Nope, it wasn’t.
Add my name to the list.
I imagined the twins were petitioning for two showers a day for some reason.
mmm
How odd!
That’s surely a strange conclusion. Think about it. Why would one force twin boys or girls to shower together? A boy and girl twins for that matter. How is water saved?
Second showers are what the kids these days are calling a “sprinkle”. They throw them for parents who have had a big gap between kids (and may be missing some of the big items), or there’s some extenuating circumstance for why there’s a 2nd shower. The name “sprinkle” tends to assuage the pearl-clutching from the Emily Post-types who think it’s some offensive breach of protocol.
Getting back to the intent of the OP, the point of baby showers is that new parents need a lot of stuff. New parents of twins also need more stuff than parents of a second singleton need. Heck, if you had a friend whose house burned down shortly before the arrival of a not-first child, a 'baby shower ’ would be perfectly reasonable.
Do ask the mom if she wants one, but if you would like to host, go ahead.
I think I’d be more “organizing”-- it wouldn’t exactly have a host, since I don’t have the capacity for the number of people who’d want to come, and can’t afford a caterer for that number, nor do I have the energy and experience to pull off cooking for that many.
At any rate, giving people the option of bringing food instead of a gift would probably go over pretty well.
Kinda already decided that since there are no pretensions it’s anything but an “equip them for two” party, I’ve decided to ask the parents what big items they need, & what other things they could use, knowing full-well their feelings about reuse, and therefore give guests three options in addition to just going out and buying a gift: one would be to contribute to a fund to buy them the big items, with any over-and-above money going to a gift card for some kind of maternity wear; another would be bringing food; the last would be bringing hand-me-downs with a lot of wear left.
I’ll see her mom at shul tomorrow, and probably her as well. Not sure about the politics of nailing down a date, since I’m sure with any kind of even somewhat risky pregnancy, you want to make sure you’re in the 7th inning before you schedule showers. I can ask her mom about that, though.
I wonder whether throwing a shindig might cost more than a few bucks, meaning: maybe for the incremental kiddo-to-be, just taking up a collection and sending the expecting parents a check – skipping the hoopla v.2.0 – might be the sweet spot.
If you can book the synagogue social hall cheap, and organize a pot luck, a party needn’t cost much. Of course, the only baby shower i ever had was just coworkers in an office, with a cake and some gifts. The cost of my shower to whoever organized it was “a cake”. Maybe i don’t understand the dynamics of more formal showers.
Both my kids (not twins) got a baby shower. It was absolutely about the women in my family getting together and drinking wine or G&T (aside from the pregnant one!). Some the aunts brought cute baby t-shirts but really it was an excuse for a family gathering.
I bought all the shit I needed for round one, then bought extra for round two. By the second we had a good idea of what to get. Doubling the quantity for twins would be expensive, but what parent doesn’t already have a large number of bottles, teats, nappy bags, pacifiers, whatever. A double pram and a new car seat are the most useful things, and that’s the cost of having babies.
I think the social bonding aspect of the baby shower is way more important than the gift part.
My thought was: whether somebody ‘caters’ it or it’s potluck, the whole idea of a get-together with food, beverage, and the time commitment (hours) could be eliminated if those who were willing just “wrote a check” (or equivalent) instead.
I think a shower automatically entails a fair number of person-hours to pull off. Stripping that away could be a real gift to everybody else.
I don’t think it’s exactly a matter of more formal showers as much as it’s a difference between having a celebration of any sort when people are together for another reason and getting them together for a specific purpose. A cake and some gifts are appropriate for a work shower. It’s fine to have a birthday cake at the senior citizen bingo game on Wednesday or a retirement cake at the bowling league on Friday. But I don’t think I’ve even been invited to a celebration that required a specific trip that didn’t involve being fed. Maybe there was a host who paid for the food or an organizer who made sure everyone didn’t bring the same thing to a pot luck but I never left my house and went somewhere for the specific purpose of just cake and gifts.
Our kids are 13 months apart also. It was definitely the big stuff that we needed. Like two car seats and a second crib. A lot of newborn clothes don’t last either. In the next few years friends would pass along clothes their kids had outgrown. Hard to believe their they’re both heading toward 40 now.
So she’ll have four kids? Did she do a shower for the second?
Yes, 4 kids.
Did she do one? no one gave her one, if that’s what you mean. It’s not typical to get one after the first child, because presumedly, you can reuse pretty much everything. But there’s a question here, because twins require more stuff than a singleton.
I have. Tons of times.
I’d be happy to attend and gift for a second shower or any other shower. If the expectant mother doesn’t have a baby registry, it could be a diaper shower or gift card shower.
Years ago I was invited to a beer-friend’s “diaper shower”, thrown by someone from another state where they claimed they were common. None of us ever heard of the idea.
Everyone was asked to bring two or more bomber bottles from their cellar, along with a package of diapers. The dude’s car was totally filled with Huggies, and we all had some great beers.
Kind of a rude question, but… do you and your friend tend more towards the Conservative side of Judaism?
Even being Reform, I never would think of having or hosting/managing a Baby Shower until after the baby is born.
Maybe different traditions in different parts of the country. Again, not trying to be insulting.
There is nothing at all wrong with throwing a baby shower for someone who is in need of baby-related items. And it is a sad, sad thing that so many people will choose to gossip and judge rather than just quietly refuse an invitation that they disagree with. Surely there are enough people in agreement to constitute a fun party?
I don’t know how things work at a synagogue. But if this were my church, I would have a quiet word with the preacher about this gossip and judgement problem within the congregation. And if the preacher were worth his/her salt, there would be a gently vague but pointed sermon in the next couple of weeks on the evils of gossip and judgement. Problem (hopefully) solved.
I would never expect more than just a cake at a baby shower. It’s not about the food. And the mother can’t drink alcohol so often there isn’t any wine either. I can think of a couple that served light hors d’oeurves. But I would purposefully stop for a snack on the way to a shower if I hadn’t eaten.