The View From "Shower Dad's" Seat

Alright...it's time to get this straight...guys don't do showers, they do man stuff. You know, things like bar hopping, watching sports, cussing and scratching ourselves. Whether I knew about it or not, the fact that I was the subject of a shower has caused a review of my Man Card! That's right...I might lose my Man Card over this! In my defense, it did take the collaboration of five women to pull the wool over my eyes!

Seriously though, it was a wonderful surprise! As a matter of fact, I still don't believe that they did that for me. Most of it was a lot of fun. At least everything but the little baby food game that they made me play. I challenge any of you to be able to stomach Mac & Cheese or Ham, Pineapple and Rice baby food after a few beers. It was DISGUSTING!!!!

Getting back to the surprise, I could not have been more flattered. Most of these people were those who I worked with or met through work and in this day and age, people have better things to do than to throw a party for a co-worker. The fact that all of you went out of your way to surprise me and be a part of our coming family addition humbles me. The unbelievable outpouring of support that we have seen in the past few months from all of our family and friends has been overwhelming and words cannot express just how appreciative we are.

We received more wonderful gifts and a few of them were some really funny gag gifts. We got baby's first bottle (Bud Light with a nipple and baby label), a hospital bag for a Dad-to-be, Daddy's toolbox, a diaper cake (pictured above), the wheel of responsibility (which I think is fixed because it never seems to stop on Mommy) and Daddy's tool belt. Linda, the reining queen of gag gifts, handmade a "tool belt" to help me with baby. It came complete with earplugs, tongs, goggles, rubber gloves, a teddy bear and even a clothespin for your nose!

It was a great fun day! I feel so lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life!

Special thanks to Sandy (the ringleader), Linda and Kelly for putting this together and doing a great job keeping it from me. And extra special thanks to Michelle for not only helping to put this together, but also hosting it at her home! Those Tourism Girls are the BEST!

- Andy

The excitement is growing....

So yesterday, my mom and sisters threw me a shower. It was awesome...great food, great friends (some I hadn't seen in a while!) and great presents. Everyone was very generous and we loved everything.

So when I got home, I of course wanted to show Andy everything we had gotten! So we sit down and I start going through everything. Kelley gave us this cute little stuffed momma and baby lamb. So he is looking at it and he tucks it in the chair with him. So he is sitting there with this little lamb on his arm. Then I got to our first book that we have received and he takes it from me and starts reading. So here Andy is, with a little lamb on one arm, reading this book (all with a beer in his hand, of course!)! He looked so darn cute I just had to take a picture of him! The funny thing is he didn't even realize he still had the lamb on his lap!! I also think this is the first book I've ever seen him read and actually finish!!!

So he continued through the night, hanging out with this lamb! He was so funny!! OK, so now he will probably kill me for telling that story, but I thought it was too cute not to share. You could tell he was really excited about the things we got and about the pending arrival of LBMF!

Baby Shower Grunt

Last weekend, I got to do something that I do very well...carry heavy stuff around. Now I'm used to doing that around the house or at work (I work in an office of me and 4 women), but this atmosphere was truly foreign. Needless to say...I was scared!

You see it's pretty simple really. It's the law of nature. It states that women don't go to stags (alright...some women do go to stags I know, but I choose to keep this G rated) and men don't go to showers. Any violation of that rule is sure to disrupt the space-time continuum with catastrophic effects similar to what could happen if you cross streams (a couple fantastic sci-fi movie references there). Even my brother-in-law Nate, who is rumored to have survived one of these shower things just kind of chuckled at the prospect of me going to this thing.

Now we get there and I am helping my mother unload and set up and we're bringing all sorts of things into the hall from her car. In the trunk of her car, she had a roll of raffle tickets, so I bring them in and ask where she wants them. She reminds me that this is not a stag and the tickets aren't for the shower. I, on the other hand, see nothing wrong with starting a 50/50 at anytime.

The two pictures above show me working hard to maneuver one of our heavier gifts and Courtney posing with the newest addition to our nursery decor!

I joke, but it was a fun day! I did survive and it was great to see everyone.

We really appreciate everyone's generosity and are especially grateful for the efforts of Liz and Mom for putting the shower together. For me, it was also a great opportunity to hang in the back and talk politics with Dad over a couple of beers...which is something that we don't get the chance to do enough of!

It should be noted though that any chance of us moving back to CT might have been diminished by this trip. It was cold and snowy! Then we return to MD and we've been in the upper 60's everyday! Spring is in the air!!!

With that, I've changed up the color-scheme on the blog...it's good to have a fresh look from time to time.

-Andy