Baby showers not just ladies’ affair

The host of my sister Crisanta’s baby shower didn’t know we were supposed to play games until 10 minutes before the shower.

Couldn’t blame him. How many men host baby showers?

My cousin Eric staged his first baby shower last weekend, an event he promised to never do again despite the fact that I told him he should become a professional baby shower planner. All things considered, including the fact that he planned the event in Portales from Albuquerque, I think we had a nice little shower for Crisanta, whose little bundle is due to arrive in May.

I have to admit, it was rather hard getting used to blue everything. We haven’t had a baby boy in our family since my one and only nephew, Bobby, was born in 1985. Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of pink. But Santi and her husband Gabriel are expecting a baby boy, we’re told, and so it looks like the engine and caboose of my nieces and nephews will be of the male persuasion.

Back to the shower now. I have to admit I did panic a little when I asked Eric what games he had planned and he looked at me with a blank expression. “Games?” And I was like, “You know, games? We play games at baby showers.”

And since he hadn’t a clue, I threw in, “Yeah, and we also hire male strippers.”

Yeah, right.

So anyway, in about 20 minutes, we put together three of the most common baby shower games I know. The old clothes pin game, baby word scramble and the cotton ball game.

The clothes pin game is popular at all showers, at least in our circle anyway. Shower veterans know the routine. As you walk in, the hostess hands you a clothes pin to pin on somewhere and the general rules of the game are usually that you cannot cross your legs or arms, or sometimes it’s where you cannot say the word “baby.” When you see someone breaking the rules, you take their clothes pin, and at the end of the shower, the person with the most clothes pins wins a prize. I generally lose my clothes pin early on.

Baby word scramble, of course, is simply decoding scrambled up words having to do with babies.

As for the cotton ball game, that can be really entertaining. A person is blindfolded and is given a spatula and plate to scoop up cotton balls. This is hilarious to watch because, with the cotton balls being so lightweight, it is hard for the person to know whether or not they have any cotton balls on the spatula.

Of course there’s also the popular soiled diaper game. Everyone is handed a diaper made out of tissue and the person with the soiled diaper wins a prize. You can go really far with this baby theme.

Unfortunately for us, we did not have time to make diapers for the diaper game. However, some friends and family are planning a second baby shower for Crisanta. At least that’s what I thought it was going to be until my brother-in-law, Gabriel, informed me that it’s actually going to be — get this — a “diaper party.”

This is the first time I’ve heard of a diaper party. Gabriel said a diaper party is where everyone gets together for a barbecue and the men all bring diapers. I should have asked him whether the men will wear the diapers, too, or whether they also receive training in how to change the diapers at this so-called diaper party which, in my opinion, is just an excuse for men to crash our once exclusive, women’s-only affair.

Next thing you know, the opposite sex will be trying to infiltrate our Mary Kay, Home Decor and Pampered Chef parties, too.

Helena Rodriguez is a columnist for Freedom Newspapers of New Mexico. She can be reached at:

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