Yesterday, Sunday, I attended a baby shower for a long time friend, from high school.  She was one of the first people that I met when I moved to Orange County.  We were tight in Jr. High, but moved onto different groups of friends throughout high school. After graduating high school, we lost touch. We were reunited ironically when Angry Kid had one of his febrile seizures as a baby. My friend is a nurse at a local hospital.

I was excited when I found out that my friend was pregnant.  She recently got married, approximately one year ago, and now she was expecting a baby girl. When I saw the baby shower invite, I instantly knew that I had to get my friend some special things.  I actually got this text message from her last week, “Is it bad that nothing on my baby registry excites me?” I replied, “No.”

I sent some e-mails, checked my stock of stand-bys, and also hit Target.  I gave my friend some things that I knew she would appreciate, and wouldn’t be like the other blankets, towels, and onesies that I knew that she would receive.

Fiona the Fawn Wood Teether from Little Alouette was/is precious. Fiona is handmade with locally sourced hardwoods, and if not left unfinished, is finished only with certified organic flax seed oil. After teething is over, Fiona can be used as a pretend play toy.

Fiona was a hit.  When my friend opened the gift, I said, “let me explain this little deer to you.” There were lots of questions about little Fiona and she was passed around. Isn’t she beautiful?

Wet Bag from Snuggles of Love is a great for the diaper bag, and also very cute and trendy. When my son was a baby, I kept freezer bags in my diaper bag for those “accidents” that he had, daily.  My son had reflux and he was constantly spitting up and making a mess on his clothes.  He also had many diaper accidents.  I loved this bag because it’s re-usable.  There are so many cute patterns to chose from also.

Waterproof Crib Mattress Pad from Carter’s was a staple in our house.  We had about three of them, but those lap pads.  When Angry Kid was a wee tiny infant, we laid those lap pads across the crib where we put him down.  As he got older, and moved more, we went through these crib mattress pads as much as we did with crib sheets.  One little tiny diaper leak can make a huge mess, and these wash up so easy.

SwaddleMe Adjustable Cotton Wrap was a suggestion from a co-worker. Angry Husband and I could never perfect the baby-burrito was Angry Kid was a baby. He has had the one arm that would slip out and ruin our perfect swaddle. My co-worker swears by this as she is an avid swaddler. I’ve seen in with her kids, it works! I wish I would have known about this in 2005, when Angry Kid was in baby stages.

Angry Husband and I both loved these Gerber gowns when Angry Kid was first born.  He practically lived in them at home.  It was so easy to do diaper changes in the middle of the night.  We didn’t have to undo a million snaps or put anything over Angry Baby’s head.  We just pushed up the gown and changed his diaper.  We were both sad when he outgrew the gown-stage.

I threw in some other odds and ends into her gift. But she adored everything.  I noticed some of her other gifts were things that I told her to register for.  I only have one child but I learned fairly quickly what works and what doesn’t.  My poor friend though, I think she got five versions of the same flowered blanket.  I told her to organize everything, and then do a huge return.

That is what I did after all my showers were done.  I did a return of the duplicates and got a gift card.  I then itemized everything that I was missing/needed and went back to make the purchases.  The nursery was fully stocked and ready when Angry Baby arrived, which was four weeks early, by the way.

There were some other things that I wanted to get my friend, but I’m a complete procrastinator and everything was online.  I did not have time to order it and get it all shipped in time. Maybe I will save those ideas for her “welcome home” or “hospital gifts”.