: That is gonna cost you
Baby Dave Matthews Band clothes: Priceless