Baby showers are traditionally the realm of women. All those finger foods and giggling over silly games and oohing and ahhing over cute little baby things.
Why does Dad get left out? It's his baby too.
Well, fortunately, Walt's sister and brother-in-law decided that Tom needed a baby shower, so we are back in Santa Barbara again.
The morning started very, very early for me. I was so afraid I'd oversleep, what with both the need for an early morning flight and daylight saving time to contend with, that I actually woke up at 4 a.m. regular time, 5 a.m., daylight saving time. At least half an hour earlier than I intended.
I got showered, finished packing (how much do you need to pack for a 2-day trip?) and got the dogs into the car for the trip to the dog sitters.
I had made arrangements for Kathy and Miguel to keep the dogs weeks ago, and asked if I could bring them at 7 a.m., which they said I could. I'm never quite sure where their house is, and I didn't have the address with me, so hoped I could find it. When I did find what I thought was their house, everything was very dark. I called them on both their cell phone and home phone and got message machines on both.
Great. I wasn't even sure it was the right house.
There was lots of construction going on in front and the back fence was down (how would they keep the dogs in, I wondered) so I tiptoed in to see if, indeed, this was the right house. The tiny play yard I was so impressed with before, was no more, but I did recognize the tree stumps and knew, at least, that I had the right house.
I rang the doorbell and hoped for the best. There was no answer. Swell. What was I going to do now? We had to leave for the airport in an hour and what was I going to do with the dogs?
I rang the doorbell again and there was movement at the window and I saw Kathy looking out. They had forgotten to set their clocks forward. At least I had the right house and had managed to raise someone. I didn't want to think about the now nonexistent back yard. I just dropped the dogs off, asked if they would also groom Lizzie while she was there, and went back to the car.
Our flight to Burbank was uneventful, save for th fact that Walt measured the seat I was sitting in comfortably and it seems to be the same size as the Express Jet seat, so next time we will probably try flying Express Jet and hpe for the best--that way we can fly directly into Santa Barbara.
We drove the 2 hours up from Burbank and got here just as the first guests were arriving.
As I said at the outset, why has nobody thought of giving a guy shower before? We still played the silly games, but the guys added a new twist--and watching blindfolded men doing a baby food taste test was worth the price of admission.
The gifts, too, were perfect. Tom opened them, since this was his shower. A real winner was "Fatherhood for Dummies," where one of his friends had taken a phone book, hollowed it out to hold a bottle of booze, and then photoshopped a cover from some other "for Dummies" book. You had to look closely at the cover to realize that it wasn't really a real "for Dummies" book after all.
I had bought the baby, among other things, a set of golf shoe booties, which went with the set of toy golf clubs that someone gave him, so that was a nice bit of serendipity.
It was nice for Laurel because she got to sit back and watch Daddy Tom be the center of attention for a change!
Things broke up with one guy overheard someone talking about cultures that eat the placenta and he decided that this was getting entirely too graphic for him! (OK...so maybe the guys aren't ready for the entire baby shower experience!)
We'll be here in Santa Barbara for one more day and then fly home on Tuesday. I don't know when we'll be back, but it depends on when the grandchild decides to appear. The due date was originally April 2, but they don't think she's going to wait that long...so, who knows.
Tomorrow we are going to go see the progress made on Tom & Laurel's house. The remodel is not as far along as they had hoped, but the rugs get put down tomorrow and I'm sure that will help considerably!
I didn't bring my card reader, so can't transfer photos from my camera to journal, so that will have to wait until I get home (I took the picture of Laurel with my cell phone). I also forgot to charge the battery for my camera before I left home, so I'm not sure how long it's going to last. One of those "plan ahead" things I almost always do and just plum forgot this time!
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