I've been got! (35 weeks, 1 day)

I work with a lovely group of ladies who have come to be good friends, as well as colleagues. I often fear that we five (plus some consultants who also use our office) will drive any man away as we are an all female operation and in addition to expertly running an excellent community development initiative we are good for cackling and gossiping. Recently, these ladies had been asking for me to help plan a shower for me. As I am not accustomed to people throwing showers on my behalf (or the behalf of my unborn child), I felt a little awkward responding to their questions about when and who. But, I responded and the shower was going to be be February 24.

Well, aren't they a clever bunch! Asking me questions about my future shower was actually a ruse for my actual surprise shower last Thursday. I apparently was not making things easy for them given my schedule (or lack of a predictable schedule). So, they actually concocted a meeting for me to attend at the school, LaChandra made sure I got there and back, and they effectively conspired with the principal to cancel a telephone conference call with a contractor so that I would get back to the office where I was supposed to meet with my boss on a very real and very important project. (For a moment, I wondered if they had made this project up, too, but no such doing.) As we pulled up into the drive of the office, I blindly asked "What's going on? Is there a party?" because there was a large number of cars outside of the office. Haha. There was an actual party. As we came up the stairs to the office, a whole bunch of women folk (and Aaron) yelled "Surprise!" and applauded themselves at making me blush and surprising me.

Cake was eaten, gifts were opened, advice given, and gross misestimates of my belly size were hazarded. (I guess every shower needs this game. I told the players that kindness would be a better reward than a prize and truthfulness. This didn't land with everyone as Clara guessed twice my actual girth.) It was a wonderful surprise and I feel great to say that me and the Sprout have been feted. I am especially appreciative as most of my loved ones (that's you, audience) are at some distance and I know wouldn't be able to come to a shower, so I wasn't sure if there would be a chance like this. As I told them afterwards, though, these ladies really have become my local friends and family.

Did I know? Well, obviously I knew a shower was coming up and someone had told Stephanie that there was going to be a shower and she couldn't resist telling me that. (People, as a note, 11 year olds are not good secret keepers!) I had also been getting questions about my registries and my website from folks, but that all could have been linked to the planned shower for the 24th. And, I did have some questions about the meeting we were attending as I never got an invitation to the meeting, just an invitation that had been extended through an email to LaChandra. I just assumed it was a communication glitch. The only thing that might have thrown it off is that I did talk to the woman at the Publix deli counter who wanted to know why Sandra was 2 hours late in picking up some platters. I couldn't figure out what the platters might be for as we didn't have any big meetings scheduled for the day, but I figured they might be for a community meeting that evening or some meeting I just didn't know about.

As a sidenote, I laughed and gave Sandra a hard time. Sandra was the lucky one who really got put in the role of party planner and coordinator. When I first met Sandra, I know she thought I was crazy. When we wrapped Christmas gifts for the family we adopt each year, she thought I might be insane wrapping each thing individually and using bows and ribbons. She looked at me like I just landed from another planet anytime I put together gift bags and put curling ribbon on them and then curled the ribbon. Well, she just outdid herself getting the favors (with ribbons!) and streamers and balloons and baby shower decorations up. She FORCED Linda into wrapping the large box with the new pack and play AND put a bow on it. I am touched by that as I am by anything else.

I got some great gifts for the Sprout and will try and get some photos to post later. (And, as a note, Stephanie did attend and she made the judgement that the shower had everything that she would have planned for a shower.) Thanks to everyone that came and thanks especially to Sandra, Linda, LaChandra and Clara.