Promised to blog about the baby shower thrown for us a few weeks ago. Reasons for doing so include 1) perhaps, helping you out with a few ideas on how to mount a simple but meaningful baby shower, and 2) sharing how and why this particular shower turned out to be so wonderful, meaningful.
From my mentor and host of the party, Jenn Punzalan, “Everything will change…but we will never change!” Everyone just started cracking up when she said that. Thank God for wise AND crazy friends!!! Life has to be fun for us to survive it and I just really am grateful to be surrounded by people who treasure candidness and laughter!
Set Up
I’ve often made it clear in many of my conversations with these friends that I wouldn’t like “an all blue” wardrobe or motif for Baby Philip. Thinking ahead, my hope is that I’d get things that I can still use even if we get a girl for our next. So I am really going for a more neutral look. This is perhaps why my friends decided to go with the color motif of yellow and blue.
Everyone was asked to come in either color, and décor also played around those hues. Now together with the theme of their gift for me, they also placed items that also served as subtle clues.
The centerpiece was awesome. It was made up of “educational” items, like letters, books, building blocks, in line with the main theme.
Monique from Panderas also gave us cupcakes and lollicakes that matched the motif! You can follow them on Instagram under the handle @panaderas
My friend Tish is a bag maker. She actually makes very good leather bags, and for my shower, she volunteered to make leather keychain giveaways. To make any shower meaningful, there has to a personal touch. My friend’s contribution truly made the party unique for me. Thanks Tish, and I love you! (You may follow her on Instagram via the handle: @21Tish
Games
Games are so fun! Especially when you are with people who are “game” and fun as well.
One game was a speed game- whoever drinks all of the milk in the bottle first, WINS! Hahaha. Thank God the boys were game to do it for us. Another fun game was a sort of halo-halo trivia arranged by my friend Iya Castillo. She had “the price is right” thrown in with “guess who” from a baby picture of some famous actor, and a personal touch of “What 3 words did Joe describe Rica while she is pregnant?” Care to take a guess? If it means anything, I only guessed one correctly! Hahaha.
Want to thank Smart Steps for partnering with us on this shower. They were kind enough to bring boxes of gifts and prizes for the games and giveaways! You may check out their items at https://www.facebook.com/MommySmartSteps or http://www.mommysmartsteps.com/
Thank you Smart Steps!
Gift giving
I actually wanted to cancel this shower. Not because I didn’t want or need it, but I thought I’d cancel all my showers this season and encourage my friends to donate the money to Yolanda instead. Some hosts agreed but this set of friends insisted we push thru because anyway, they weren’t giving me expensive items but something thoughtful instead. Indeed, it was the most thoughtful set of gifts.
Our friends know how much Joe and I love to read. One of the things we look forward to as parents is the time when we can already read to our children, and see our children develop the same love for reading as well. So this is why I said they came up with such a thoughtful gift idea.
For suspense, my friends actually asked me to cover my eyes pa.
That night, I immediately read “Love Your Forever” by Robert Munsch, which left me super sentimental!!!
If you want a tearjerker right now, watch this, hahaha:
Mommy Time
But the shower didn’t stop at the wonderful gift giving idea but continued to a really meaningful time of just hearing the moms give their 2 cents worth on, well, what else but being a mom! We had about 7 of them in the group and all of them gave valuable and seasoned motherhood nuggets. Indeed they shared such profound insights that everyone in the room started taking notes as if we were listening to a preaching or a university lecture!
Some of us were even laughing about the fact that some of them were ACTUALLY nursing or swaddling their babies while talking to me. Oh, motherhood! How selfless and how fulfilling at the same time.
Here were their thoughts, in gists and paraphrases:
From Anna: Many things will change…but always remember that the rewards will outweigh the costs…God chose you to be Philip’s mom, so you can be sure you will have the grace and the wisdom.
From Ranya: Two things: 1) Don’t forget your husband. The baby will come and the tendency is to make him center of your attention, but don’t forget to baby your husband. 2) Play it by heart. You are told to do many things with your baby but I always say “play it by heart,” and because your heart is with God, that can never go wrong.
From Iris: 1) God is your partner, more than your husband. 2) Choose your “drug”- mine’s food, shopping and chika-chika! (Also read in a book it is important to keep “me time” or time for oneself because we cannot give what we don’t have. This kind of quality time for oneself I believe is good for myself AND more importantly, the baby! Now I wonder what my “drug” will be? Hmmm.)
From Janelle: As a mom, I just want to encourage you that your labor is not in vain.
From Kitty: Don’t get stressed, just take it a day at a time. Enjoy the blessing and the reward and remember, and I also got this from Ate Jenn, “KIDS ARE RESILIENT.”
From Esther: Enjoy every moment. Gusto mo madaliin but take as many pics as you can, as many videos as you can…nakaka-miss when you look back.
From Jenn: After Philip, get pregnant again and again and again because babies are a blessing!!! And with anything, pray that God will “multiply the loaves and 2 fish” in your hand. Meaning, that God will multiply whatever you can do for your children.
Prayer
And like what I once said, ever since I became a Christian, one of the best blessings I have received is to be showered not only with gifts and advice, but also the powerful praying and confessing of God’s Word over my life.
“Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 8:17) “For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them.” (Matthew 18:20)
When I thanked my friends that day, I was trying to hold back my tears explaining that more than anything else, nothing comforts my soul as do God’s Word especially at a time when it seems one couldn’t ask and know enough, at a time when I’ve never felt “so lost” in my life. Motherhood, as I’ve experienced in part through pregnancy and known in part through my friends, is such a ride. Imagine how it makes one excited, fearful, in love, in doubt, all at once. And I know I can only face my toughest moments within it only by the grace of God, which is partly released in the wonderful relationships I enjoy with these women. Indeed, I am blessed. And I pray that all expecting parents will be just as blessed, too!
Have a Wonderful Wednesday!