Sharing the Anticipation: An Adoption Shower

Last month, I was honored to attend an adoption shower for friends adopting a daughter from China. My connection to the adopting mom is through one of my dearest friends (who hosted the event).

As I'm reasonably food-obsessed, I volunteered to bring muffins. On Craftster I had seen photos of similarly decorated international adoption cupcakes, so I couldn't resist trying my hand at making mini-flags.

If you have some Avery 5160 labels and want to print your own you can download MS word formatted sheet for 30 US flags and a MS Word formatted sheet for 30 Chinese flags. [These files are zipped, but should otherwise be standard Word format. If you're an Open Office user, email me for odt files- Google base is rejecting them at the moment.] Or you can grab the US flag and Chinese flag jpg image files and use them with the software or label of your choice.

As with traditional baby showers, our young guest of honor was not present. She was represented by a recent photograph. The hostess chose to have the shower before the toddler was in the country for a few reasons:

1. We're a sometimes overwhelmingly enthusiastic group for anyone- especially a small child new to the country.
2. There are items the family could use for the trip to China and immediately after their return to the US.
3. The adopting family applied to adopt two years ago. Our whole community is SO EXCITED for them and wanted to do something fun and encouraging to help pass the time while they're waiting for their daughter to come home.
4. The shower offered the opportunity for people who will be in different areas of this child's life to meet each other before the baby arrives.
5. It saved the adoptive mother hours on the phone explaining where they are in the adoption process to everyone who attended. She had a very receptive audience to talk about all that has happened through the adoption process.

Cool things the hostess did:

• She worked to find a non-infant, non-maternity themed shower invitation. After a lot of hunting, she found a beautiful dragonfly stationary which she customized for the event.
  
• As the mom of honor teaches Sunday School for elementary schoolers, the hostess helped arrange for the Sunday School kiddos to make their own congratulations and welcome cards.
• After the gifts were opened, they were laid out on a table so people could see the various things. This is really nice with intergenerational showers as many people like to see what current baby toys and gear look like.
• The shower didn't have games. Instead the hostess decorated with potted flowers and put a prize notification under a few of the seats. The person seated in the lucky chairs got to take flowers home.
• She set all the furniture and decorations up the night before the shower with a friend. On the day of the shower she and two friends prepared and served the food.
• She gave the mom of honor pre-addressed, pre-stamped thank you notes. (This isn't presumptuous if you know the mom is a regular thank you note writer, and it definitely helps minimize the time spent preparing the notes for mailing.)
  

Her casseroles were so good that I got all three recipes to share. They're all great to prepare the night before, refrigerate, and cook the next day. These are delicious examples of Midwestern church supper fare.

Hash Brown Casserole
2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
6 eggs, well-beaten
1 can Carnation evaporated milk
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 pkg (26 oz) frozen shredded hash browns
1 medium onion, chopped
optional -1 small green pepper, chopped - 1 c. cubed ham

Combine cheese, eggs, evaporated milk, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Add potatoes, onion, and remaining ingredients. Pour mixture into greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Breakfast Casserole
8 slices white bread torn in pieces
2 lbs. browned, crumbled sausage -or- 1.5 lbs. cubed ham
2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1 can cream of celery soup
1/2 can (soup can) milk
4 eggs, well-beaten

Grease 9 x 13 dish. Put in bread. Then add meat & cheese. Combine soup, milk, & well-beaten eggs. Pour over ingredients in dish. Refrigerate overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Apple Sausage Casserole
2 lbs sausage browned and crumbled
8 slices bread, torn in pieces
1-1/2 c. sliced apples
8 eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 c grated sharp cheddar cheese
3 c. milk

Grease 9 x 13 dish. Put in bread. Crumble sausage over bread. In large bowl, combine remaining ingredients & pour into dish. Bake at 350 degrees covered with foil for the first 30 minutes. Remove cover and bake 30 more minutes without foil.

The Awkward Hostess Strikes Again: More Frozen Food Baby Shower Ideas

If you've noticed a posting slowdown in the past week, it's not your imagination. This weekend we hosted a brunch and frozen food baby shower for some great moms with new babies due in the next few weeks.

I've written about food showers before (twice), so I won't go into repetitive detail.

Here are some new ideas for this food shower:

• Store-bought frozen foods for the dads (think college-grade frozen pizza and microwavable breakfast sandwiches).
• BRUNCH & BUFFET. With a couple good breakfast casseroles, strata, or quiches it was so much simpler logistically than the tea shower. The two casseroles I served were Gayle's amazing recipes from an adoption shower she hosted last month.
  
• Watermelon basket- completely freehanded it took maybe 5 minutes. I suspect with about 10 more minutes of preparation it could have even been symmetrical.
  
• Very few disposable goods were used. We used my plates and glasses and the tables were dressed with cloth. The only disposable items used were the napkins (which were too adorable to pass up). In the tradition of my octogenarian friends from sewing, I used decorative items which were already around my home. This can have a very understated and gracious feel.
• Pre-portioning the frozen foods: Veronica had the inspired idea to split frozen breakfast foods into individual portions before freezing so the family would be able to heat only what they need at the moment.
  

One of the best aspects of the shower was having my mom's help. She came early and washed some of my windows before the shower (see her in the picture?) in addition to helping get everything set up. During the shower, she entertained our baby guest (I don't know which of them had more fun) and she also packaged all the leftover food and did the dishes! Wow! I cannot tell you how surprised I was to walk into a clear kitchen.

One of my mom's friends hires high schoolers from her neighborhood as assistants whenever she hosts a shower. Assistance with serving allows a host more time to enjoy their guests and party. Helping a friend who is hosting a shower can be a great gift of your time.

Jim and my dad also helped a lot! Jim worked on the front porch, driveway, and yard while Dad took Ranger for pancakes at IHOP. Then Jim and Ranger headed to Kentucky for a fall party at Aunt Mo's leisure farm (complete with hayrides, boats, fishing, and chili made in a 55 gallon drum stirred with a canoe paddle).

Veronica made awesome individual cakes (chocolate and white with raspberry filling) for everyone at the party. She was also awesome and came early to help, so she made a lovely arrangement of fruit with some assorted dishes from my cabinet (I especially love the blueberries in the spiral olive plate nesting among the grapes).

Some presentation tips:

• With 8 individual cake plates, it was easy for the table to look cluttered, so we stole a technique from the pros and tiered them. I used an assortment of cans from my pantry to get a variety of heights: big pear cans for the highest tier, condensed milk half-cans for the second tier, and a water chestnut can for the lowest tier. I covered the cans with a runner.
• My cream table cloth was visually boring, so I dressed it up with an improvised runner (a floral twin bed sheet folded in half).
• If you don't love ironing tablecloths, but want a fresh look, put them in a warm dryer for a few minutes and then immediately place on the table. (I should have done this with the runner too).
• Jim recommends this excellent mnemonic for arranging a place setting (thanks, Parent Hacks!).
• Use interesting plates and have someone artistic lay out the food. My favorite plates are 1970s green and brown acquired at antique malls and thrift shops. I tend to stick to white serving dishes, so I can easily add new pieces.
• Don't be afraid to pull out the fine china- when else are you going to use it?
• Borrow big or infrequently needed items. Maggie loaned me her gorgeous punch bowl and cups. They were beautiful.
  

With all the help and generosity of spirit, the whole day left me feeling incredibly fortunate to have such great family and friends. Maybe (with their help) this hostess is getting a little less awkward.

Do you have any good baby shower/party tips or freezable recipes to share?

Snug Little Bugs: Swaddling & Sleep Sacks

When Ranger was a wee newborn we swaddled him for sleep. Initially I couldn't get the hang of it, the blankets just melted off him in the first few minutes. Jim was a natural though, so (being naturally competitive) I kept trying. I found the book Babygami extremely helpful (as well as being beautiful and funny).

Although we had a specialty swaddling blanket, I found it much easier to use a slightly stretchy cotton waffle blanket in the Babygami snug wrap. The specialty straightjacket-style swaddling blanket was hard to adjust for a newborn's small size. When Ranger was big enough to fit the custom swaddler, we were all quite comfortable with blanket swaddling.

Our hands-down favorite blanket for swaddling is the Gerber Thermal receiving blanket. We bought about a dozen of them in various colors (new expecting parents, trust us, bad things happen to blankets faster than you can launder them). They're useful long after the baby outgrows swaddling. We still have everyday uses for them with 2 year-old Ranger.

After swaddling ended (babies get too active to be contained), we moved on to ultra-cozy sleep sacks. Sleep sacks tend to be fleece and run around $20. We weren't going to buy a dozen of these because of cost, bulk, and a very limited period of use. We ended up with around six of them because generous grandparents found them extremely clever. We'd usually put these over a jammies, a onesie, or a baby gown.

Through craftster.org I recently found a good tutorial at Jan Andrea for making sleep sacks. This was really fortuitous as the end user of the girly baby booties I made was recently revealed by ultrasound to be male and I've been looking for a new gift project.

So, meet the Super Sleep Sack. It's for the offspring of an ace graphic designer/illustrator (I won't link because his sitemeter will reveal this page but you can see his blog at jacobelijahwalker.blogspot.com) and an incredibly talented portrait artist/printmaker. I had extra fabric, so I made some no-scratch mitts to spice up the newborn days.

Baby Toolkit is the independent opinion of Adrienne and Jim Jones. We have received no compensation of any kind from anyone affiliated with BabyGami, Gerber, any of the sleep sack companies, Jan Andrea, or Craftster.org. 2007, some rights reserved.

Awkward Hostess Challenge: Throwing a Frozen Food Baby Shower

A couple months ago I attended a reasonably impromptu, very wonderful, very informal frozen food baby shower for some of pregnant friends. As the entire baby group was in attendance (babies and toddlers included), we didn't bother with niceties like decorations, food for guests, games, or much else. It was a bustling, splendid time.

I realized, after writing about the shower, that my dear friend, due only 7 weeks later, had no festivities planned to celebrate the arrival of her third child. This seemed a grave omission on my part, especially as she co-hosted a shower for BabyGeek's arrival.

Thus, I became an ersatz hostess. While many of the girls I knew growing up were encouraged to participate in and understand formal hostessing, I was raised by a grown tomboy with no interest in such matters. Travel, basketball, or sailing? My mom rules. But if it requires a doily but not Elmer's school glue- forget about it.

If I can get through a formal social event without any major gaffs, I count myself lucky. Hosting one presented a challenge.

The honoree, a friend who I met in high school gym class almost two decades ago, is an exceptionally graceful, gracious, and social person. This meant the guest list would be intergenerational and full of interesting, gracious, and social people who I would hate to horrify with my own ineptitude.

So I threw a tea. Why, a tea? It's the only formal event I usually feel much at ease attending- probably because it's primarily centered around eating things that are very bad for me and talking. My friend is also a tea aficionado. Plus, I've been to loads of teas of all kinds. It seems hard to screw up: sweet and savory foods full of cholesterol, some good tea, a decent location, and presto, a party with grace and simplicity.

What do I put on the invitations?
Although a food shower is a common idea in some parts of the country, it isn't even a known quantity here. I struggled and Googled to write an invitation. The one I had attended had been organized by email, so there really wasn't any written invitation available to crib. Google only offered a few rhymes, but they weren't my style or the expectant mom's.

So, this is what I eventually wrote:
You are cordially invited to a food shower and tea in honor of [mom] and her newest daughter at [time, location, details]. Please join us for conversation and celebration. [hostess, rsvp, contact info]

And, I knew everyone receiving the invite would be confused, so I slipped in a second magic decoder explanation on the map with directions to the event:

What is a food shower?

Like a baby shower, a food shower celebrates friendship and the arrival of new life.

Unlike a traditional baby shower, the gifts are ready-to-freeze or frozen foods that the family can enjoy in those harried first weeks after the baby's arrival. It is always appreciated when givers include a copy of the recipe for the family.

It is also greatly appreciated by the family if the food is packaged in containers that need not be returned.

Please clearly label any dishes containing nuts or nut products as *** has a severe nut allergy.

Quite a few people attending the shower mentioned that they appreciated the explanation. While I was writing the invites, others said suggesting restaurant gift cards or offering to bring fresh meals after the baby's home would be appropriate in the food shower explanation, but I figured, better safe than sorry. As I understand a shower, it is a gathering to celebrate the arrival of a child, gifts (although traditional) are not requisite. So, the suggestion of bringing anything at all, much less what to bring, seemed to teeter on the cusp of graceless. As I have little judgment in such things, I decided in favor of brevity.

I printed the invites and envelopes using a spreadsheet and mail merge. When I was shopping for invites, I chose a card that could double as a thank you note card. I printed a second set of the guest envelopes with the honoree's name and return address in place of my own. It was really easy to do. Sure, not everyone invited attended, but I had plenty of stationary and some of those people not in attendance may still give a gift. The honoree mom was quite excited to receive these and sent out thank you notes lightning fast (which is impressive as the baby was born less than a week after the shower).

What to serve?
I chose 3 teas with various caffeine levels (a classic black tea- full caffeine, my favorite pomegranate white tea from Trader Joe's, and a caffeine-free fruit tea). Green tea would provide another interesting alternative, but it gets quite bitter if it steeps too long. I knew I wouldn't be able to watch it very closely, so I went with teas requiring less observation.

Amy generously loaned me her Sizzix die-cutter, and I cut out standing labels for the foods and teapots. By inserting a folded index card into the die, I was able to make a perfectly matching standee for the pretty paper cutouts used for labels. I put labels on each teapot using colored embroidery floss tied through a hole in the label. Using a lark's head knot, I could easily attach, remove, and swap teapot labels as needed. As a result, no pots or cups were refilled with the wrong tea.

I put little standees among the different foods. My parents were vegan for many years and I've known lots of people with allergies and other dietary restrictions, so I'm into full disclosure serving. I like to identify in writing all foods I serve. If people want to know ingredient specifics, I'm happy to supply more information. If a dish contains a hidden, serious allergen (like nuts or nut oils), I always try to note that ingredient's presence.

We had egg salad sandwiches, spiral deli wraps, and tiny quiches for savory foods.

For sweets we had our family's favorite Oatmeal Scotchie bars (the recipe on the Tollhouse butterscotch morsels bag is quite remarkable if you substitute Billington's Molasses Sugar for the brown sugar and turbinado sugar for the white sugar. We found both substitutions through pantry scarcity and now consider it our secret recipe), the new Girl Scout lemon shortbread cookie, and tiny cream-filled cakes reminiscent of petits fours.

Veronica, Supermom to twins, gifted cake decorator, and bowmaker extraordinaire, offered critical assistance at just the right moment. She decorated 24 tiny cream-filled cakes (that I made from her family's recipe and "leveled"- so forgive her any crooked confections). When the guests entered, they were greeted by her gloriously-presented dessert (on her clever cupcake stand) which set a gracious tone for the occasion. Veronica's hard work on this small detail really paid off as the initial impression of graciousness lingered despite my careless pouring and other foibles.

There were many great storytellers among the guests, and only a handful were previously acquainted with each other. It was delightful to watch friends from different circles enjoy each other's company. So delightful in fact, that I completely forgot to take pictures or do the single planned activity of the afternoon (a piece of advice written to the child by each guest to be placed in a small scrapbook). Thanks, Asha for this great idea!

Instead, I'm taking the guests' recipes and making baby's first cookbook. The honoree has requested that I include the Scotchies recipe (they're really completely amazing cookies), so I will probably throw in all the recipes from the shower as well (kids need cholesterol, right?).

Shower Me With Dumplings: The Best Baby Shower Ever

While I couldn't wait for the opportunity to hit the keyboard, BabyGeek is busy sleeping off the excitement from this morning. Two of our fabulous Tuesday Mommas are expecting in the next month, and we're all excited so we had the Best Baby Shower Ever. Since we all met after the birth of our babies, it seemed really fun to share a shower with new friends.

But what do you get for a family that already has kids? Diaper showers lack excitement ("Think of all the poo!") and second-timer (or more seasoned) parents typically already have a house full of stuff to stub their toes on.

Joy, one of the expectant moms who claims to have baby brain (but is still brilliant), mentioned that she'd heard about a "Cooking Shower"and would find one quite useful. A Google search for "cooking shower" apparently returns things like a "kitchen shower" for brides-to-be. New spatulas were definitely not what we were thinking of. So let's call it a Dinner Shower for now. If you have a better term in mind, please add it to the comments- this is a killer meme and it deserves a great and distinctive name.

The Dinner Shower (hosted at Joy's house because she has a great play area at her house for the passel of babies who accompany the Tuesday Mommas and a great kitchen) entailed everyone bringing a prepared, freezable dish. Since we had two expecting moms, we all brought enough food for two families and spent time looking like an infomercial while Cathy demonstrated her Food Saver. ("So how does it vacuum-seal soup?")

We split our prepared food into portions for both expectant moms' families (in a shower for just one mom this wouldn't be necessary). Joy's went right in the freezer while Amy's went into a cooler for the ride home.

Some people made a breakfast casserole while all this was going on (which we then divided and froze), and we all pitched in on clean up so everyone who brought food for repackaging took home clean dishes.

We had pizza and got to spend some quality time together.

The moms each received seven carefully prepared and delicious looking homemade entrees (all in portions large enough for multiple meals). What a great resource for those first tiring weeks of new baby's life.

No one needs to prepare expensive or elaborate meals, so everyone can give according to the time and funds they have available. Plus, the frozen meals mean the giver can plan ahead despite the random nature of birth and the family can control the timing of the meals.

This wonderful time together also honors community. My mom reminds me that in previous generations people always used to give prepared meals to families with new arrivals. This type of shower reinforces community in a way that shares and acknowledges the dualistic joy and difficulty of family life.

The shower's positive energy has made me realize the simple abundance in a well-timed gift of a good meal. It's enough to get me excitedly planning ahead for the hot meals I'll be dropping off after the babies are home a few weeks.


....but, if you must buy a traditional shower gift, let me suggest the Diaper Valet. It's handy.

What type of baby showers have you actually enjoyed?

How can we improve the Dinner Shower idea (including the name)?

Who has good freezable recipes? (Please share!)