What A Load of Crap

Baby showers are sweet girly events, created to honor the new mother and her little bun in the oven by lavishing her with gifts she never thought she would need, like nipple cream and diaper stench containment systems. Usually, the mom to be is surrounded by her peers, other women who are also having babies or thinking about it, and they all ooh and aah over all the cute little outfits and nod sensibly at the stroller systems and offer up unsolicited advice and childbirth stories of their own, all in an effort to feel more connected to the pregnant guest of honor or to the whole idea of parenting. Sometimes the showers have themes, like teddy bears or baby booties or bottles. It all sounds so innocent, even though it is celebrating someone having sex, which normally doesn’t warrant a party or gifts or innocence, for that matter.

I threw a baby shower for my friend MJ recently, who is just weeks away from exploding with her second child. MJ has an eleven year old daughter, so she’s in desperate need of baby gear, since they have reinvented almost everything at least twice since she last changed a diaper. In those eleven years, she has also, well, aged eleven years. Her shower was not a party with women in the same mommy boat; in fact, the guests at her shower drank glass after glass of pink champagne, secretly thrilled that they weren’t the ones having a baby late in life, having to start over with sleepless nights, thousands of diaper changes, and yes, the terrible twos.

I picked a theme for her shower, one that really speaks to MJ. It was poo. MJ, who is a big fan of body functions in general, is never one to shy away from a poop story. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard how her daughter, as a baby, was able to shoot her poop through the doorway onto the opposite wall, in an amazing feat of baby intestinal strength. For MJ, a good baby poop story is the silver lining in the dark cloud of constant diaper changes. So who better than her to embrace the idea of simultaneously entertaining classy women while grossing them out?

In addition to the lovely hydrangeas that festooned the buffet and coffee tables, I strung tiny newborn diapers on some kitchen twine and swagged it over the mantel, a new form a shabby chic that would have brought a tear to Martha Stewart’s eye. My older daughter E even taped a diaper to the front door so that all the guests would know they had come to the right place.

I had prepared a couple of shower games as well. One of them was guessing the circumference of MJ's pregger belly, using toilet paper instead of something charming like grosgrain ribbon. A roll of toilet paper sat on the sofa console table with some pens so the guests could label their guesses. By the middle of the party, streams of toilet paper hung around the room as if we all expected a mass rush on the bathroom, only to find an empty roll.

The best game, however, was my version of a guess what’s in the diaper game. I read online about putting different kinds of baby food in diapers and having the shower guests identify the flavors. I took it a little further. I used candy bars, five different kinds, and melted them in the microwave before smearing them on those diapers. Snickers, Twix, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Three Musketeers, and my personal favorite, Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with Almonds, were each melted and dumped just so inside the absorbent middle of the diapers. Had I been thinking clearly, I would have gone with a Mr. Goodbar, but I did the best I could. I placed them each atop a silver serving tray, the irony of which was not lost on MJ, and encouraged the ladies to smell and even taste each one to determine what kind of candy each diaper held. I have to admit, not a single quest would taste them, but I did snap a few good pictures of MJ’s friends and business associates with their noses deep in those loaded diapers.

We all had a lovely time, and MJ got a bunch of stuff she needed and wanted, and then everyone went home with goodie bags containing cookie stuffed cookies and candies and tiny little bottles and Mohawk babies, because who doesn’t love a baby with a Mohawk? I kept that diaper garland up for days afterward because I really liked the look of it, although my husband pointed out that decorating with diapers is less of a fashion statement than it is one on mental health.

I feel for MJ, though, because she is starting over with a baby. Babies are wonderful and cute and their heads smell good, but they are a lot of work. A lot. They don't sleep like normal people and you have to feed them from your breasts, which is just like a cow, and they can't talk and they poo and pee all the time. At least she will have some new poop stories to tell.