& we’ve got a shower

A baby shower, that is.

It’s spring break here in Okie-land, so we’re heading back up to Kansas for the latter half of the week. We’ve got a few items on our agenda (aside from general hanging out with family and friends):

1. Karli and my mom made a date to see The Hunger Games back last year before we moved after they’d read the books and they learned about the movie coming out. They’ve already bought tickets for Saturday night.
2. Karli and I also have tickets to a show at Topeka Civic Theatre for Thursday night. The show? Avenue Q. Jealous much? Don’t hate.
3. Karli’s got a baby shower to get to Saturday afternoon.

That means on Saturday, Karli will be spending a few hours with friends and family, putting diapers on goats, dancing to raging drumbeats around a fire, and sacrificing a fatted calf.

Okay, so I don’t know what goes on at baby showers. The only experience I have with them is that scene from The Simpsons when Homer realizes Marge is pregnant at a baby shower and runs screaming up the stairs. But I’ve got my suspicions.

I’m guessing baby showers have their roots in ancient tribal cultures as a way to mark the entrance of a woman into the cult of motherhood, and it’s marked by rituals with deep and symbolic meanings.

I only say this because it makes more sense to me than melting perfectly good candy bars in diapers, which is the other thing I’ve heard about baby showers. I’m going to go with the calf sacrifice until I hear otherwise.

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Give-a Give-a Giveaway!

Speaking of baby showers and sleeping, I’ve got something to give out to one lucky reader. (UPDATE: This is over. Don’t enter. I won’t give you anything. Serious.)

One of Karli’s friends couldn’t make it to the shower this Saturday, so she ordered us a gift and sent it down here. Earlier this week, Karli came back from the campus post office with two boxes. In the first box was a Sleep Sheep. We’d heard great things about people whose kids love those things, so we were pretty jazzed that Squatch will get to sleep with a farm animal.

The second box contained…a Sleep Sheep.

Turns out Amazon sent two by mistake, because Karli’s friend only got charged for one. So, since we can’t really return it, I thought I’d give it out to someone on my blog. Fun, right?

So here’s your shot if you want a Sleep Sheep of your (baby’s) very own. The Waiting can vouch for them. And I would put it at only vaguely creepy, which is the top rank of my baby toy-o-meter*.

*The other end if the spectrum, if you’re wondering, is a Chuckie doll. Not from Child’s Play—from Rugrats. You seen those things? The stuff nightmares are made of.

All you gotta do is leave a comment saying you want it by the time we get back to Oklahoma from Kansas. We’ll say 7 p.m. Central time next Sunday, March 25. Then I’ll pick one at random and send it off. Cool?

I was going to come up with a better way to give this away, but I need to get the house cleaned.