2.) Keep your child involved throughout the pregnancy: Ask your child or children to suggest names for the new arrival.

3.) Remind your child of the “big brother/big sister” role: Let your child or children know of the fun and responsibility of being the older sibling.

4.) Decorate his/her room: The new arrival gets new digs, so make your older child or children feel like they are getting something fresh as well.

5.) Buy him a toy: Hey, if all else fails, bribery usually works!

Stock the new baby’s room at FavorFavorBaby.com! We have a fantastic selection of diaper cakes and other newborn essentials at competitive prices.

You might be having a BOY if…

• You look like you swallowed a basketball (a rounder shape in your belly supposedly indicates a boy is inside)…
• You didn’t have to endure morning sickness (a nice perk!)…
• The father to be is gaining weight as well (maybe he’s just ditched his diet in solidarity!)…
• If your age at the time of conception plus the month in which you conceived equals an even number (OK, that one doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it sounds pretty cool!)

You might be having a GIRL if…

• You look like you swallowed a watermelon – sideways! A wider shape in your belly supposedly indicates a girl is inside…
• You DID have to endure morning sickness (don’t hold it against her!)…
• Your mood swings during pregnancy are particularly extreme (of course – who ISN’T moody during pregnancy?)…
• If your age at the time of conception plus the month in which you conceived equals an odd number (doesn’t make any more sense than the equation that is supposed to predict a boy!)

Whether you’re relying on an ultrasound or time-honored old wives tales to learn the sex of your baby, your first stop in planning your baby shower should be FavorFavorBaby! We offer the best party favors at the best prices – start shopping today!

• Comfy?
  Everyone suddenly wants to accommodate you. People understand the grind of pregnancy and will go out of their way to help you. Doors will seem to open by themselves, parking spots close to the entrance will magically appear, and seats on a subway or bus will automatically be vacated just as you approach!

• Indulge!
  You can give in to all your cravings and strange desires. An expanding belly means new clothes, so no one can begrudge you a shopping spree, right? Plus, you’ll need plenty of alone time, so sleeping in the middle of the day when your family is out and watching TV at night when they’re all asleep is perfectly acceptable. You want it? You can have it!

• Feeling forgetful?
  Nobody will care! You’ve got a lot on your mind and your body is working overtime. Those around you will understand if you miss a meeting, or forget that gallon of milk at the store. (Don’t forget to wish the moms in your life a Happy Mother’s Day, though!)

• Overtime? No way!
  No need to worry about having to work late. You might not even have to worry about working the usual 40-hour work week! Your boss has no choice but to understand when you want to go home at 5, or if you can’t come in at all. It’s no fun not feeling well, but you can watch daytime game shows and soap operas for the first time since snow days in high school!

And if you’re stuck at home, what better place to visit than FavorFavorBaby.com? Browse for a while and begin picking out the party favors you want for your baby shower. Our prices and selection can’t be beat!

• Weight Watchers can wait!
  You’re eating for two (or maybe three). Nobody’s going to argue if you grab a second dessert, or a third and a fourth.

• Big is beautiful!
  Even if you don’t attack the buffet, you’re still going to gain weight. But never again in your life will it feel so good to hear people tell you how big you have become.

• Bad clothes day?
  No need to worry over how fashionable you look. You’re expanding and it’s difficult to get comfortable. Wear what you want when you want.

• No chores are good chores!
  You’ve got to be careful during the pregnancy, so the fun of changing the cat litter or scrubbing the floors clean gets to be experienced by somebody else.

You’ll have plenty of spare time as others pamper you, so that leaves you better able to concentrate on planning your baby shower. Check out our favor store for the best and most affordable favors for an unforgettable shower!

In truth, though, Elaine and I didn’t really argue.  I just bit my tongue on most things.  After all, how could I fight with my best friend’s mother (especially since she was funding the whole thing!)?  One of our greatest sticking points was the time for our event.  I was insistent that it should be in the early afternoon/evening.  She refused.  She said that baby showers are terrible at night.  Now, I don’t remember saying at night.  I do, however, remember suggesting something that starts in the early afternoon and runs on to like 6 or 7pm.  Instead, Elaine decided she was going to do it on a Saturday morning.  When I told her that most of Rebecca’s friends worked or had things to do on Saturday mornings, she was still adamant and refused to change her mind.  There was nothing I could do.

“Saturday, August 22 at 10 A.M.” is what the invitation read.  The party was at Elaine’s choice of restaurant, overlooking the water, on a secluded part of the deck, just like she wanted.  I have to admit that the view was breathtaking.  It was incredibly beautiful for about an hour – until the clouds began to close in and it started getting dark.  By 11am, most of the guests had arrived, but had already started panicking, too.  They were all being rained on!  It started just pouring down in sheets.  Everyone had to grab their belongings and the gifts and hastily tote it all inside the restaurant.  As far as I was concerned, I didn’t really mind getting wet.  But it was hysterical to see how the people were reacting to being rained on.  Rebecca even thought it was funny.  She turned to me and said “Whose idea was it to have this party here and why so early?”  All I said was that it wasn’t me, because by this time a very wet Elaine had already apologized to me for not going with more of my ideas. Needless to say, just when the party was starting to wind down, around 2pm, the sun started shining again.

Amidst my selfish gloating, I started to think how much better it would have been if we could have just worked together. Party planning doesn’t have to be a battle of wills, but unfortunately, some people live for drama. If you find yourself getting stressed out trying to plan the “perfect” baby shower, remember to relax and enjoy the party planning process. If you have to work together with others to make it happen, then listen to what the members of your team have to say, offer only constructive criticism, and don’t be afraid to speak up if you have good ideas. Welcoming a new baby can be stressful, but planning a baby shower shouldn’t be all that bad!

She’d burst into tears saying that she would be the “butt of everyone’s jokes” and that everyone would gossip behind her back.  Her parenting skills were going to be challenged and her reputation would be tainted because of her child’s actions. She was so embarrassed.  During a difficult time for Hailey, I seemed to be the only one trying to help her set her priorities straight. I offered advice on what she should do about school and living expenses during and after the pregnancy.  After all, Hailey was still a child herself in many ways, and needed some type of adult to step in to give her direction.  Given her mother’s self-absorbed reaction, Hailey was definitely appreciative of my help.

Finally, in Hailey’s sixth month of pregnancy, my husband’s family had some time to come to terms with the situation and Teresa decided to give her daughter a baby shower.  The funny thing was, though, Teresa was convinced that the baby was a girl.  Hailey had decided to keep the baby’s gender a secret, so no one really knew for sure except the doctors.  Teresa just wanted the baby to be a girl. So on the invitations she wrote that it was “expected to be a girl.”  The guests, not knowing the circumstances, took her word for it, so almost all of the merchandise and gifts at the shower were pink.  Even the decorations and the favors were pink – including the cake! Teresa gave this elaborate, overdone party, with all sorts of goodies and even an ice sculpture, and everyone had a great time.  I mean – an ice sculpture?  Really!

Ironically enough, just two months later, Hailey gave birth at 6:30pm on a Thursday night to a healthy and beautiful baby BOY!  I could not contain my laughter.  It was the funniest thing I had ever been party to.  Even after being told that the sex was not confirmed, Teresa, being such a determined know-it-all, could not be told different.  Well, needless to say, I think I saw Teresa in the waiting room that night turning the same shades of embarrassed, flustered and angry that she had turned when she first found out Hailey was going to be the ruin of her good name.  I thought to myself, now she could really use one of those pink pacifiers from the party!

After the birth, many of the guests who had attended the shower came to visit Hailey in the hospital. Invariably, they all asked her the same question: why did Teresa tell everyone it was going to be a girl?  Every time this happened in front of Teresa, she would start changing color right before my eyes again – she went from a melodramatic auburn to a bright pink.  Now the gossips had even more to talk about!  They all wondered how anyone could overlook the minor detail of a baby’s gender.  It remains an inside joke among family and friends that Teresa just can’t seem to shake.

One of the guests brought her two year old son, Tyler, with her. He was the only little boy in this room full of women gabbing on endlessly. He was adorable! Everyone was looking at Tyler for entertainment as he was walking around and exploring the party room. We were all laughing and talking, playing the games that were provided to us. One of the games provided for after lunch was the famous “Baby Shower Bingo.” For those of you who are not familiar, you get a blank bingo board page, then your job is to guess what the expectant mother is to receive as gifts and put them in the boxes in whatever order you desire. As I was filling this out, I wondered to myself, “What won’t she receive?” There are so many gifts in there she will probably even get hair spray.

After everyone ate, Leslie’s mom announced that we would watch the mother-to-be open the presents and we would now play Baby Shower Bingo. We each had these items that looked like coins with the expectant mother’s picture on one side and the expectant father on the other side. They were the markers we were supposed to use to indicate each of our items as they were called. As we played bingo, we noticed that Tyler had disappeared. His mother, Andrea, was asking everyone if they had seen him. No one was sure if he was being mischievous and simply hiding underneath a table or sleeping in an isolated area. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look for Tyler. Finally, after the wave of initial panic and excitement had passed, someone realized that Tyler was on the other side of the mountain of gifts and he had opened many of the gifts on his own. He must have thought it was Christmas in July! While other guests said they should give him his own bingo card, I thought, “What a relief. He helped her open about a quarter of the gifts she had received. So now she doesn’t have to take her sweet time opening them all and showing them around the room to all of her guests!”

Everyone laughed once Tyler was found, and we all had a great time for the remainder of the shower. As you might expect, in addition to the unexpected entertainment, we were given a gift of our own as we said our goodbyes – personalized glass mugs provided by Favor Favor Baby (with me as the go-between!) that said, “LESLIE’S BABY SHOWER.”  This was a very memorable shower not just because of the favors we took home with us, but also because of Tyler stealing the show with his antics. After all, children are the reason we celebrate these showers, so now Leslie knew what to expect!

As always, and however unwittingly, the battle of the sexes raged. The women strove to say something nice and meaningful.  The men, of course, started having daydreams of where babies come from, and that was the beginning of the end of their brains concentrating on mushy poetry. Right before the presents were opened was zero hour. Everyone was required to read their poems out loud.  I’ll bypass all the sweet sentimentalism the women had to offer and get right to the juicy gossip the guys dished out.  One experience shared was that the expectant couple had had a pregnancy scare in their early twenties.  Only a few people knew that but now, thanks to Hank (a.k.a. the mouth of the Potomac), everyone knew!  At this point, those that had been privy to this scare were reminiscing how the parents-to-be were freaking out and trying to reason with themselves about how they were going to get through it.  The actual humor in this comes from the part when they told the guests that their panic was all caused by a defective pregnancy test.  The men also made other comments such as, “enjoy yourselves now, because when the baby gets here, the party is over.”  The giggles that such comments evoked from many of the women meant that I was interpreting the innuendo infused in the word “party” correctly. The general feeling behind the guys’ comments – all that spilling the beans on the father-to-be and revealing less-than-flattering stories that had once been private – was that even though the past was a disaster, the guys were certain that he had it in him to be a good role model and perhaps even a more responsible adult.

For me, it was a very different experience for a baby shower. It was a one-of-a-kind shower because BOTH parents were enjoying the party and the many things the guests had to say.  Both men and women were laughing and reminiscing together, as a family and circle of friends united by the upcoming birth. It was hilarious to see a man’s take on pregnancy, too.  I laughed so hard I was in tears for most of the event. They made it seem like a man’s life is over as soon as the baby is born – goodbye sex life, goodbye male bonding time. The men hid their feelings of loss well, as men often do, with dirty humor and juicy gossip.  Meanwhile, all the women were overly excited and could not wait for the new baby to be born, seeming to take the intrusion upon their lives much more in stride.

I don’t know whose idea it was to separate men from baby showers in the first place, but this particular party could not have been more successful, and it was largely thanks to the guys.  A mixed shower worked for this particular crowd because the guests were all of a reasonably young age and they were pretty open to the idea.  I have been to other showers where this probably wouldn’t have worked out so well, but it was an amazing experience.  It is time to break that barrier of no men at baby showers! I think they should all be invited to spend the hours of time they would normally spend doing guy things, with throngs of baby-crazed women. After all, don’t they deserve to have a little fun, too?

We’d like to think it was our personalized baby shower mugs that are the best, but a certain surprised baby stole the show!