My Baby Shower!

So yesterday we had my baby shower and it was terrific! We had it at our house, so I spent all day Friday and Saturday AM cleaning like a mad woman. I think it might have actually qualified as "nesting" in some regards (like refolding everything in the linen closets and polishing my kitchen cabinets....neither of those were probably necessary for hosting a baby shower-LOL!) Anyway, my friends Katie and Terri were the actual "hostesses" and they came through with flying colors. We had enough food for an ARMY (sandwiches, veggie trays, fruit trays, banana split salad, cream puffs, chips, custom M&Ms that were pink and white and said, "It's a Girl" and "Emily Claire" on them-so cute!- and probably some other dishes I'm forgetting). Also, the cake, which was beautiful AND amazingly delicious, came from the place where I ordered our anniversary cake-- I think his business is going to pick up A LOT after my shower b/c everyone was asking who made it!! :)

As far as gifts go, we fared very well- we are so lucky! We got two Diaper Genies (we are returning one and buying her swing instead), two bouncers (we're keeping both- one for the bottom two floors of our house and one for the upstairs), lots of diapers and wipes, a tummy time mat, some mirror-plaything that can be strapped to a car seat or crib and plays songs, the travel system (stroller and car seat), a little dishes set with a baby plate, cup, and bowl with little baby animals on it, a ton of little girl clothes, bibs, burp cloths, socks, booties (WVU booties-- woo hoo!), gift cards, AND we had the Great Unveiling of the cradle Paul's dad made for her- which is incredible!! I had no idea he was so talented (apparently, neither did he- he had never built any furniture for anyone--only the step stools he made for all the women in the family!) but the cradle is amazing. We already put it in our room and set up the bedding for it (which he also picked out). Also, my friend Katie made the most adorable blanket EVER for Emily- Paul and I agreed that it was our favorite gift (well, with the cradle).

We played a funny game at the shower too- kind of a spin off of "The Newlywed Game" but I thought I'd share it with you. Paul and I filled out questions about each other, the baby, parenting styles, etc. and then the hosts read the questions aloud during the shower. The guests wrote down what they thought our responses were. The questions we used ranged from simple things like "What is the baby's name?" and "When is Allison due?" to harder ones like "Emily just left for her first date. What do Paul and Allison do?" and "How old will Emily be when she's old enough to wear makeup?" to sentimental ones like, "Why does Allison think Paul will be a good dad, and why does Paul think Allison will be a good mom?" Paul and I filled the questions out separately and gave them to my friend, so I hadn't heard the answers until yesterday. Some of them were hysterical! I've copied and pasted a little snippet so you can see what I mean (this is from my friend's answer sheet which had our responses):

Who will be the "strict" parent?

Allison: Probably me. I think Paul’s going to turn to mush when he sees her. She’ll totally be able to work him!
Paul: Allison. <--- EVERYONE at the shower picked ME to be the strict parent!! How old will she be when she is allowed to wear makeup? Allison:Probably about 13-14/junior high time. But not too much! Paul: When she’s 12, or whenever they transition to middle school b/c the other girls will be wearing it. Princesses need makeup. <---hahhahaha...oh, Paul. Too funny. Why does Allison think Paul will be a good dad? Why does Paul think Allison will be a good mom? Allison: I think Paul will be an incredible daddy because he’s such a great husband. I know he will be an active part of Emmy’s life and will take an equal role in parenting her as well. He will be eager to watch her grow up but hopefully she won’t grow too quickly! He will be so sweet and loving to her. Paul: I think Allison will be a good mom because she doesn’t like to work and will probably talk me into letting her stay home. She did a great job with her kids at school and babysitting so I think she’ll do fun things with Emily. I don’t think that she’ll be a really great mom because I think she’ll give in to Emily too much. (can you believe the first part? I get such a bad rap, ya know?!) LOL. After everyone left yesterday I mentioned to Paul that I'd been having frequent contractions all day. We pretty much just chalked it up to overdoing it (I did work very hard to get things ready and to clean the house) but last night as we were lying in bed I kept getting them- first, about every 20 minutes, but then we had an hour of every 10 minutes. The were not extremely painful but more uncomfortable than usual and were waking me up. He is on call today and I did NOT want to go to the hospital last night and be there all night long, only for him to have to work for 30 hours straight today/tomorrow, so I wouldn't let us go. We paged the on-call doc in OB and it turned out to be a close friend who said if they got any more frequent than every 10 minutes I was to come in immediately. Thankfully, after about 2.5 hours of watching the clock and waiting them out, we both fell asleep and I suppose they ended b/c the next time I woke up it was to the alarm at 6am. I was so relieved but have been given strict orders from Paul today to not do ANYTHING....we got really scared last night. It's like, every week I get a little more secure, because her survival chances go up (our hospital's NICU has a 99% survival rate at 29 weeks) but at the same time, she is NOT ready to come out yet. We both were very nervous last night- he was pushing to go to the hospital but I'm glad I didn't. I am going to take it easy today and relax- in addition to all the physical work I did to prep for the shower it has also been a stressful week-- so I'm hoping that is why they started. Stay cooking, Miss Emily!!