Saturday morning, 10.00 am, Redwood City, CA. I pulled up outside the
Babies "R" Us just after it opened. Today I am being introduced to a special piece of American culture:
the baby shower.
The event is this afternoon in San Jose, but like all such parties it requires bringing at least one gift. Colleagues suggested the gift should cost between $30 and $40. Since the mom-to-be's birthday was just a day before the baby party, I decided that a bigger gift was in order.
It was a good thing that I arrived early. The Babies "R" Us is cavernous! Luckily there was technology to help me out. A computer placed right after the store entrance let me print my friend's five page "baby registry." (They seem to have gift registries for everything in this country, and this time I was really happy they did!)
Next up was trying to find some items on the list in the store. A scavenger hunt! An entire wall full of diaper bags had me perplexed. They all seemed to be olive green in color and all of the Eddie Bauer brand. So I ambushed an employee busy stocking some other baby items and she helped me out. I found the bag, I found a mirror for in the car and a set of "receiving blankets," another new term for me.
The gifts were a hit. But even after four years here I haven't learned that one is also expected to put a card on the gifts, even if you give it in person--no surprise Hallmark is so big. So I wrote on the wrapping paper that the gifts came from me and slipped my friend the gift receipt (which otherwise could be placed with the card in the envelope--there's a purpose!).
I had heard of silly baby shower games like measuring the belly with toilet paper and tasting baby food. Sounded like fun, somewhat. But we didn't play any of those. Instead, we played a game of the price is right with baby items and charades with baby-related term.
Another game was a quiz with questions on American nursery rhymes. No surprise that I didn't know any of the answers. We also had a raffle, I won some cookies from Hawaii. Those will be shared at work this week :-)
It was a fun look into U.S. culture. I can learn to like these baby showers. Pizza and tortilla chips + dip were served as well as a giant cake with a thick layer of icing. (My teeth and I prefer Princess Cake with delicate marzipan as a topping.)
I ended the day playing Xbox 360 with some of the kids. They had a lot of fun beating me at all of the games, though I did beat a 6-year-old on a racing game.
Labels: friends, oddities, ramblings
