My first baby shower

Have you ever gone to a baby shower and pretty much done everything wrong? No, well let me tell you how to do that.  One of the students in my English class is having a baby and my fellow volunteer Cindy and I were invited to partake in the celebration and to bring some snacks to share.  We fretted over what would be a good gift.  Baby #4 – surely clothes were not a good option.  We settled on a mobile for the crib and a tasty treat akin to cinnamon bread.

View from this week (not baby related unless you count that this plant makes alcohol).

Another student was supposed to pick us up at our office before 6:00 PM, but at 6:10 we decided to take ourselves.  Luckily I had pressed for the hostess’s address ahead of time and we arrived to find a nice group gathered in celebration.  We both got pinned with a cute little pink sweater and started successfully chatting in Spanish and eating tostadas with some kind of creamy sauce on top, super spicy boiled potatoes on toothpicks and some kind of chip-like snack vaguely reminiscent of Funyuns.

We played bingo using beans as markers and Cindy and I were stoked to learn so many new baby-related words!  During the first game the hostess started pointing at me and telling me something that I did not understand.  Another woman came over and tapped my crossed leg, so I put it down, and then realized they were saying it was bad that my legs were crossed. I immediately started worrying about what kind of social faux pas I had just committed – was it bad luck for the baby? Did it signify I was going to get pregnant? Why was everyone looking at me?!  I felt so bad.

Bingo card, minus our bean markers (photo by Cindy).

How I felt for crossing my legs.

About 10 minutes later someone came over to the 16-year old boy seated next to me (cause that’s always common to find at a baby shower) and took his pin because he had crossed his legs.  I thought, ok, if you have a pin you are entered to win a prize and if you cross your legs you have to take off your pin, so I took mine off (cause really I had already been busted).  When the next person took a pin from someone else with crossed legs it became clear this was a game where the person who took the most pins from others would win a prize. I started to breathe easy again as I was pretty sure I hadn’t cursed any babies with my leg-crossing.

After several rounds of Bingo we moved on to some kind of re-enactment game where 3 people – including Cindy – had to act out a scenario of a spoiled kid behaving badly.  Cindy was great and jumped right in with a strong performance.  For the next game, the 16-year old boy kept trying to get me to participate but I’m more introverted than people might think. I eventually got pulled onto the floor but when it became clear it was some kind of singing game I begged for mercy and they let me sit back down.  The only people who need to be tortured with my singing are my beloved sisters and that’s because they torture me with theirs (a talented group of singers our family is not and I was still suffering a bit from my leg-crossing shame).

Luz, Yeya and Sonia playing a game - which I got out of (photo by Cindy).

Ana - mom of the hour (photo by Cindy)!

It was finally time for the mom to open her presents and she grabbed our gift first!  She opened it and everyone started asking who it was from.  Cindy and I were like “ooh, ooh!!! That’s from us!”  The mom looked at us a little weird and said thank you.  When she opened the second present everyone asked who it was from and then she guessed.  She guessed wrong and the person who actually bought the gift came up and drew on her face with lipstick.  So…..yeah, we clearly did not understand that game when it started.  If she guessed wrong, people drew on her face with lipstick; if she guessed right, she drew on the gift-givers face. Last but not least, we ate cake which was very tasty, and drank flavored water and coke, but never saw our sweet bread make an appearance. By the way, we were the only people who did not buy baby clothes as a gift so it was pretty clear that these Americans are super weird.  

It was really nice to be invited to this baby shower and I appreciate all that I learned but I was exhausted at the end.  Should you find yourself at a baby shower in Mexico I recommend the following:  buy baby clothes, don’t say what gift you bought, maybe bring a beverage as a snack for the party, and whatever you do, do not cross your legs.  

PS. The animal(s) in my ceiling --  identified as tlacuache (a type of opossum that bring fruit from the trees in to eat above me at night) and what is essentially a termite. So......yeah. I'm all extra connected with nature these days.